I eyeball Maybelline’s place again, knowing that I only have one play. No way a taxi is gonna risk rolling over here for a pickup. Before I climb back out of the car, my cell phone rings from the car’s charger. My mind pulls a blank, wondering who could be calling me. Frowning, I grab the phone and get the shock of my life when I read Deputy Chief Collins’s name on my screen.
What in the hell does he want?
After I suck in a deep breath and pray that I’m as sober as I think I am, I swipe the screen to answer the call before it’s transferred to voicemail. “Hello, Collins. What can I do for you?”
“Thank God.” Collins exhales.
“Is there a problem?”
“Other than I can’t find Lieutenant Fowler anywhere? Yes. I’m going to need you to report to 4550 Ruby Cove. We have another gang mess on our hands. There are bodies everywhere.”
Silence.
“Captain Hawkins, are you still there?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m here.” I look around, wondering how the fuck I’m going to make it over to Ruby Cove.
“How soon can I expect you?” he asks.
“Mmm. I thought that I was on administrative leave . . . ?”
He sighs. “Can you get here or not?”
“I’m on my way,” I tell him with a smug smile exploding across my face. However, when I disconnect the call and stare back down at where my steering wheel used to be, the smile melts off of my face. Shit.
Taking another glance at Maybelline’s place, I climb out of the car with my piece hanging by my side. As I jog up to the front porch, a neighbor steps out onto hers and watches me like a hawk. I ignore her nosy ass and bogart into the house like my ass pays the mortgage.
Two big mountain-looking OGs pop up off the couch, raising sawed-off shotguns, ready to blow my ass to kingdom come.
“Police,” I announce, lifting my own weapon. It wasn’t necessary because as soon as they see my face, recognition registers before they glance back toward the locked bedroom door.
“All right. Now which one of you has my steering wheel? I have a job I have to get to.”
10
Ta’Shara
I can’t feel my legs.
“Everything is all right. We’re going to take good care of you,” a paramedic with compassionate brown eyes tells me before a smile quivers at the corners of his lips.
I attempt to smile back, but the plastic mask around my mouth is too tight—so are the straps that are tying me to the gurney. Around me there’s a circus of activity by the cops, paramedics, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
“Have you seen the upstairs bedroom?” one cop asks another.
“Yeah, man. The place looks like a slaughterhouse.”
I close my eyes, but it doesn’t stop my tears from welling up and sliding out from the corners. Now that military-style shelling has stopped and the immediate danger has passed, I’m overwhelmed by every emotion in the book. Looking back, the entire night seems so surreal. The shooting at the park, the confrontation with LeShelle, my shooting the crazy bitch upstairs, my being shot downstairs by Python, and the Gangster Disciples’ surprise attack. It’s a wonder that I haven’t cracked up yet.
As the paramedic maneuvers the gurney around a corner, we slam into said corner and more pain washes over me.
“Oops. Sorry about that, ma’am.” The man with the smiling brown eyes hovers over me again.
I close my eyes, worried that they’ll also drop me in a minute. Soon after the paramedics arrived, I grew drowsy to the point I can barely keep my eyes open. But I fight off the drug-like drowsiness with everything I have. Given my condition, I’m terrified to close my eyes. What if I don’t wake up?
Once again, Profit surfaces in my mind. The thought of never seeing him again feels as if it’s ripping my heart in half. I have to see him again. I don’t know the words that I’ll say, but I’m sure that they will come to me. He fucked up. I fucked up. There’s got to be a way to put the past behind us and move on. Tears roll down my face at a surprising clip. A few of the tears are for my and Profit’s situation, the rest are for Lucifer and her unborn baby. Despite hating the woman for the last couple of weeks, I feel that I could’ve done more to save her—even though I don’t know exactly what.
As I’m carried out the front door, I ignore all the curious stares from the men and women in uniform. I’m the freak who survived. Other bodies, no doubt Vice Lord soldiers, are zipped in black bags while police chalk the area where they fell. A small gust of wind dries my tears as I’m carried past the yellow crime tape and the crowd of neighbors rubbernecking to see what’s going on.
“Let me through. Let me through, goddamn it!”
Profit! My heart leaps up into my chest.
“I said, let me through!” The crowd parts as I’m lifted into the back of an ambulance.
The moment my gaze lands on Profit, emotions tumble through me and more tears roll down my face.
“Ta’Shara, baby. Are you okay?” He stretches out one powerful arm and stops the gurney from being lifted any farther into the ambulance.
“Sir. I’m going to have to ask you to step back,” another paramedic, older and a bit of a redneck, says.
Profit doesn’t even spare him a look. “Don’t worry, baby. I’m coming with you.” He proceeds to climb into the ambulance.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t allow that. You’re more than welcome to follow us to Baptist Memorial, but you can’t ride with her in the back.”
“Fuck you. That’s my girl you got up there!”
The redneck’s face flushes at the obscenity. “Like I said. You can either follow us to the hospital or you can meet her there.” He boldly moves to block Profit from climbing into the back of the truck.
Veins bulge and pulse along Profit’s neck and jawline. “You need to step out of my way, old man,” Profit warns with head tilted and hands balled at his sides, as if ready to strike.
Then another voice catches my attention while those two get ready to square off.
“Ta’Shara! Ta’Shara!”
Mason.
Instantly the crowd parts as our leader, cloaked head to toe in black, approaches the ambulance as well.
The older paramedic who is arguing with Profit takes one look at Mason with his purple and black burn scars and backs up.
“Where’s Willow?” Mason demands, storming up into the truck and kneeling beside me. “Tell me. Where is she?”
I have trouble meeting his one good eye. The other, a gross, milky-white eye, he keeps covered with a patch. “They’re saying that she’s not in the house.Where is she?”
My tears return and blur his face. Even as he pulls the mask away from my mouth, it’s still difficult to get words past the lump in my throat.
“Sir. Sir. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The redneck finds his voice, mainly because he has pulled a cop for backup.
“Ta’Shara, please. Tell me something. Where are Willow and my son?”
“Sir!”
“Th-they . . . took her,” I croak. My lips tremble as I force out my next words. “I’m sorry—but there were too many of them.”
Mason’s mangled face resembles a demonic deity. “Who took her?” His grip on my arm tightens. “I need for you to tell me who.”
I hesitate. I don’t know why. Wait. Yes, I do. My next words will plunge Memphis’s streets into something that’s more than a war—a crusade.
“Was it the Gangster Disciples or the Grape Street Crips?”
The Crips?
“That was Lynch’s main bitch, Shariffa, they pulled from upstairs. Is that nigga Lynch behind this shit?”
“Shariffa?” The name is familiar, but my crash course into the gang life is a bit spotty and I can’t place where I know Shariffa’s name.
“Sir! We need for you to step out of the vehicle.” This is coming from a cop this time.
Mason doesn’t pay him any more attention than the last dude.
&n
bsp; An irritated Profit butts in. “Give him a minute to ask her a few questions.”
“You stay out of this,” the cop says, tapping Profit’s chest with his baton.
Now pissed, Profit swipes that shit away and chest bumps the officer. “How in the hell are you going to tell me to stay out of it when this is my woman? Who the fuck is you?”
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” Two more cops approach the back of the ambulance. “What seems to be the problem over here?”
“Ta’Shara,” Mason says, snatching my attention back. “Tell me now. Who did this? The GD or the Crips?”
“Both.”
His face twists. “What?”
“The girl broke in first,” I whisper. “Python and his people showed up later.”
“Python.” Angry veins pop all over Mason’s face. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I tell him. “They took Lucifer while I think she was going into early labor.”
Rage works a number on Mason’s face and his grip on my arm causes me to flinch.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he vows.
When I flinch again, Mason releases my arm and then races out of the back of the truck with revenge written all over his face.
The angry cops and paramedics are left to stare after him when he pulls Profit along with him.
My heart drops back down into my gut again. “Wait.” I don’t want Profit to leave.
The redneck paramedic climbs into the back of the truck with me and the other paramedic.
“Let’s roll,” he shouts, shutting the back door.
“No. Wait.” I attempt to sit up, but the straps aren’t having any of it.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” smiling brown eyes tells me. “We’re getting you to the hospital now to get you checked out. You lost a lot of blood, but you’re going to pull through this.” He takes my hand and replaces the oxygen mask over my face.
A second later the ambulance pulls away from the curb.
But I didn’t get to talk to Profit. More tears swell behind my eyes. Will Profit follow the ambulance to the hospital or will he go riding shotgun with his brother to retaliate against the Gangster Disciples?
God help us. This war will never end.
11
Hydeya
Ruby Cove
If I keep telling myself that my ass is sober, then maybe it’ll be true. Now that my initial shock from reading Momma Peaches’ letter is over, that Jack Daniel’s I guzzled down earlier has returned to slosh through my veins. I’m going to block out the fact that I was nearly T-boned running through a traffic light during my race over here. The second I turn onto Ruby Cove, the whole area is lit up like the Fourth of July.
“What in the world?” It looks like every emergency vehicle from every law enforcement agency is here—and so is every news van in the tri-state area. I’m definitely going to need to be sober for this.
I find a place to park on the curb, then have to walk several houses down to get to the crime scene. I take special note that it’s the house directly across from the Barretts. The last time I paid a visit there it was to arrest Qiana Barrett for the murders of Yolanda Terry and Tyneisha Gibson. We haven’t been able to figure out the motive or how Qiana, a Vice Lord Flower, even knew Ms. Terry, but the department successfully matched her vehicle to tire tracks at the scene of the crime. The only problem was that by the time we were able to get a warrant and roll down here, the girl was in the wind with the baby we believe she stole from Ms. Terry’s corpse.
No matter. We’ll find her—eventually.
“Captain Hawkins! Thank heavens you finally made it down here.”
I glance down at my watch and pretend to read it. “Chief, I came down right after I got the call.” I don’t like the way she makes it sound like my ass took too long or something. She was the one who placed me on some bullshit administrative leave.
Chief Yvette Brown huffs out her chest and glares up at me. “Any word from Lieutenant Fowler?”
Frowning, I shake my head. “Should I have heard from him?”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “I’m going to kill him,” she hisses under her breath before landing her hard gaze back onto me. While she studies, I become extremely self-conscious. Are my eyes bloodshot? Am I standing up straight? Can she smell the alcohol seeping from my pores?
When her nose twitches, I’m sure her ass is about to bust me. However, her current options trump her decision-making. Chief Brown expels a long breath and mumbles, “Follow me.”
Once the chief spins around to march back toward the house, I allow myself to smirk at the back of her head. Chief Brown has thrown one monkey wrench after another into my investigation of the city’s previous supercop, Captain Melvin Johnson. In her words, We’re not interested in the money, weapons . . . O’Malley’s murder—or anything else that you’ve stumbled upon. The public wants to know that we’ve solved the murder of their local hero. Period.
As I approach the house, the first thing that leaps out is the number of bullet holes the place has sustained. The front window has been destroyed and it’s being patched over with yellow crime tape.
“Excuse us. Coming through,” a paramedic announces as he pushes a gurney.
Police officers and state agents quickly scramble out of the way.
As the gurney passes, I take a good look at the bleeding woman laid out on it. Actually, she looks more like a little girl than a woman. Hey. Don’t I know her? The way that she’s looking around, I suspect she’s in shock. “Is she talking?” I ask the chief.
“Not much. She was one of the first to call 9-1-1. We’ll do our best to talk to her later at the hospital. She’s been hit bad, but I think that she’s going to pull through just fine.” The chief disappears into the house while I watch as the paramedics rush her toward an awaiting ambulance. That’s when I notice all the black body bags being loaded up in the city morgue van.
“How many are dead?” I ask no one in particular.
“Twenty-six and counting,” Officer Reid answers.
When I glance over at him, I note that he looks as tired as I feel. Actually, everyone looks as though they’re tired of being the cleanup crew for the city’s growing gang wars. Ruby Cove is the Vice Lords’ stronghold, but tonight their enemies punched a big-ass hole in their security.
I know who’s my lead suspect in the case. The crates of weapons I discovered at Isaac’s earlier tonight flash nonstop inside my head. The irony of the chief and mayor wanting me to stop digging in their backyard so that I can concentrate on digging in my own has not escaped me.
“Lucifer!” a man shouts.
“Sir, you can’t go in there.” Officers block the entrance.
I spot Mason Lewis pushing his way into the ambulance. The older paramedic or EMT looks apoplectic.
“Captain?” Officer Reid’s inquiry pulls me back. “Are you all right?”
I force on a smile. “Yes. Of course. I’m fine.”
I march back off the porch to head toward the ambulance. Now I remember where and how I know the younger man’s face. Raymond Lewis. And the girl on the stretcher is Ta’Shara Murphy. I met them both at the hospital after Momma Peaches saved Barbara Lewis’s life—by killing Momma Peaches’s youngest sister,Alice. Raymond aka Profit had been grateful for everyone’s assistance. Ta’Shara had been the silent and shy girlfriend, clinging on his arm.
“Is there a problem over here?” I ask as the paramedics are finally able to move the two men back so that they can close the ambulance doors.
Both Mason and Profit swing their contemptuous gazes in my direction.
I flinch at Mason’s charred face, but then recalibrate and remain professional. “Is this your place?” I ask, nodding toward the house.
“Who’s asking?”
For the craziest moment, I reach into my pocket so I can pull out my badge, but then remember that the chief hasn’t given it back to me yet.
“This is Captain Hawkins,” Profit te
lls his brother. “We’ve met before.”
Mason’s singular black gaze rakes me over; his other eye is covered with an eye patch. “So are you the lead cop on this investigation?” he asks.
“I am.”
He squares around toward me. “So where is my girl at?” he barks.
I’m taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“My girl! Willow Washington. The muthafuckas who blasted their way into our crib snatched her. What are you muthafuckas going to do about that shit? Huh?”
“Mr. Carver, I’m gonna need you to calm down.”
Fat Ace explodes. “Carver! Bitch, are you confused or some shit? The last name is Lewis!”
Shit. I’ve done shoved my foot into my mouth already. “Mr. Lewis, I’m sorry. You’re right. My mistake.” Both he and his younger brother look at me as if I’ve just sprouted a second head. Why, oh why, did I walk my ass over here without getting the basic facts of the case? I have no information about a missing person and will have to wing this shit. “My team and I are going to work diligently to find, uh . . .”
“Willow Washington,” Profit reminds me.
Behind them, the ambulance pulls away from the curb.
Profit gets antsy. “We got to follow them to the hospital,” he tells his brother.
Fat Ace overrules that decision with a hiss. “No. We need to get at the muthafuckas who hit us. We find them and we find Willow.”
“I certainly hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means,” I say, reminding him that he’s talking reckless in front of an officer of the law.
Fat Ace’s look transmits that he doesn’t give a damn about who I am. He doesn’t think that I can do a damn thing to stop him.
Queen Divas Page 6
