Obsession 3

by Treasure Hernandez

  Secret’s eyes were glued to his hand the entire time. When it remained idle in the air for a few seconds, Secret finally looked up at the detective. He was staring down at the key.

  “What? What’s the matter?” Secret asked.

  “I almost forgot. This is what you wanted, for me to free you. Right?”

  Secret nodded. She didn’t know what kind of game this cop was playing, but it was going to make her go crazy.

  “But I don’t have what I want, which is Lucky.”

  Secret exhaled and threw her body back against the bed. “I already told you, I don’t know where Lucky is. I haven’t heard from him since the day I got thrown in jail. And if you all wanted him so bad, why didn’t you take him the day you took me?”

  “We would have if your dumb ass would have just told the cops who that dope belonged to,” the detective snapped.

  Secret was shocked and confused by the way he was coming at her. She was not Lucky’s keeper. As a matter of fact, she had been his kept woman.

  “Like I said, I know where he’s at. That’s not the problem. What I want is Lucky thrown in jail for the rest of his life.” The detective tried to bring it down a notch because he was starting to get real intense. “I need someone who knows what a creep he is and hates him just as much as I do to hand him over to me on a silver platter.”

  “I do hate Lucky for what he’s done to me, for what he’s done to her.” She nodded to Dina. “My baby was almost born in a jail cell, a jail cell that I’m going back to; and God only knows where she’s going. And there is nothing that I can do about it.” Secret was furious. Tears of anger and helplessness rolled down her face.

  “But there is something you can do about it. You can get out of here and be with your baby and take care of her. Can’t you see that’s what I’ve been in here trying to tell you?” He threw his hands up as if to suggest this was all a piece of cake.

  Secret was exhausted. How many times did she have to tell him she had no connections to Lucky? “Look, Detective . . .” There was so much going on in Secret’s mind that she’d forgotten his name just that quickly.

  “Davis,” he finished for her.

  “Detective Davis, what exactly is it you think I can do to help you?”

  His lips slowly formed into a sinister smile. “Play Lucky the same way you played him the first time; only this time finish the job and come out on top.”

  “Huh, what do you mean?” Secret was now even more confused than ever.

  “Let me just break this down to you, Miss Miller. We’ve been watching Lucky for some months now. That means we’ve been watching you. We needed to get your story, figure out who you were. It didn’t take long for us to realize that you were harmless. You were just a kid fresh out of high school who got herself knocked up, didn’t know who the father was so you slept with the first guy who you could pin the crime on.” Detective Davis raised an eyebrow, signaling Secret to correct him if he’d told a lie.

  Secret remained silent, so the detective continued. “You couldn’t even do that though. No, your heart was too good, so you told him the truth knowing that you were risking losing everything: the place Lucky was helping you live in by paying bills, buying furniture, the car, the shopping sprees, fancy purses, red bottoms, and whatever else you gold diggers like scooping up into your buckets.”

  Secret glared at the detective.

  “Oh, not you.” He put his hands up in defense. “I’m talking about the other gold diggers, the real ones. You know, like your friend Shawndiece.”

  “Shawndiece?” Secret was shocked to hear him bring up Shawndiece’s name, but then she realized that if they’d been watching Lucky, they’d been watching her, and if they were watching her, surely they’d been watching Shawndiece, the only other person she spent time with outside of Lucky.

  “Yeah, now that girl could teach you a thing or two about hustling a fella.” He chuckled.

  Secret knew he was telling the truth. Shawndiece was the one who had coached her on how to pull the wool over on Lucky’s eyes. And the detective was right. Secret could have pulled it off if she was really built that way. Shawndiece, on the other hand, was born that way.

  “Yeah, that best friend of yours is something else indeed.” He shook his head then focused back on Secret. “But not you. You’re a good girl.” He paused before saying, “So for the life of me I can’t figure out how you got caught up with the worst piece of shit walking the streets of Flint, Michigan.”

  Secret closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Me either, she said to herself in her mind. Me either.

  “But I’m offering you a chance to walk out of here with your baby a free woman. All you have to do is everything I tell you to do.”

  Secret raised an eyebrow. “Which is what?”

  Detective Davis rubbed his hands together as if he was about to sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner feast. “Now here comes the tricky part, but I think you can pull it off. This time it’s not just about you.”

  “It was never just about me,” Secret said. “Every choice I’ve made these last few months have all been about my baby.”

  “Clearly, with the predicament you’re currently in, I could beg to differ, but I won’t,” Detective Davis said. “But anyhow, now it’s a matter of life and death that your every decision, your every move, be about that baby.” He pointed to Dina. “You living a good part of your life in jail, while your baby is subjected to death out here on the streets, I say this decision trumps all the others, wouldn’t you?” The detective smiled. He looked to be enjoying having Secret between a rock and a hard place way too much.

  Tired of the game of Ping-Pong that seemed to be never ending, Secret decided to cut to the chase. “Detective Davis, just tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

  The detective licked his lips as if he’d just demolished the entire meal, grinned at Secret, and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter 6

  “So, if I agree to do everything you just said you wanted me to do,” Secret confirmed after spending the last few minutes listening to Detective Davis run down the plan he had for how Secret could help him set up Lucky, “I can walk out of here with my baby a free woman?” Skepticism laced her voice.

  “Well, not walk out of this hospital and into the free world,” Detective Davis said.

  Secret sucked her teeth and went limp. She knew this was too good to be true. Here Detective Davis wanted her to help set up Lucky, but he was the one setting her up, for disappointment.

  “You have to be processed out of jail,” Detective Davis said. “It shouldn’t take long, just a day or two.” He shrugged. “There’s a little paperwork involved.”

  “But I don’t have a day or two. Where will my baby go while I’m back in jail?”

  Detective Davis thought for a minute. “Don’t you have any friends and family she can stay with?”

  “Detective, I don’t even have friends or family I can stay with, let alone my daughter.”

  He sucked his teeth. “What about your mom?”

  Secret shot him a look with her lips poked out and her head tilted sideways.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Your mom is one hell of a bitch.” He locked eyes with Secret. “Sorry.”

  Secret shrugged it off. Yolanda was a bitch. She damn sure couldn’t argue against that.

  “Hell, I hate to say it, because it doesn’t help my case none, but the only place you do have is jail. At least you have a roof over your head, clothes, and three meals a day.”

  What little of Secret’s spirit that was intact slowly diminished. Better off in jail. What a life.

  “Do you mean to tell me that there is not anyone you know who could help you out?” the detective said to Secret.

  She once again thought for a moment. Just then the hospital door cracked opened. “Hello, how’s my patient doing?”

  Both Secret and Detective Davis turned to face the door.

  “Hey, Li’l Muffin, you all righ
t?” said the nurse who had seemed to be on a personal basis with Secret from the moment she hit the maternity floor.

  Secret looked at the nurse and a smile soon crept on her face. “I’m feeling much better now that you’re here,” Secret said to her.

  “Good, because that’s just what I’m trying to hear,” the nurse said and stepped fully inside the room.

  Secret looked up at Detective Davis. “Detective, I think this is going to work out after all.”

  He got excited at hearing those words. His eyes lit up.

  Secret honestly had no idea just how badly and for how long Detective Davis wanted to shut Lucky and his drug operation down. In all Detective Davis’s years, though, no one in Lucky’s crew, or even former members of his crew, ever wanted to play informer. Secret hadn’t been the first to go to jail when it was Lucky who should have been behind bars. But if Detective Davis had anything to do with it, she’d be the last. The fact that Secret was willing to help get him what he needed in order to take down Lucky had made his day. If all went as planned, it would not only make his day, but his career as well.

  Detective Davis using Secret’s newborn baby as a pawn to convince her to work with him was a new low for even himself. But he knew she would be his hole in one. For a minute there, though, he thought his efforts would be in vain since Secret didn’t have any family or friends to help her and the baby out. Jail had definitely been starting to sound like a better predicament for her. But obviously someone who she felt could help had popped into her mind.

  “So you know someone who can keep the baby for a couple days and then help you when you get out?” Detective Davis asked Secret.

  “No,” she replied. She looked at the nurse who was pulling over the blood pressure machine. She then looked back at the detective. “But there is somebody who knows me.”

  Secret looked back over at the nurse and the detective’s eyes followed. After a few seconds the nurse realized she was being stared at.

  “What?” the nurse asked, shrugging her shoulders. She looked totally oblivious to the conversation taking place in the room. Before anyone could answer, the nurse looked down at Secret’s soiled gown from where she’d vomited. “Sweetie, what happened to your gown?” She immediately went over to the sink to grab some paper towels, wetting them first. She began wiping Secret down the front of her gown. Frustrated she looked up at Detective Davis. “Why is she still in these handcuffs? Have you ever thought she might need to go to the bathroom or anything? Besides, it’s not like she has forever to spend with her newborn baby. Are you seriously going to deny her being able to hold her in the little bit of time she does have? Who is your superior? I have a phone call to make.”

  “No need to make any phone calls,” Detective Davis said. “I was just about to remove those cuffs.” He shook the keys in his hand. “Something tells me I can trust Miss Miller.” He shot Secret a knowing look as he inserted the key into a cuff. “There you are,” he said after removing both cuffs.

  Secret rubbed her wrists but then turned her attention straight to her little one. She looked up at the nurse. “Can I hold her?”

  “Sure, but don’t you want to change out of that gown first?” The nurse frowned.

  Secret looked so desperate, like she couldn’t go one more second without holding her baby.

  “Hold on,” the nurse said, grabbing a towel and placing it down the front of Secret and over her shoulder. “There, that should work. Just lay her on the towel.” The nurse lifted the baby out of her bassinette and into Secret’s arms.

  The damn broke and tears flooded from Secret’s eyes.

  The detective started to feel a little uneasy and awkward standing there in the middle of this mother-infant bonding session. He cleared his throat. “I’ll just be right outside the door,” he informed them and then exited the room, closing the door behind him.

  “My baby,” Secret cried, rubbing her hair. “She’s so beautiful.”

  “Just like Mommy.” The nurse smiled. She looked up at the blood pressure machine realizing she hadn’t yet taken Secret’s blood pressure. It can wait, she told herself as she admired mother and child. “She’s such a little thing. No wonder I couldn’t even tell you were pregnant that day at the gas station.”

  Secret looked up at the nurse, whose eyes were glued on the baby. She looked at her nametag, which read RAY. Secret didn’t know a Ray from a gas station.

  “Gas station,” Secret mumbled under her breath. She thought for a moment and then it hit her. It came back to her where she knew the nurse from. “You’re the Good Samaritan. The day I got into it with my mom and she put me out; you let me use your cellphone to call for help. And you even waited around until my ride came and picked me up.”

  The nurse smiled. “Yep, that’s me. It was the middle of the night and you were dressed in a miniskirt, not to mention you looked like you’d just lost your best friend. I knew something wasn’t right.”

  Secret was excited that she’d finally been able to figure out who the mystery woman was. She looked her up and down again and stared at her face for a few more seconds. “Raygiene, that’s your real name, but you said your friends call you Ray.” Secret nodded toward her badge. “Just like your nametag says. You even had on your hospital scrubs that night.”

  “Yes, I had finished up my shift at the hospital and stopped for gas. I’d told myself before leaving work that I had enough to get home and to just do it the next day on my way to work. Call it an instinct or an inner voice, but I went ahead and got it over with. Good thing, too. I was there for you when you needed me.”

  “Yes, you were,” Secret said out loud and then thought, and hopefully you’ll be here for me again.

  Chapter 7

  Ray had spent the last ten minutes giving Secret instructions on caring for her baby. “I know some people insist on beating the baby on its back to get them to burp, but a nice rub really will do the trick.”

  “I see,” Secret said as she did as the nurse instructed after feeding her little one about an ounce or so of milk.

  A tiny burp echoed through the room.

  “I see,” Secret reiterated with a chuckle. “Mommy’s baby is a greedy gut,” she cooed. “Yes, she is.”

  “Right now, because she’s so little, sponge baths will be fine. It’s not like she’ll be going outside playing and needs a bubble bath or anything. Another nurse will be in to help you with all that. They’ll show you how to wash her little scalp to prevent cradle cap and all that.”

  “You sound like you’re the pro,” Secret said. “How many kids do you have?”

  “Who me? Oh please, I don’t have any.” She shooed her hand and looked away.

  Secret didn’t miss her attempt to downplay not having children. “But you want them don’t you?” Secret began wiping Dina’s mouth.

  Ray smiled. “Yeah, Ivy and I have talked about kids. We’ve been together for about four years now. It would be nice to hear the pitter patter of feet running about.”

  “So what’s stopping you guys?” She kissed Dina on the forehead.

  “I work at the hospital and Ivy’s band is just really starting to make a name for itself in the music industry. I want kids now, but Ivy doesn’t think the time is right just now. She wants to see how this music thing pans out, and I can’t—”

  “She?” Secret snapped her head up, now giving Ray her full attention. Two seconds after she’d said the word “she,” Secret realized how rude that might have come out. Secret had been too busy paying attention to Dina to realize Ivy was a female name, so that Ray had been talking about a girl, and not a guy, this entire time.

  “Yeah, Ivy. She’s my life partner.”

  Secret looked down at Dina. “I kind of understand where your girl is coming from a little bit. When I found out I was pregnant with Dina I had so many ambitions and aspirations. I felt guilty that for a minute there I wasn’t even going to have her. How could I take care of a baby while living out the dream I’d worked s
o hard for, which was going away to college?”

  “Gosh, you really do sound like Ivy.” She began to mock her. “‘How can you finish medical school to become a doctor and me win a Grammy if we’re changing diapers? ’” She rolled her eyes playfully. “But look at you. You decided to have your baby anyway. And I’m sure going to school and taking care of a baby is not easy, but—”

  Gloom covered Secret’s face. “I ended up not going to college.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t because I was pregnant. I had been banking on this full scholarship to The Ohio State University. I mean, I had worked my butt off, sacrificed enjoying everything most high school students enjoyed in their high school years. I was always studying and doing extra-credit work so that I could earn a full ride to college.”

  “What happened?” Ray asked.

  Secret shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. You tell me.” Secret stared off for a moment thinking about what could have been, how her life would have been completely different had she gotten that college scholarship. For one, she wouldn’t have had Dina. The only reason she changed her mind from getting an abortion was because she hadn’t gotten the scholarship. The main reason she’d wanted the abortion was because she wouldn’t have been able to take care of a baby and go away to college. She’d never had a job during high school. She didn’t have time to work and focus on her grades like she needed to. So she didn’t have any money saved up to even pay for a textbook.

  Asking her mother for any type of assistance when it came to college was out of the question. If Secret didn’t know any better, her mother was a coconspirator right along with Satan to see her fail. Her mother refused to help her in any way, shape, or form when she’d learned of Secret’s pregnancy. So Secret found herself alone and on the streets. It was Lucky and Shawndiece who had conspired to see Secret make it in life.

  Ultimately Lucky had turned on her though and Shawndiece was MIA. Now here stood Ray, who had sort of kinda conspired in a way to help Secret out. After all, if she hadn’t been there that night at the gas station for Secret, no telling what could have happened to her.