“But—”
Dre heard the gun cock.
“Get off my property!”
Dottie had been right. He should not have come to the house. The woman thought he was a pimp. If he wasn’t so shaken from having a gun jammed into his head, he might laugh.
He turned and headed back down the walkway without even getting a look at the feisty Loretha Johnson.
When he reached his car, he finally gazed back at the house, but the porch was empty.
* * *
Dre stood on Angela’s doorstep, ready to crumble.
“Oh my goodness,” she said, upon opening the door.
Angela took in his wrinkled clothes, stubbled face and gloomy demeanor. His eyes were sunken and shrouded by dark patches and he smelled. He also seemed unsteady on his feet, but Angela did not detect the smell of alcohol.
Angela reached out and hugged him, pulling him inside. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
She took him by the arm and led him into the living room. Dre flopped onto the couch as if he’d lost control of his motor functions.
“Was Brianna at the house? Did you find her?” Angela sat down next to him, then reached up to turn on the lamp sitting on an end table.
Dre finally spoke. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Angela asked.
“Don’t turn on the light.”
She sat back down and threw her arms around him. Dre sagged into her. He made no sound or movement, but when she felt the wetness against her neck, she knew he was crying.
Angela had no idea how long she’d held him, but at some point, Dre simply started talking.
“Bree wasn’t at the house on Sixty-seventh. They must’ve moved her. I’ve done everything I can think of, but I can’t find her.” His voice quivered with emotion and he continued talking in a ramble of disjointed sentences.
“I can’t face my sister again if I don’t get her back. My mother says she’s losing it. I didn’t know all this sick shit was going on. I thought I found this woman who could help me get her back, but she put a gun to my head. Loretha Johnson was my best bet, but she wouldn’t even talk to me and—”
“Loretha Johnson? From Harmony House?”
Dre pulled away from her. “You know her?”
Angela turned on the light. “The Black Women Lawyers Association of L.A. gave her an award for her work on behalf of sexually exploited children. We also deliver baskets to the girls every Christmas. I’m approved to be a Harmony House mentor, but could never find the time to do it. Please tell me you didn’t go over there.”
Dre lowered his head and wiped his palm down his face. He winced, having forgotten about his bruised knuckles, as well as the sore spot where Loretha had slugged him.
Angela took in his swollen knuckles and gasped. “What happened to your hand?”
“I had a little encounter with a wall,” he said, not wanting to talk about it. “I was hoping Loretha could lead me to The Shepherd. But she thought I was a pimp. Can you believe that?”
“Yes,” Angela said, trying not to sound as if she was scolding him. “You’re a stranger. She has to protect her girls. Why do you want to speak to her?”
“The scum who took Brianna used to be her pimp. I figured she could help me get to him.”
Angela was quiet for a moment.
“I could probably arrange a meeting with her. She’ll talk to you if she knows you’re legit. If I’m with you, she’ll be more comfortable. I’ll call her now. Maybe we can meet her someplace. That woman works twenty-four-seven. I don’t think she ever sleeps.”
Angela got up, found her smartphone on the kitchen counter and started scrolling through her contacts. Before she could find Loretha’s number, Dre’s smartphone rang.
He pulled it from his pocket and clicked it on. “Yeah?”
Angela watched Dre’s face go from slack-jawed to tight-faced. His right knee began to bounce up and down. She prayed he wasn’t hearing bad news about Brianna. For the next several seconds, all Dre did was listen.
“I’ll be there,” he finally said, then hung up.
Angela rejoined him on the couch. “What’s going on? Who was that?”
Dre exhaled long and hard. “One of The Shepherd’s flunkies.” He slowly got to his feet. “I gotta go.”
“Go where?”
“To meet The Shepherd.”
Chapter 37
Day Two: 7:20 p.m.
Freda entered the room where she found Brianna on her knees begging Kym to help her escape.
“That ain’t gonna happen,” Freda said, then turned to Kym. “I need to talk to Brianna alone.”
“No prob. Enjoy your first lesson,” Kym said to Brianna with a wink.
Freda bent over in front of the TV and slid a disk into a DVD player.
She sat down on the bed opposite Brianna. “I want you to watch this because this is what you’re going to do.”
“I’m not doing nothing and you can’t make me!”
“Oh, yes I can,” Freda said with a sullen smile. “We’ll give you a little cocktail to get you all loosened up. This is a video of Shantel. She’s one of Shep’s top moneymakers because she knows how to treat her clients.”
Brianna wanted to turn away from the television screen, but at the same time her eyes were drawn to it.
The girl on the video didn’t look like the same Shantel that Brianna had met. She was now wearing a pile of makeup and a short curly wig. She was dressed in traditional hooker ware: stilettos, short skirt and a bust-enhancing top.
It was obvious that Shantel was in a cheap motel room. Everything in the room—the lopsided bed, the scarred end tables, the cheap headboard—looked worn out, like the furniture at the second-hand stores her grandmother liked to visit. Brianna had never stayed in a motel or a hotel for that matter, but she’d seen enough TV to recognize it as the kind of place where criminals on the run hid out.
On the video, there was a knock on the door and Shantel walked over to open it. There was a stiff smile on her face but Brianna could see the nervousness underneath it. Or maybe it was fear.
A large man, a large ugly white man stepped into the room.
“You don’t have to worry about nothing crazy going down,” Freda said, as calmly as if she was giving Brianna a makeup lesson. “One of Shep’s guys won’t be far away and he has a key to the room. All you have to do is yell and he’ll come running.”
“What kind of date do you want tonight, sweetie?” Shantel asked in a sultry voice.
“I need a blow job to get me going,” the man said, drooling. “Then, I want it missionary style.”
Shantel stuck out her hand. “That’ll be fifty, plus another one-fifty.”
She took the bills, tucked them under the mattress, then stripped off her clothes, revealing a scrawny body. Her flat breasts looked like two biscuits that failed to rise.
“You have a sweet face, Daddy,” she said, walking up to the man and stroking his cheek.
“See,” Freda said, pointing at the screen. “That’s why Shantel gets so many repeat clients. She’s extra nice. She knows that man is hideous.”
Shantel climbed into bed and waited as the man disrobed. Thick, black hair covered his chest, making him look more animal than human. His private part hung from his flabby body like a long, limp hotlink.
The man joined her in bed and Shantel bent to take him into her mouth. The man moaned as if he was in pain.
“Okay, okay,” he said, stopping her after only a few seconds, now that he’d sprang to life. “I’m ready now.”
He slipped on a condom, then laid Shantel on her back and pounced on top of her. Brianna covered her mouth with both hands, certain that she was going to throw up. There was no way she could do that.
“Give it to me, Daddy,” Shantel called out in a monotone voice. “Give it to me, Daddy. You the best.”
Brianna focused on Shantel’s dead eyes as they stared up at the ceiling.
After just a co
uple of minutes, the man heaved himself into Shantel three, maybe four more times, yelled out and was suddenly still.
“Okay, Daddy, party’s over. You have to get up so Mommy can breathe.”
The man rolled over to the other side of the bed and Shantel hopped up and started putting on her clothes. “Okay, Daddy, time to go.”
“That’s another thing Shantel is good at,” Freda said, beaming like a proud mother. “She knows how to get ’em in and out.”
Shantel watched the man dress, then opened the door for him. Seconds later, there was another knock and a different man entered the room. This one was an older black man with gray hair.
“Nice,” the man said, grinning.
“Shantel has some real stamina,” Freda said. “That girl can do fifteen, twenty johns a night, no problem.”
Brianna tried to hold it in, but couldn’t. She leaned over the side of the bed and vomited all over the floor.
Freda jumped out of the way.
“You stupid bitch! You’re going to clean that up. And you better not do that tomorrow.”
Brianna didn’t respond. They couldn’t make her have sex with some strange man. She wouldn’t do it. She would rather die.
Chapter 38
Day Two: 7:30 p.m.
Dre sat quietly in his car a block away from City Stars, listening to some soft jazz. He was trying to get his emotions under control. When he walked into City Stars and came face-to-face with The Shepherd, he needed to be calm and rationale. It would be a bad move to just start pounding the dude’s face in.
The Shepherd would probably be surrounded by bodyguards, which was why he’d insisted that Dre come alone. On the phone, Dre had agreed to do so, but he had no intention of keeping his word.
His first call after leaving Angela’s place had been to Apache. He quickly explained what was about to go down. He wanted Apache to get to City Stars ahead of him and pretend to be a customer. The club had metal detectors, so there was no way Apache would be allowed inside with his Glock. But his cousin didn’t really need a weapon to be deadly. He’d earned the name Apache, not only because of his physical appearance, but also because of his resourceful nature. He could be more dangerous with his bare hands than with a gun and a bullet.
Next, he called his childhood buddy, Mossy. Mossy was an analytical thinker who would never fly off the handle like Apache. He was the man Dre relied upon when he needed both muscle and street smarts. Despite what Dre had been told, when he walked into City Stars, Mossy would be at his side.
Dre tossed back his third shot of 5-Hour Energy. He already felt antsy and needed food, not more caffeine. But he still didn’t have much of an appetite. He wished he’d taken the time to finish his red beans ‘n rice at The Cork.
He gazed down the street and could see one of the bouncers standing out front talking to two other dudes. He was about to call Mossy when there was a knock on the front passenger window.
Dre jumped so high his head nearly hit the ceiling.
“Sorry, man,” Mossy said, getting into the car. “I should’ve figured you’d be on edge. Frankly, I don’t know how you’re managing to even think straight. If these dudes had my baby, I’d be stone crazy.”
Mossy and his long-time girlfriend had a twelve-year-old daughter.
Dre didn’t want to tell him that he was crazy. Somehow, he’d managed to keep crazy on temporary lockdown.
“So what’s the plan?” Mossy asked.
“They wanted me to come alone, so I know they’re going to give me some flack when I show up with you. But we’ll deal with that when we have to. Apache’s already inside.”
“Man, why’d you call that fool? He’ll end up getting both of us killed.”
Dre smiled. “They’re not gonna let him in there with a piece. So we’re good.”
Mossy shook his head. He’d been privy to some of Apache’s prior exploits and considered him a loose cannon. “If you say so.”
“This Shepherd dude has a real ego,” Dre said. “I figure I must have pissed him off by going around town calling him out. I suspect he’ll send me through some hoops before giving Brianna back.”
“Are you sure he’s really got her?”
Dre reached behind him and grabbed Brianna’s top from the backseat. “I found this at the house we searched on Sixty-seventh Street. It’s definitely hers. I bought it for her.” Saying those words out loud seemed to heighten his pain.
“You really think he’s going to give her back?”
“He’ll have to,” Dre said. “Or I’ll kill him.”
Mossy looked him in the eye.
“In fact, I’m still going to kill him after I get her back.”
They exited the car and walked toward the club.
They were several yards away when the bouncer lowered his chin and said something into the headset he was wearing. Dre recognized him as one of the bouncers who’d thrown him out the night before. He was probably letting The Shepherd know that he had not arrived alone.
Dre attempted to walk past him into the club.
“Hold up. The cover charge is ten bucks.”
“We didn’t come to watch the show.”
The bouncer shrugged.
Dre pulled twenty bucks from his wallet and flung it at him. The man caught the bill in mid-air, but did not step aside.
“You’re supposed to be solo,” he said.
Dre’s jaw tightened. “Tell your boss I’m not coming in alone. We’re not strapped so what’s he afraid of?”
The man turned away and spoke into his headset again.
A minute later, the man took his time patting both of them down, then lifted the rope and led the way inside.
Dre spotted Apache standing near the edge of the stage, tossing bills as a topless stripper shook her breasts in his face. He didn’t even notice them.
“Don’t say a word,” Dre muttered.
The bouncer passed them off to another larger dude with Security stenciled across his black T-shirt.
“Follow me,” the second man said.
He led them to one of the private high-roller booths in the back of the club. Three steps led up to the elevated area that looked out over the stage. A circular, red velvet couch took up most of the booth. A black lacquer table stretched from one end of the couch to the other. Clint sat smiling in the booth, his arms extended along the back of the couch, dark shades resting on his nose. Another bouncer stood at the bottom of the steps.
Dre felt a rash of heat rise up his neck. He wanted to choke the smile off Clint’s face.
Mossy must have sensed that he was close to losing it. “Hold it together, man. We gotta get Brianna back first.”
Dre climbed the short steps and settled into the booth facing Clint. When Mossy attempted to follow him, the bouncer held out his arm, blocking him. So Mossy remained outside the booth, face-to-face with the bouncer.
Clint made a show of lifting his cocktail glass, then took a sip. “What you drinkin’, bruh?”
“Nothin’,” Dre said. “Where’s The Shepherd?”
“You’re turning down a free drink?”
“I don’t drink. Now answer my question.” Dre kept his hands underneath the table. He was shaking with rage and didn’t want Clint to mistake his physical response for fear.
Clint pointed a skinny finger at the stage. “Check out Katrina. She’s one of my newest hires. She’s still a little green, but it don’t matter when you’re as fine as she is.”
Dre glanced over at Katrina as she awkwardly danced around the pole. Her moves were slow and uncertain, as if she was waiting for someone to give her directions. Half a dozen men stood near the stage, hurling cheers and bills her way. Apache was right in the middle of them, grinning like he was about to get laid.
“You know what I came here for,” Dre said, his focus back on Clint. “Where’s The Shepherd?”
“I’m calling the shots on this. Let me tell you what we—”
“I only want to talk to T
he Shepherd. So where is he?”
“You’ll meet him soon enough.”
“I want to meet him now.”
“If I were you, I’d calm down. You’re not in a position to be calling the shots. Not if you want your niece back.”
Dre’s right knee began to bounce up and down and he couldn’t make it stop.
“So where were we?” Clint asked.
“Why don’t we just cut to the chase,” Mossy said. “How do we get the kid back?”
Clint lifted his shades and peered down at Mossy. “And who are you?”
“Family,” Mossy said.
Clint redirected his attention to Dre. “The Shepherd has some terms you need to accept.”
“I’m listening,” Dre said.
“Shep wants to explain them himself.” Clint picked up an iPad from the couch. “He had a prior commitment tonight. So we’re hooking up with him on FaceTime.”
“So he’s a punk,” Dre said, his whole body blazing with anger. “Too scared to face me.”
Clint stopped fiddling with the iPad and gave Dre an ominous glare.
“I’ma give you a little helpful advice,” he said. “Once we connect with Shep, you need to show your respect. If you don’t, you might never see that girl again.”
Chapter 39
Day Two: 7:50 p.m.
Since learning of Brianna Walker’s disappearance, Bonnie could barely put one foot in front of the other. She kept imagining all the horrific things that could be happening to her. The girl’s mother had to be going absolutely crazy.
Before leaving school, she’d looked up Brianna’s file and had written down her home address. Although Brianna’s uncle had given her his number as well as his sister’s number, Bonnie felt it would be cruel to deliver this information over the telephone.
That was the reason she was headed to Brianna’s house at almost eight o’clock at night.
Bonnie watched all the reality crime shows. The First 48 was her favorite. So she knew that cases that weren’t cracked within the first few hours became more difficult to solve with each passing hour. She couldn’t remain silent a minute longer and was mad at herself for not having the guts to tell Brianna’s uncle about the other missing girls earlier that morning.
Anybody's Daughter (Angela Evans Series No. 2) Page 14
