Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Books by Shewanda Pugh
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Books by Shewanda Pugh
Crimson Footprints
Published by Razor’s Edge
3rd Printing
Razor’s Edge: trade paperback, June 20, 2017
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved worldwide
Copyright © 2017 Shewanda Pugh
Cover Design and Interior Formatting by Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs
www.pinkinkdesigns.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book, its contents, and its characters are the sole property of Shewanda Pugh. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without written, express permission from the author. To do so without permission is punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
For my family, who remind me daily of what it means to be a Pugh. For my son, Caleb, who gives me motivation for all things I do. For my husband, Pierre, whose enthusiasm made this story possible, and for Dr. Christine Jackson, who helped it all come to fruition.
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu
WITH THE QUIET hiss of an old and burdened bus, the number 62 unfolded its doors and welcomed Deena Hammond to the night. She took the invitation, hand on a sliver of cool metal, gravel grinding under black pumps with a step down. Liberty City. A shitty place in the bowels of Miami. Where she was raised and where her grandmother still lived.
Piss and Hennessy singed her nose and Deena blinked, giving herself a moment for acclimation. Enveloped in the dark thickness of a Miami evening, an old black man slept cheek to weathered wood on a bus stop bench. Matted dreadlocks formed a pillow as sheets of The Herald covered his middle. Deena stood there, eyes trained on this sleeping man, as her bus disappeared into darkness. Dirt and twigs clung to his hair and valleys creased his face. He was 40, 50 maybe 60.
He opened his eyes.
She should’ve been afraid. Would’ve been, had she had a different life, been a different woman.
He looked her over, before cracked lips hinted at the beginnings of a smile. But they would get no further. Smiling was so hard here.
She hurried on.
The heat of Miami clung like a sleeve, dampening her neck and smothering her breath, night never alleviating its burden. She was flesh in Liberty City—all flesh. Everyone was.
Used to the stares a near-white woman got when strutting through the hood in a suit, Deena moved, head high, towards her grandmother’s house. Darkness engulfed block after block of dilapidated row houses, public housing that assaulted her architect’s eye. Boarded windows. Peeled paint. Sticks that propped up exhausted AC units. Torn fences that imprisoned rather than embellished. Toys, sandwich wrappers, tire irons, lawn chairs, beer bottles and bicycle parts sat helter-skelter in yard after yard, as if paying homage to the American landfill. Under cover of night, elderly men and women sat in cheap plastic lawn chairs, no doubt reminiscing about the Peppermint Lounge on 79th, back before Liberty City was downright scary. It was long ago, longer than Deena could remember.
Black teens in saggy jeans, tall tees, socks and flip flops strutted the streets, pockets bulging with the wares of their livelihood. Deena spotted her brother, Anthony, among them.
She stopped to watch him from a distance. He stood on the corner of 14th and 63rd, fists clenched, pretending not to be alert. He was tall in the night, oversized red shirt and golden skin bright against the dark. Breath held, Deena waited for what she knew would come. Her brother glanced over his shoulder, paused, and did a sleight of hand with a nasty black man whose head swiveled as he scratched himself.
Deena looked away, blinking back loathsome tears.
Head lowered, she crossed the street, eager to close the distance between her and her grandmother’s front door. A block more and she was there. Another peeling and rotted door, held fast with deadbolts. She’d wanted to replace it, but Housing wouldn’t let her. With a sigh, Deena slipped her key in the latch, unlocked it and stepped inside.
“Listen, girl! How many times I told you to talk to that devil of a brother of yours!”
Greeted by her consistently hostile grandmother, Deena shut the door and gave a half smile, and which she hoped was disarming.
Grandma Emma placed an authoritative hand on her hip and eyed Deena’s Louis Vuitton handbag and chocolate linen suit with stark disapproval.
“Hmm. Why you always got to put on all that high-class stuff anyway?”
She waved an immense and dismissive hand in Deena’s direction before rolling her eyes in impatience.
Deena paused. It was more than the massive stature and booming out
door voice that made Emma Hammond a figure of intimidation: it was the old school, never-too-old beat mentality her grandmother housed which made her tread in fear of a discipline last doled out better than seven years ago.
Roused by the image of a belt at her backside, Deena dug into her purse and fished out five twenties before hurriedly handing them over. Her grandmother snatched them and continued to stare.
“What?” Deena whispered.
She hated that look. The look that said she did nothing right.
Her grandmother shoved the twenties under her barnyard red housecoat and into her bra before turning the scowl back on Deena. Behind her the furnishings combined for a cluttered, pop-art-gone-wrong kind of feel. A corduroy couch, burnt orange and sagging, a tiny TV mounted atop a taller one, and a wood-carved stereo with an eight-track component sat contrary to dozens of old and chipped figurines arranged in a battered china cabinet like a poor man’s Terra Cotta Army. A thread-bare peacock blue carpet played host to it all.
Grandma Emma continued to glare.
“You heard me the first time, gal. Get out there and talk to that boy before I put him outta my house. Now!”
Deena was turning before she knew it, whirled by two big hands and shoved at the door. She stumbled briefly, righted herself, and resolved to exit with dignity. Apparently, she was talking to her brother whether she liked it or not.
She spotted Anthony outside, not far from the curb where she’d left him. Deena crossed the street and parted the two dark figures that stood near before touching his arm.
“Anthony. I need to talk to you.” It came out like a whisper, weaker than she’d hoped.
“Damn Ant, who’s this?” A dark and burly teen turned a hungry eye on her. His jaw was prominent, his face hard, and his eyes cruel. Crude tattoos covered his hulking body, one claiming him to be “the enforcer.” In addition, the bulge under his ribbed tee was unmistakable. But Anthony turned a cold and unforgiving glare on “the enforcer” and he looked away.
“What do you want?” her brother snapped.
She met his impatience with a tight smile. “A walk. Take one with me.”
Deena turned and headed down 17th. She didn’t have to look back to know he’d scurry after.
On the opposite side of the street a black prostitute yanked at her blonde wig before giving her leather mini the same treatment. Too-high fuchsia pumps made her stumble
“Listen,” Anthony said, falling in-step alongside Deena. “Say whatever you gotta say so I can go. I got business I gotta deal with out here.”
Deena stopped and her brother did the same. They stood under a busted street lamp with a tattered sneaker hanging from a phone line above, the words “Fuck the Police” scrawled in blue below, and an old syringe lying forgotten in the gutter.
“You’re so selfish,” Deena whispered. “And God only knows what else you are. I try not to think about it.” She turned, the sight of him sickening her. But he whirled her to face him, his honeyed eyes hardened and narrow.
“I’m selfish?” Anthony demanded. He shook his head. “Listen. You can say what you want. But I make food happen. I make rent happen. I make your fucking safety happen.”
“But at what cost? At what cost, Anthony?” She was shouting. She never shouted.
Anthony inhaled. “Deena—”
“Please. You don’t have to do this. I can get more money. I can get a second job—”
“You work hard enough as it is.”
“I’ll work harder if it’ll keep you alive!”
She knew they were the wrong words, even before he turned to leave.
“You’re so smart,” she said to his back. “You could be anything.”
He had the shoulders of their father, from what she could remember—broad, sturdy, reassuring.
“Remember when you were a kid?” Deena whispered. “You wanted to be a—a firefighter.” Her eyes moistened. “You still could, you know.”
He turned and gave his sister a once over, eyes sad, smile sadder.
“You could,” Deena whispered.
In the distance, a siren wailed.
“You always could make something out of nothing.” He placed a hand on her shoulder, leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Get back in the house, ok? It’s not safe.”
He shot her a single, regretful look, and jogged back to his corner.
When Deena returned, Grandma Emma resumed her rant about Anthony. As Emma yammered, Deena tried to recall where she had left a set of concrete specs for a prep school in Miramar. She needed them ASAP. It was possible she’d left them on the bus. But if they were on the bus, then they were halfway to—
Shouts pierced Deena’s thoughts. Grandma Emma, ever the enthused spectator, abandoned her tirade for a glimpse of the outside commotion.
“Grandma!” Deena cried. “Get away from the door before someone shoots you!”
Emma dismissed her with an impatient wave of the hand before cracking her door and peering out.
“Goddamnit, girl! This your brother out here acting a goddamned fool again!”
Emma heaved open the door. Deena pushed her way past the old woman, intent on kicking her brother’s ass. Even she, having just witnessed his discreet drug dealings, was shaken by what she saw.
A slender, striking Asian guy was on the wrong end of Anthony’s .32. With arms raised, his hands were splayed in a show of defenselessness. His expression was calm, despite the growing crowd of onlookers and the pistol in his face. Behind him, an old woman made the sign of the cross.
“Anthony!” Deena cried, rushing towards them. Her brother cast a single sideways glance but kept his gun level.
“Get back in the house,” he said.
Deena turned her attention to the Asian man. She was struck by his eyes, wide and heavy-lidded. His mouth was generous, his square face softened by layers of thick, black hair. He had boyish good looks and a long, lean athletic frame.
Deena turned to her brother. “Will you put that goddamned thing away?”
The two stared at each other, older sister, younger brother, eyes narrowed. When he didn’t move, Deena stepped between the gun and the stranger, her eyes level with the barrel. Anthony lowered the gun with a sigh and Deena seized the opportunity to snatch it.
She turned to the stranger. “I assume that’s your car,” she said, nodding towards a sleek gray convertible parked haphazardly, a shiny nickel in a murky puddle.
He nodded, his glossy black tresses falling into wide almond eyes.
“Yeah, um, about that.” He cleared his throat. “He, uh, took my keys.”
Deena turned to her brother, hand extended. He dropped the keys in her palm with another sigh, a new Ferrari slipping from his grasp with reluctance.
She passed the keys to the stranger and their fingertips brushed. Something warm and foreign turned over in her and her lips parted in surprise. She thought she saw the makings of a smile in his eyes, but she dismissed it. He took the keys and thanked her. And as she watched him peel off with the top down on his sleek convertible, Deena’s pulse skittered then and long after.
TAKUMI TANAKA WAS possessed. Only days had passed since he’d last seen her, but in that time, he’d been consumed. She was everywhere. Pages and pages of his sketchpad were devoted to her, so too was the canvas on his easel, the canvas in his mind. She’d haunted him that first night, that first moment really, so much so that he’d rushed home and put pencil to paper like a madman.
There was something about her eyes. He couldn’t convey what he saw under those heavy lashes—pain, sadness, defeat? Whatever it was, he’d wanted to smooth it away with his hands, his lips and his heart.
He stared at the floor of his studio, littered with sheets of ruined canvas, and knew he had to see her again. With a groan, Takumi abandoned his work for the morning paper. He had a love-hate relationship with the Arts Section of The Herald, where he could laud their brilliance one minute and curse their convoluted conclusions the next. He ventured
out into the hall and grabbed the paper from the corner it rested in. ‘I need coffee,’ were the words on his mind as he opened the paper. There, below the fold, was a common South Florida headline: ‘Liberty City Teen Found Slain’. And beneath it, a picture of his would-be assailant, the six-foot hooligan who put a .32 to his face. Anthony Hammond’s funeral was in three days.
ANTHONY’S SERVICE WAS held at Emmanuel Rises Baptist Church. It rained the day they buried Deena’s brother, and according to Grandma Emma, it meant the devil had come for his soul.
The windows of the limo that housed the Hammond family were tinted, making a dark sky even darker. Deena’s gaze fell from the heavens to a puddle in the street and watched it swell with each gray and acidic raindrop.
“Honestly, I don’t know what we expected,” Aunt Caroline said. She paused long enough to rummage through an oversized black purse, before coming away with a lighter and a pack of Newports. “We shoulda expected this. Especially after Man Man got killed.”
“But he didn’t even do that!” Lizzie cried. She was Deena’s last sibling, fifteen, but an ancient fifteen.
“Mhm,” Caroline said. She balanced her cigarette between fat and rouged lips before lighting up. The drag she took was long and indulgent. “We shoulda got ready for this,” she said with a nod.
“Girl, will you shut your ass up?” Grandma Emma shouted. “And put that goddamned cigarette out.” Never one to wait she snatched it from her daughter’s fingers, let the window down and heaved it out. “Got a mouth like diarrhea. You keep on and somebody’ll stop it for you.”
Silence filled the limousine again. Silence save for Lizzie’s sobs, soft and gut wrenching. Deena went back to her puddle and soon a tap on the window interrupted them.
It was time.
They were escorted into the sanctuary by twos, an usher flanked on either end by a Hammond. They took their seats on the front left pew, under the watchful gazes of a full house. Standing sprays of white roses, larkspur and gladiolus surrounded a solid copper casket at the front. But no one would see the beauty of the cream, quilted interior that cradled Anthony’s body—four gunshots and Miami heat prevented that. But Deena had seen it, seen him, before the lid of a coffin closed between them forever. And the blood of her brother had painted her nightmares ever since.
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