Collusion

by De'nesha Diamond

  Castillo laughed as if that was a bridge too far. “I doubt that he has the power to take out a president—former or otherwise. They are always surrounded by Secret Service.”

  Abrianna gave her a look that made her reconsider her words.

  “That sounded incredibly naïve, didn’t it?”

  Abrianna nodded and then turned away and headed to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Kadir asked, looking up from his terminal.

  “To see Randall. I’m gonna give that bitch a piece of my mind. Whoever’s turn it is to play babysitter needs to come on.”

  Kadir climbed out of his seat and raced to catch up.

  Castillo shook her head when she noticed Draya’s pensive look. “What is it?”

  “If that attorney chick really is on the take and she now knows that the little girl is talking, doesn’t that mean that Cargill knows that she’s taking?”

  Castillo’s heart dropped, but she sprang to her feet.

  Julian looked up from his pile of research. “Do you need a babysitter, too?”

  “You got a weapon?”

  “Never leave home without it,” Julian said.

  “Then come on, if you’re coming,” Castillo said.

  Feeling left out, Draya grabbed her purse and scrambled from behind her desk. “Wait for me!”

  59

  Abrianna and Kadir marched into the Department of Justice building off Constitution Avenue and drew wide-eyed stares when she demanded to see Randall.

  “I’m sorry, but the attorney general—”

  “Never mind, I’ll look for her myself,” Abrianna snapped.

  “Wait. Ma’am, you can’t go back there!”

  Abrianna ignored the woman and stormed through the place until she found Randall’s name printed on a glass office door and then entered without knocking.

  “It’s okay, Suzanna. There’s no need to call security,” Randall told the receptionist and then hung up the phone. “Please.” She gestured toward two chairs in front of her desk. “Have a seat.”

  “I’d rather stand and curse you the fuck out.”

  Randall leaned back in her leather chair, arms crossed. “Oh, really?”

  “Humph.” Abrianna smirked. “You really had me fooled. That faked passion about locking Cargill up. Hollering about your and everyone’s career being on the line and blah, blah, blah. I mean, really. Fuck those Hollywood bitches. You got the acting game on lock.”

  “I see you’re pushing a lot of hot air around, but you’re not saying shit.”

  “Then let me be clear. You’re on the take. You’re on daddy’s payroll. You’ve been sabotaging your own case this whole time.”

  “That’s a very serious charge, Ms. Parker. Have you been talking to Kellerman?”

  “I don’t know why it didn’t hit me sooner. But that whole bit about no video surveillance. It’s bullshit. My father made it his business to always know what was going on at all times—on all his properties. Cargill is a watcher. He watches—everything. It’s why I spent a lot of time in a closet growing up. I was always trying to hide from his prying eyes. Where are the tapes?”

  “Sounds like a question that we need to ask your father.”

  “See. That’s just it. He doesn’t have them.”

  “Okay. Now I’m confused. You tell me that your father records everything, but he doesn’t have these mysterious recordings.”

  “No. You do.”

  Randall laughed. “We’re going around in circles. I already told you that we don’t have surveillance from the club. None of the cameras were operating that night.”

  “Yeah. I know what you said, but a lie ain’t nothing for a bitch to tell. You have those tapes and you’re blackmailing him for a nice payday. In fact, you’re making a whole lot of shit disappear, including where those children came from. You’ll drag this shit out until the whole case collapses, guaranteeing that Cargill will walk.”

  “You”—Randall stood—“have a damn good imagination. And a big set of balls to come charging into my office and hurling wild and unfounded accusations. What? Are you wired again? Am I suddenly supposed to break down with a deathbed confession?”

  “No. I’m not wired. But I will do you a solid and warn you.”

  Randall stopped within inches of Abrianna. “Warn me?”

  “Yeah. You have no idea who you’re fucking with.”

  “Humph. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that sounds more like a threat and not a warning.”

  “Take it any way you like it. But it’s not me who you need to look out for it. It’s Cargill. You’re a fool if you think he’ll ever let anyone get the best of him, especially a woman.”

  Randall glared. “You know, Ms. Parker, I don’t think your services will be needed after all. Mr. Lautner may be right about you. You’re simply not a credible witness for us to put on the stand. You know, with the Avery trauma and your heavy drug use. I hope you understand.”

  Abrianna smiled. “Fuck you, Ms. Randall.”

  “No. Fuck you, Ms. Parker. And I don’t advise that you repeat that wild diatribe to anyone in the press or I will bring the full force of this department to raid through your closet of skeletons. In case you didn’t know, there is no statute of limitation for murder.”

  A heat wave rolled over Abrianna’s face.

  Randall’s eyes bulged as she rasped for air and clawed at her neck.

  “Don’t you ever threaten me!” Abrianna stepped back.

  Randall dropped to her knees, face darkening as the veins in her neck bulged.

  “Bree, stop!” Kadir grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “Ohmigod,” Suzanna gasped, rushing into the office toward her boss. “Ms. Randall, are you all right?”

  Her concentration broken, Abrianna released her invisible grip on the attorney general’s neck.

  Randall raked in a huge, ragged gulp of air and then choked on it.

  Suzanna scrambled to retrieve her boss’s bottled water from her desk.

  Abrianna waited until Randall cast her frightened eyes up at her. “I’m glad that we had this talk.” She smiled and left the bewildered attorney on her knees.

  * * *

  Castillo, Julian, and Draya were engaged in an old-fashioned stakeout, complete with junk food and stale coffee to keep them awake.

  “Maybe we’re overreacting,” Julian suggested. “That’s always possible, isn’t it?”

  “Anything is possible.” Castillo sighed, scanning the Belfleurs’ neighborhood’s dark streets.

  “So how long are we staying out here?” Draya asked. “I mean, we can’t hang out forever.”

  “You’re more than welcome to leave if you want. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.”

  “I’m not complaining,” she lied. “I’m stating a fact. We have to have some kind of plan.”

  Two patrol cars turned onto the street. As they approached Castillo’s car, they slowed and rolled down their windows.

  Castillo did likewise. “Good evening, gentlemen. What can I do for you?”

  “Are you Castillo?” the cop asked.

  The question surprised her. “I am,” she said, reaching for her weapon.

  “Holder said that he’d like to see his girlfriend sometime and sent us to take over the stakeout of the Belfleurs.”

  Draya mumbled, “Thank God.”

  “He did, did he?” Castillo relaxed.

  “We’re just the messengers.” They rolled past her and parked a few feet down the road.

  Castillo grabbed her phone.

  “I take it your replacements have arrived,” Dennis said.

  “They have, and thank you. I don’t think my new partners are cut out for this kind of work.”

  Draya and Julian protested.

  “Well, call it a night. I’ll move some numbers around and keep the Belfleurs under police protection for a few days. Now dump your partners and get your ass home. I’m tired of waking up in an empty bed.”

  “A
ye, aye, Captain.”

  * * *

  The Bunker

  Ghost laughed and kept wiping tears from his eyes.

  Annoyed, Kadir stood stone-faced and waited for his friend to get a grip. “Are you finished?”

  “No. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall. That shit sounds hilarious.”

  Abrianna shrugged. “I thought so, too.”

  “It’s not,” Kadir insisted. “You can’t go around choking people like that. Whatever happened to keeping a low profile? That woman is probably burning sage and putting up crucifixes in her office right now.”

  “Good. Her crooked ass deserved it. All of this work that we are doing is a waste of time if Randall is sabotaging the case. We may as well give up now.”

  “No. We’re not going to give up,” Kadir said sternly. “We’re doing this for the children, not for her. Besides, you promised.”

  “No. I promised that I wouldn’t use my abilities on you. I never said that I would never use it on anyone else. Besides, I can’t always control it.”

  “What do you mean?” Ghost asked.

  “I don’t know. Lately, whenever I get upset things . . . happen.”

  “Things like what?” Kadir asked, intrigued.

  “I don’t know. Things . . . break.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, like the first time it happened. I was here. I broke the bathroom mirror by just . . . staring at it.”

  “So that’s what happened to it,” Ghost said.

  “Then, I remember I got upset once at the hospital and the television exploded, and then it happened again at Bowen’s office. It didn’t used to happen.”

  “I wonder why the change,” Ghost said, thinking.

  Abrianna thought it over. “Really. Ever since the . . .” The weekend at the Hay-Adams.

  “Bree?” Kadir cocked his head.

  A montage of events sped through her head. The times when her abilities were heightened and the times the buzzing became a stream of voices. “It’s the Cotton Candy.”

  Kadir leaned forward. “Excuse me?”

  She looked up. “Uh, nothing. I . . . I’ll try to be more careful,” she said, wanting to change the subject. Kadir would hit the roof if he knew that she was self-medicating again—albeit a much lower dose with the Cotton Candy.

  “What all can you do?” Ghost said, still intrigued. “Do you even know?”

  She shook her head. “Not until I do it. Like tonight, I was so angry that I wanted to choke the shit out of Randall. The next thing I knew, she couldn’t breathe.”

  “And you got that Zeke dude to shoot himself in the face,” Ghost reminded her.

  Kadir added, “And you threw that one guy up against the house. Maybe we should perform our own set of tests on your abilities.”

  “If I don’t want to be a government lab rat, what makes you think that I want to be yours?”

  “It’s not for us,” Ghost said. “It’s for you. Don’t you want to know what you’re capable of? Hell, the way trouble keeps finding your ass, the shit is valuable information.”

  Kadir nodded. “I agree for once.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Can’t ask for more than that,” Ghost said. He looked to his crew. “You guys ready to rock and roll?”

  “What’s going on?” Abrianna asked.

  “Well, as you know, we’ve been narrowing down the list of possibilities of who’s been helping Cargill traffic the children. We’ve been hitting a couple of places, rummaging around the homes or offices for something concrete. Nada, of course. We hit that Peter Lautner cat’s crib last night. So tonight we figured we go to his office downtown.”

  “Yeah?” She turned excited eyes toward Kadir. “Mind if I tag along?”

  “I-I, uh?” He looked to Ghost.

  “Sure. Why not? We’re packing light, though. You got your piece on you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Great. You can be out in the van with Roger and Wendell.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  “Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll take it.”

  * * *

  The old breaking and entering gang was back together again. The mark was Lautner’s D.C. law office. This time Kadir and Julian would work to jam the building’s security system while Ghost and Wendell broke in.

  “I don’t get why we have to change up,” Kadir complained.

  “You’re on parole,” Ghost reminded him.

  “What damn difference does that make? If we get caught, we’re all going to jail.”

  “Good point. Fine. Me and you.”

  “I should be doing something,” Abrianna said.

  Ghost grinned. “Look at you. You do one break-in and then you’re already hooked. Maybe when you’re finished playing detective with that ex-cop, you can come on over to the dark side and join the revolution.”

  Kadir groaned. “Oh, God. Not the revolution again.”

  “Really? Your mutant girlfriend there is a byproduct of the man, and you still aren’t a believer?”

  “I didn’t say that—”

  Abrianna snapped, “Are we going to do this or not?”

  Ghost and Kadir killed their quarreling and slid on their backpacks of tools.

  Wendell and Julian mouthed “Thank you” to her.

  “Cameras are down,” Wendell said. “Delaying backup signal. We got ten minutes, aim for eight.”

  “All right,” Ghost said. “Let’s rock and roll.” He slid open the side door as the van slowed near the law office, and Kadir and Ghost jumped out.

  Roger kept driving while Abrianna slammed the door closed again.

  Kadir and Ghost hustled toward the glass front door.

  Ghost produced a small tool set, much like Abrianna’s, and got them through the first door within seconds.

  Abrianna crossed her fingers. Getting into the place and bypassing the security system wasn’t a problem. She worried about searching, finding, breaking into an unknown safe, grabbing everything, and making it out in eight minutes. It sounded impossible.

  Rogers parked three blocks down and killed the lights. Out of view, but still in range of their video/audio connection on the computer.

  Abrianna huddled behind Wendell in the back of the van, watching the video feed from the camera strapped on Ghost. Two minutes into the caper, Ghost and Kadir made it into Lautner’s office. But then the camera cut out.

  “What in the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Wendell’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Fellas, can you hear me?”

  “Yah. What’s up?” Ghost asked.

  Abrianna sighed in relief.

  “We lost visual,” Wendell told him.

  “We’re good. Found th—” Ghost’s voice mixed with a lot of static feedback blasted over the line.

  Abrianna frowned.

  “Ghost, man. Are you there?” Wendell checked.

  A weird noise buzzed on the line, and there was nothing.

  “Looks like we lost audio as well.”

  “That can’t be good,” Abrianna fretted. “I got a bad feeling about this.”

  “It’s all right. Calm down,” Wendell told her. “Don’t forget this isn’t Ghost’s first time at the rodeo. He knows what he’s doing.”

  The third minute passed.

  Fourth minute passed.

  “Maybe we should circle back around and make sure the coast is still clear front side,” she suggested.

  Roger glanced at Wendell, who shrugged and left the decision up to him.

  “Let’s give it another minute.”

  The next sixty seconds were torture, but the instant the clock on the computer rolled into the fifth minute, she snapped, “Go, go, go!”

  Roger spun around and started the van to circle around to the law office.

  “Hey, where did those cars come from?” Abrianna gasped, pointing.

  “Oh, shit,” Roger grumbled. “Wendel
l, do you have a feed yet?”

  “No bueno,” he said shaking his head.

  “Let me out,” Abrianna demanded.

  “What?”

  “You heard me, let me out.”

  “No way,” Roger said. “Ghost would kill—”

  Abrianna glanced down at the brake pedal, and the van screeched to a stop.

  Roger gasped. “What the fuck?”

  She threw open the van door and jumped out.

  “Hey,” the guys yelled.

  With no time to argue, Abrianna took off toward the building; when she pulled on the door, it was locked. A scorching heat rolled through her veins, and when she touched the door again, the glass exploded.

  * * *

  Chris Lautner jumped. “What in the hell?”

  Kadir threw back his elbow and nailed Chris in the chest.

  Chris’s gun fired, nailing one of his three cohorts in the neck.

  That guy’s gun also went off, firing a round into Ghost’s chest. He stumbled back, but thanks to a bulletproof vest, the shot only succeeded in pissing him off.

  “Muthafucka!” He launched forward, fists whaling on the man. Next to him, Kadir and Lautner went at it. The bloody lawyer turned out to be an experienced fighter and a good adversary. He blocked and landed as many body blows as Kadir dealt.

  * * *

  As she heard gunfire, Abrianna’s panic escalated. She raced in its direction. In her haste, she ignored the buzzing in her head and was blindsided when something crashed against her skull and then she took second blow to the head when she hit the floor.

  Ghost and Kadir were winning their matches, when the fourth man returned to the fray, dragging in Abrianna by one arm. “That’s enough, ladies,” the man thundered.

  Kadir froze and missed his chance to duck before Lautner’s fist connected to his chin. His knees buckled as he tumbled to the floor.

  Ghost ignored the fourth man and kept swinging on his opponent. The fourth guy fired up into the ceiling and finally won Ghost’s attention. He stopped pummeling his opponent and released him to collapse against the floor.

  “Step back,” the fourth man ordered.

  Ghost stepped back.