Kobe is in full investigative mode. “If you weren’t down at the police station for the past two days, where have you been?”
Silence.
I have to make a decision. “I went to see Diesel.”
Kobe withdraws. His dislike for Diesel Carver has been clear from the jump. “Why the fuck would you run to that muthafucka? Are you finally fuckin’ him?”
Slap!
Granny waves her finger. “Kobe, you apologize to your sister!”
He rubs his smarting face. He’s stunned by how fast she’d launched toward him.
“There’s no need for that kind of talk. You see that she’s upset.”
Kobe grinds his back molars before he spits out, “Sorry.”
His apology swings my emotions in the opposite direction. “Oh, Kobe. You were right. Diesel is a monster! What the hell am I going to do?”
“Wait? What?” Kobe tenses. He has never liked it when females get too emotional. When my grip tightens around his neck, he awkwardly pats me on the back. “There, there. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not. It’s never going to be okay.”
“Oh, my poor baby,” Granny says, closing in on both Kobe and me to do a three-person hug. “We’re gonna get you through this, baby.”
“Why did you call him a monster?” Kobe asks, suspicion seeping into his voice. “Did Diesel have something to do with Kalief’s death?”
“I—I think so.”
“Damn.” He pulls me back and cups my face so that he can look me dead in my eyes when he asks his next question. “Did Diesel hurt you in any way?”
Don’t tell him. You can’t tell him.
“Cleo?” Kobe’s eyes harden to black diamonds. “Tell me the truth. Did that nigga hurt you?”
I nod and shame sweeps over me. “He raped me.”
58
Ta’Shara
My first day in physical therapy at the Regional One Health hospital whipped my ass. The simplest exercise had me sweating like a damn hog. The amount of upper body strength that I’ll have to develop is a monumental task that has me lying awake in bed yet another night. No matter how many times I fell flat on my face or ass, the therapist and my competitive foster grandparents cheered me on.
I smiled and tried my best not to let my frustration show. But now, while no eyes are watching me, I’m having serious doubts about whether I can do this—on top of preparing for the GED and pursuing all the dreams that I once had. In the back of my head, I realize my disability doesn’t mean that I can’t do them. There are plenty of doctors in the country with a wide range of disabilities. Even now I’m still giving myself a pep talk that I don’t feel.
I click on the nightstand lamp again and pull my body up against the headboard. Everyone is asleep and the house is quiet.When will this place feel like home?
I miss Profit. I only admit it to myself in the middle of the night, though it’s true every minute of the day. It’s been too long since we’ve lain next to each other, feeling his breath against the back of my neck or his arm draped over my hip as we snuggle in our favorite spoon position. I close my eyes and recall his scent and his spearmint kisses. I’m convinced that I’ll ache for him for the rest of my life.
I did the right thing. I’m doing the right thing. Tears streak down my face, but there’s nothing that I can do about the pain. I’m hoping what everyone says about time healing all wounds is true. I open the drawer in the nightstand and pull out my box of matches. After a dozen small flames, my concentration is interrupted.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
What in the hell? I snap open my eyes and my attention is drawn to the bedroom window.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
I lean forward to make sure I’m really making out a face on the other side of the windowpane. “Profit?” Am I hallucinating?
My visitor gets tired of waiting and pulls up on the window. It’s unlocked. Profit climbs through, holding my duffel bag.
“What are you doing here?” I flip the blanket over to cover my legs and glare at him. I try to glare. He really is a sight for sore eyes. He’s still working out and I’m feeling the sexy stubble he has growing in.
“Mack said that you needed your things.” He plops the duffel bag in the center of the floor and then glances around my new room. “So you’re the pink princess again, huh?”
I ignore his question to ask a question of my own. “Mack told you to bring my stuff ?”
“Yeah. Her and your girl Romil are waiting outside,” he adds. “They are of the opinion that we belong together.”
Silence.
Profit shrugs. “I agree with them.”
Silence.
“You don’t have anything to say?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets.
I have a lot to say, but there’s no way I’m going to say it.
“Humph. Un-fucking-believable.” He tilts his head back to gaze up at the ceiling. “So once again, I’ve made a fool of myself, thinking that there’s some kind of hope for us?”
“Profit. It’s not like that.” I lower my head.
“No?”
“This . . . decision . . . isn’t easy for me. I don’t want you to think that it is.”
“What’s that smell?” he asks, sniffing the air. “Is something burning?”
I take a whiff and catch the scent of burning plastic. Shit. I glance down at the wastebasket and see flames lick up the sides of a plastic container. “Fuck. Fuck.” I search around for something to extinguish the flames.
“Here. I’ll do it.” Profit moves forward as I stretch too far over for the bottled water I left on the other side of the nightstand before retiring for the night. My ass pitches forward and falls out of bed. I hit the floor like a stone. My breath is knocked out of my lungs, my head bangs against the leg of the nightstand, and the wastebasket tips over and lights my nightgown on fire.
“Shit!” Profit exclaims.
I gasp but don’t scream. I can’t. I’m fascinated by how fast the fire spreads. Since I can’t feel my legs, I’m more enraptured by the dancing flames than the damage it’s causing.
Profit snatches off his jacket and beats the fire—and me—until it dies.
“Ta’Shara. Are you all right?” Profit grabs me by my shoulders and shakes me out of my trance.
The bedroom door bursts open and Reggie Senior rushes inside, tying his bathrobe. “Ta’Shara, honey. Are you—who the hell are you?”
Profit glances up, no doubt experiencing déjà vu from the time the other Reggie busted us in my bedroom. At least this time we have clothes on.
“Mary!”
“Yo. Yo. It’s okay,” Profit says. “I’m a friend. I brought Ta’Shara her things.” He gestures to the duffel bag.
Reggie sniffs the air. “What’s burning?” He spots the smoldering basket. “The hell?” He races to the wastebasket, grabs it and races back out. A couple of seconds later we hear the shower in the hall bathroom come on.
Profit tries a joke. “Damn. We’re losing our touch. Second time we’ve been caught.”
Instead of laughing, I struggle to sit up.
“Here. Are you burned?” Profit reaches for my burned gown to try to take a look at my legs.
I swipe his hand away. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” He attempts to look again.
“I said I was fine. I don’t need your damn help!”
Profit pulls back, staring as if I’ve sprouted two heads. “What the fuck?”
“I’m just saying that I don’t need your help.” Reggie, hurry back.
“Well, fine. Fuck. At least let me help you off of the floor.”
I swat his hands away. “Stop. I don’t need your help.”
“Jesus. When the hell did you become such a bitch?” He jumps to his feet. “I can’t do anything right as far as you’re concerned. I come flying over here, yet again, to pour my heart out to you and this is how you treat me?”
/>
Tears burn my eyes. “You should go.”
Reggie and Mary rush back to my bedroom.
“Son, I don’t know how you got in here. But you have one minute to get out of the house before we call the police.”
Profit stands, chuckling. “Who are you fooling? You already called the police.”
The Douglases exchange guilty looks.
“Whatever.” Profit looks down at me. “I’ll go out the front door. I’m getting too old to be climbing in and out of windows.” He heads for the door.
My heart tangles into knots as I watch his straight back walk toward the door, out of my life yet again.
Reggie springs into action again. “Oh, Ta’Shara. Let me help you up. Let me take a look at your legs. Are you burned?” He takes a look at my legs, too. “Maybe we should get you to the hospital to check out those burns. You probably can’t feel it, huh? Do you want to get into bed or your wheelchair?”
Busted.
Profit stops, turns.
Reggie scoops me off the floor. For a brief moment, I bury my head in the crook of his shoulder, as if it would make me invisible.
Reggie sets me back in bed. Profit watches the whole procedure with laser focus.
“What’s wrong with her legs?” he asks.
Mary finds her voice and steps to Profit’s imposing figure. “Young man, you need to leave this house right now. We know who you are. You don’t scare us.”
Profit ignores her and asks his question louder. “What the hell is wrong with her?”
All eyes are on me. I can’t look at Profit and I can’t force anything out of my mouth. Profit looks around the room and spots the wheelchair. On the floor is one of the brochures that I attempted to put the fire out with. He walks over and picks it up.
“Profit, please. Leave,” I beg. Guilt and shame riot within me.
He glances up, eyes glistening.
We have hurt each other plenty of times in the past, but the look on his face is pure devastation. I should say something. Anything.
Someone hammers on the front door downstairs.
“That should be the police,” Mary says, relieved.
“Don’t worry,” Profit tells her. “I’m leaving.” Our eyes connect. “For good this time.”
59
Wendi
The Drop
“He’s not coming,” I say, keeping my eye on the clock as we wait in the truck. I knew you fucked this shit up. I knew it.”
John glowers. “Will you shut the fuck up?”
“No. Not this time, John. Do you know how much I need this money? Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep a parent in a nursing home? I’m drowning in medical bills and two mortgages because the housing market is shit in this town and a house that my parents lived in for over fifty years is now considered to be in a bad area. Of course the shit wouldn’t be so bad if they had never taken out a second and third mortgage to pay his medical bills before he died.”
“Are you done?” he asks.
I ball my hands and glare at his know-it-all face. “This is your fault. You spooked Fat Ace. He thinks that we’re a bunch of narcs. I don’t blame him.”
“Wendi, chill the fuck out. I’ll fix it.”
“How? Are you going to just call him up and say ‘Hey. We got those illegal guns you ordered. When can you pick them up?’ ”
John huffs out a breath, but he knows that he fucked up. “I said that I’d fix it. I’ll fix it.”
I shake my head. “This is a bad omen. Maybe we should just cut our losses.What if Hawkins said something to Fat Ace? You saw how hard she was grilling him a couple of weeks ago. For all our team knows, we could be under surveillance right now. She told you that she’d take us down. Maybe it’s time to take her at her word.” Paranoia has taken hold of me. For the millionth time tonight I wonder why I ignored my instincts about joining this run tonight. The money. It’s always the money.
“It’s been two hours,” I tell John. “Let’s just go.”
John sits behind the wheel, chewing his bottom lip. “I can fix this, but first we need to seriously address our main problem.”
“Oh? And what is that?”
“Not what. Who.”
I sigh. The last thing I want to talk about is knocking off a fellow officer, let alone the city’s new captain. “Count me out,” I tell him. “This shit is not worth it.”
“So how are you going to come up with the money to take care of your mom?”
“I’ll figure something out.” Though I have no idea what.
“Look. This shit will be simple. With Hawkins out of the picture, I’m sure that Chief Brown will promote me to captain. Once that happens, we’re back in business.
“You have no guarantee you’ll get that position. You said that she was pretty hot about your not responding to the department’s calls and texts during the Ruby Cove massacre.”
“She was. But don’t forget the ace in our corner.”
“Mayor Wharton,” I say, nodding. “But what happens if he loses the election?”
“He won’t lose.”
“How do you know? Haven’t you seen his slide in the polls?”
“Forget the fucking polls. We got to get this ball rolling again. You’re not the only one feeling the financial heat around here.”
John is heated, but I wonder how he can casually contemplate murdering someone he was partners with for years. Could he get rid of me with the same callousness? We’re good fuck-buddies, but that’s no guarantee of anything if I come in between his money. This shit is so fucked up.
“So what do you say?” John asks.
“What do I say to what?”
He faces me and holds my gaze so that he can read my reaction head-on. “What do you say about our eliminating Captain Hawkins?”
60
Lucille
“I think it’s time to consider pulling her off the machine,” I whisper.
Mason’s anguished face snaps up. “What?”
I take a deep breath, swallow, but the lump in my throat refuses to bulge. “I know. I can’t believe I’m saying this myself.” Tears crest my eyes. “But I know my daughter, and there’s no way that she would want to spend years on a respirator as a vegetable.”
“Willow is not a goddamn vegetable,” he barks,jumping to his feet as if it’ll intimidate me. “We’re not pulling the plug. She’s going to wake up.”
“Maybe.” At least I hope so.
Mason stares as if I’m a traitor. “We’re not giving up on her.”
“I’m not giving up. There’s a chance if we take her off the machines that she’ll wake up.”
A small chance. I don’t add the last line, but it echoes in the space between us as if I had.
“No.” He shakes his head.
“Sorry. But it’s not up to you.” I force myself to meet his angry black eye. “I’m her next of kin. The decision is mine to make.”
“She’s my fiancée. She’s the mother of my child!” he yells.
“And she’s my daughter.”
“Give me a fucking break. You don’t know shit about her,” Mason thunders out, hurt and angry. “She couldn’t stand you. You shouldn’t be the one making the decision.”
I lower my eyes and allow the tears to fall.
“Willow . . . doesn’t understand the choices that I made. That’s because she has always viewed me through the eyes of a child, but regardless of her resentment, I reject any notion that my daughter—my flesh and blood—hates me.”
His nostrils flare in anger, Mason clenches and unclenches his fists. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”
“I haven’t made up my mind. I simply said that it’s time to consider it.”
We stare at each other while Willow’s heart monitor beeps between us.
Then finally, “I swear, Lucille, if you do this, I’ll make sure that you never have a moment of peace.”
I laugh sadly. “I don’t know peace now. If you haven’t
noticed, my family has been wiped out. My husband, my son—my daughter.”
“And your lover?”
I gasp. His disrespect knows no bounds. “My relationship with Melvin was long, complicated, and none of your fucking business.”
“Is that why you never told Lucifer that he was her father?”
I gasp again. I’m on the brink of a heart attack. “How did you know? Who told you?”
Mason laughs. “It wasn’t that hard to guess.” He sucks in a breath. “This is the type of shit that I’ve always wanted to avoid. Men like Melvin Johnson—aka Cousin Skeet—and my own damn father, running around town fucking everything that isn’t nailed down. There are so many muthafuckas around here that are related and don’t know it, it’s ridiculous.”
I lower my head in shame. Again, we’re left to listen to Willow’s beeping heart monitor.
“Were you ever going to tell her?”
I shake my head. “What would’ve been the point?”
“To get her to understand. She idolized Dough Man and hated Cousin Skeet, even though he was her real father.” He laughs. “That’s actually something else that we have in common. I just found out that a man I spent a lifetime hating is . . .” He sighs. “My head is all fucked up and I can’t deal with that right now.” He clasps Willow’s hand. “All I want is for Willow to open her eyes. She and my son are all the family I need.”
“If you pull the plug,” he adds, “I’ll make sure that you never have a place in your grandson’s life.”
His threat is a good one, a real solid punch to my heart and gut. “You wouldn’t.”
“C’mon, Lucille. You know me about as well as you know your own daughter. Am I the type of man who makes idle threats?”
No. My eyes burn at the thought of being cut out of my grandbaby’s life. I may legally be Willow’s next of kin—but as Mason Junior’s father, Mason will be able to fulfill his threat to keep me away.
“I haven’t made a decision,” I whisper.
“Then I suggest that you seriously rethink pulling that plug.” He moves away from the bed and heads for the door. “I need some air.”
I hold it together as best I can until I hear the door close behind him. Then I bend over at the waist, sobbing. Of course I don’t want to give up on my tough-as-nails baby, but I’m not wrong. Willow would not want to lie up in this bed forever while a machine keeps her technically alive. I’ll give it some more time. But how much time? I move closer to the bed.
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