by B. M. Hardin
“Lu Lu!”
I dropped to my knees and pulled her from under the bush. The knife was still stuck in the side of her.
She was dead.
Who would do something like this?
I opened my mouth to scream for Dakota, but I noticed the charm bracelet lying beside her.
It was Chevey’s.
Every year on our friend-anniversary, we gave each other gifts. We gave each other something that we knew that the other one wanted. On our fifteenth friend-anniversary, Chevey gave me Lu Lu. And I gave her that bracelet. The same bracelet that was lying there in the grass. She loved that bracelet. She wore it all the time and I was surprised that they hadn’t buried her with it on.
But how did it get here?
Kenny.
She must’ve told him where she’d gotten it. She must’ve told him how important it was, and he’d left it there to get under my skin!
And he’d killed my damn dog!
I started to whimper, but then I heard Dakota call my name. I pushed Lu Lu back into the bushes, and headed towards the house. I didn’t want to tell Dakota or the boys what had happened to her, so I vowed to come back out to get her and properly bury her when I could.
I knew for a fact that Kenny had done this. And I knew for a fact that I’d underestimated him.
He was fucking crazy!
Maybe he’d loved Chevey more than I thought he had and I knew first hand that love could make you do some crazy things. Or maybe he was just obsessive like Chevey thought he was and finding out the truth was a project to him. I don’t know. But one thing that I knew for sure was that Kenny wasn’t going to stop until he found out the truth, which meant, that Kenny was coming for me.
~***~
“When your husband walks, since I have a feeling that he will---because my gut says that he’s innocent. I have enough proof to get the ball rolling on you. I have enough to make the D.A. ponder the idea that it could have been you who put your brother up to it all. You’re guilty, Yaya. I just know it,” Kenny said.
He didn’t care how many times I cursed him out or threatened him, he always showed up. He was always somewhere, waiting to harass me.
I stared at him. He looked horrible. As though he’d been letting finding out the truth consume him.
“You are getting out of hand! This is ridiculous! For the last time, I had nothing to do with what happened to Chevey!”
“Have you seen Chanel lately? She’s missing.”
I looked at him.
“Missing?”
“I haven’t seen her since the day that the both of you left the lawyer’s office. I was following her around too, whenever I wasn’t keeping an eye on you. But since that day, she hasn’t been back home. Where is she? Did you have her killed too?”
I growled at him.
“I didn’t have anyone killed!”
“I’m sorry, but I disagree. It was your brother who shot Chevey. You came by the scene the day of the crime. The motive---your husband was in love with your best friend. Someway, you found out, and wanted her dead.”
“You’re wrong. I would never hurt Chevey!”
“Oh, so then you were really after Chanel, your husband’s mistress?” I could tell that Kenny was trying to mind-fuck me.
“No! For the last time, no!”
I started to walk away from me, but he followed behind me.
“You knew about the affair, didn’t you? That gives you just as much motive as your husband had to try and kill Chanel. You knew. I don’t know how you knew, but you did. But don’t worry, I’m going to find out. Unless, you just go ahead and confess.”
“I didn’t do anything. So, for the last time, leave me the hell alone!”
“Tell me something, if you really didn’t have anything to do with it, if you aren’t scared, in any kind of way of what might come out, why haven’t you called the police yet? For harassment? Or because you know that I killed your dog?” Kenny admitted.
I knew his crazy ass had killed Lu Lu!
“Oh, don’t think I won’t!”
“But you haven’t. You see, I think it’s because deep down, you know that I know that you were involved.”
I didn’t respond.
“You know, I had Chevey bugged,” he also admitted.
Chevey had been right! He was bugging her.
He was a damn psychopath!
“I remember the day that Chanel told her that she was sleeping with your husband. She was so mad at her. I listened to the entire conversation. Chevey told her how disappointed she was in her and told her that she was going to tell you. Chanel told her that she hated her loyalty to you and that if she told you, she would never speak to her again and that she would never get to meet her niece or nephew. Chevey fussed, but Chanel promised her that she was serious. She’d told her that she’d spent years choosing you. This time, she had to choose her. She gave Chevey an ultimatum. If you were ever wondering if Chevey knew about the affair, she did. And that’s why she didn’t tell you. Personally, I felt like it wasn’t any of Chevey’s business. I would’ve told her to stay out of it. I would’ve wanted her to, so that she wouldn’t get hurt. But that didn’t happen, did it? She kept her mouth shut and she got hurt anyway.”
I had long since got into my car.
I just sat there staring at him.
“I was going to ask her to marry me,” Kenny pulled out a box from his pocket. “It was my mother’s ring. The one that had been given to her by my father. I was going to ask her to be my wife. That same day. I’d actually sent her over Chanel’s, just so I could set everything up, without her asking questions or being in the way. She was supposed to sit with her sister, just until I was ready. And then I was going to call her and have her come to my place. And then I was going to propose.” Kenny frowned. “Your brother took her away from me. You took her away from me.”
Kenny walked away and got into his car and left, instead of waiting around to follow me.
I watched his car until it disappeared.
The only good thing about Chevey’s death, was that she hadn’t married his psycho ass! He would’ve ruined her with his ways. He hadn’t deserved her. And in that moment, in a weird sort of way, I felt as though I’d saved her.
Now, the question was, who was going to save me?
******************
CHAPTER NINE
“Thou shall not forget your vows.”
Time was moving fast. And before we knew it, it was the week before Dakota’s trial was set to begin.
Dakota and I were…
I’m not sure what we were. It was as though we’d been living in the moment. Most days, I wouldn’t think about what he’d done, or what I’d done, for that matter---until Kenny popped up to remind me.
Kenny was still around. Still watching. Still looking for answers that I was hoping that he didn’t find. Secretly, I was feeling pretty bad these days, but there was nothing that I could do about it, except hope that Dakota was found innocent. And then it all would be over.
I thought about a lie that I could tell that might explain my brother’s last words, but I kept coming up with nothing. There was nothing that I could do, and nothing that I could say. Unless I told the truth. And that just wasn’t going to happen.
Dakota was emotional. He’d been talking about life and the past, and making promises to the kids that he wasn’t sure that he would be able to keep. He’d also been asking me questions. He’d wanted to know why Nick would say his name. Of all people, why would he say that he sent him? He wanted to know why he would lie on him. With Jerome gone, I suggested to Dakota that maybe he’d coached him to say it. I said that maybe Jerome had known about the affair all along and forced Nick to say that Dakota was involved. I said anything to make sure that nothing pointed towards me. No one had seen Jerome or Chanel in forever, so it wasn’t like he could ask him. But Dakota thought that my assumptions were too far-fetched. He’d said that it still didn’t make sense.
&nb
sp; But even though my brother had been involved, Dakota never asked me if it was me. Apart of me felt as though the thought had crossed his mind a few times and then the other part of me felt as though he really thought that I was in the dark about it all, up until the murder happened.
But sooner than later, Dakota’s fate would be placed in the hands of twelve people, and there was no way that I could fix it.
I glanced behind me.
Dakota and the kids were fast asleep. My conscious was getting the best of me as I walked out of the room and closed the door behind me.
“Yaya, there’s nothing that you can do. There’s nothing that you can do,” I mumbled as I headed towards the kitchen. I stopped in the living room to open the blinds.
“Ah!”
Kenny was on our front porch, trying to see into the house. I was so sick of him!
I huffed and hurriedly opened the front door.
When he saw me, he paused for only a second and then he walked towards me. He opened his mouth, but I slapped him before he said a word.
He laughed as he touched his face.
“There’s that anger that you’ve been trying to hide.”
I slapped his ass again. And this time I did it with my back hand. One of those down in the gutter, churning butter, grandma peeling potatoes all day long, strong handed, back slaps. The kind of slap you usually got from back- talking one of your elders. The kind of slap that made your mouth dry.
Kenny stumbled. He didn’t retaliate. He just started talking again.
“I think I figured it out.”
“Look, I don’t give a fuck, okay! Leave us alone you, hear me! If I catch you back here, on my property, trespassing again, I will---,”
“You’ll what? Kill me?”
“Come back over here and you’ll see!”
Kenny stared at me.
“I’m trying to keep my family together until all of this mess is over! That is the only reason I haven’t called the police on you yet. We don’t need any more problems or media in our business. Just leave us alone! And get the hell off of my porch and off of my property! Now!”
Kenny started down the steps.
“Question, were you and Detective Kodak, Jerome, sleeping with each other?”
“Excuse me?”
“It seems as though y’all liked to keep things kinky. I’m sure it was your idea to sneak off into the woods, that day. The way I see it, all of you should have gotten together and had one big ass orgy. It would’ve been a lot easier. And no one would’ve gotten hurt.”
So, he’d followed us that day.
He must’ve been the one to beep the horn. I should’ve known that it was him.
“Actually…you know what? Yes, we fucked, and it was good too. Our spouses did it to us. So, we returned the favor. And I would fuck him again too!” I lied.
“What if both of you knew about the affair? What if it was you and Detective Kodak who had planned to do such a horrible deed.” Kenny stared at me as he spoke.
“Nope. Sorry. We were just fucking!” And with that, I walked into my house, and I slammed the front door behind me.
“Oh! You scared me,” I clutched my chest, seeing that Dakota was standing there.
“You had sex with Jerome? To get back at me?”
“What? No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Yaya. I just heard you.”
“I’m not lying to you, Dakota. I was lying to him.”
“Why?”
I tried to find something to say, but I couldn’t.
“You know what, never mind,” Dakota said, and he turned to walk away.
~***~
I jumped up in a cold sweat.
Dakota was looking right at me. It was the third nightmare that week. Most of them would be of Chevey. She would be bleeding and she would ask me why I’d let Nick kill her. She would be telling me that it was all my fault that she was dead.
“You were telling Chevey that you were sorry this time,” Dakota said.
I took a deep breath.
“I know. I was telling her that I was sorry for what happened to her. For what Nick had done to her.”
“You know, my Mama always used to tell me that nightmares are usually the result of something unfinished. Or something unsaid.”
I forced myself not to look at Dakota as I rested my head on the pillow. And surprisingly, I was able to drift back off to sleep.
The entire week had gone by so fast.
It was Sunday, and tomorrow, was Dakota’s first court date for the trial of Chevey’s murder.
Dakota and I had gone to church that morning, and all day, I’d been crying.
Dakota thought that I was crying because of him, because of what might happen to him, but really, I was crying because of how I felt, and because of what I’d done.
“I want to make love to you,” Dakota said.
Though we’d spent the last little while, getting along and not dwelling on his infidelity, we hadn’t even thought about being intimate with each other.
“Can I?”
“Huh.”
“Can I make love to you tonight?”
I stared at him. I looked deep into his eyes.
The pastor had said something at church that day that had really been weighing on me. He talked about marriage, and vows. And how in this day in time, folks were forgetting what they actually meant. He talked about how married folks had forgotten how to put their spouse and their needs before their own. They’d forgotten what they’d signed up for. And then he talked about love. Real, genuine love. And he talked about the courage to admit when you’ve done wrong and making things right.
I took a deep breath. “Yes. But first, I have to tell you something.”
He looked at me attentively.
No, Yaya! Keep your mouth shut! You are in the clear!
My mind was disagreeing with my heart.
In a way, I knew that whatever Kenny thought that he had on me, wasn’t big enough to cause any problems for me, but I couldn’t be sure of what he would find if he kept digging. He wasn’t going to stop. I could see it in his eyes. He just wasn’t going to stop.
“You’re probably going to get off,” I said to him.
“What?”
“You’ll probably get off on Chevey’s murder because---it was me. I’m responsible for Chevey, and for Nick, and Kenny knows it and he’s coming for me,” I blurted at him.
Believe it or not, saying those words, instantly, lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders. I felt relieved. I felt free. Even though I knew that I was going to have to face the consequences.
When Dakota didn’t comment, I continued. “I knew. I knew for a long time. I knew. About the affair and about the baby. I knew. I even knew about you being in love with Chevey. I pretended not to know, but I did. And I hated you. I hated you for lying to me and cheating on me and ruining our marriage. And when the whole baby thing came into play, I couldn’t stand the sight of you. I couldn’t believe that you would be so careless. I couldn’t handle Chanel having a baby by you. So, Jerome and I teamed up to take down you and Chanel. Chanel was supposed to die; not Chevey. And you were supposed to go down for her murder. And Nick, he was never even supposed to be there. Jerome was never supposed to be at the house or shoot Nick. Everything went all wrong.”
Dakota shouted and stood up. But I kept talking.
“And then Chanel confessed to me that the baby was never yours in the first place. She’d just said that it was because she wanted to see you sweat. She was angry that you were cheating with another woman, other than her. Ain’t that some shit? She was lying the whole time about the baby being yours. Had we known that, we would’ve never went that far. I would’ve just left you like I started to do in the first place. It was just that it was Chanel, and the fact that she was pregnant, that pushed me over the edge. I wanted you to pay. I wanted you to pay for hurting me. And I wanted Chanel dead. That’s why Nick said your name. He was trying to make sure that I got what
I wanted, even while he was dying. He was trying to make sure that you paid for what you’d done to me. I know, it’s horrible. But it’s the truth. I was just so angry.”
By the end of my statement, I was crying.
“I’m sorry. Yes, lying and cheating on me was wrong, but what I was a part of was much worse. I should’ve just left you. Or cheated on you back. I should’ve never suggested that we kill Chanel. It was a crazy idea. It was the wrong thing to do. I deserve to face the consequences on this one. Not you. I should be the one on trial and Kenny knows it. That’s why he’s been coming around and harassing us. He knows that I had something to do with what happened and he’s made it clear that once you walk, he will do everything in his power to prove that it was me.”
Dakota sat back down beside me. I thought that he was going to curse at me or even try to choke me. Or at least go running towards the door, to call his lawyer and tell him the truth. But he didn’t. He just sat there.
“Yaya, I---I…” Dakota stuttered.
All I could do was cry.
“We wouldn’t even be in this situation if, I hadn’t stepped out on you. If I hadn’t been lying, and cheating. If I’d never pushed you to that point---I’m sorry Yaya. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. And everything is going to be okay,” he lied.
“Don’t lie to me. We’ve done enough lying already. It’s not going to be okay, is it?”
Dakota pulled me close to his chest.
“No. Yaya. No, it isn’t.”
~***~
“All rise.”
Here we go.
I stared at the jurors. All of them looked damn near evil. But I also knew that with the lack of evidence, the pieces of circumstantial evidence, and missing testimonies and witnesses, it was going to be hard to give him a guilty verdict. And then I knew that eventually, it would be my turn.
I spotted Kenny in the courtroom. He was eyeing me, angrily. I could tell that he had a feeling that Dakota was going to walk too.
“Your Honor, before we get started. Just a few minutes ago, my client signed a plea.”
What?
Everyone started to whisper and the judge hit his gavel. I looked at Dakota. He was looking right at me.
