We tell the black community that they need to be peaceful and undisruptive if they want to be heard. Never mind that Martin Luther King’s marches blocked traffic or that social change in this country has almost never happened without public demonstrations that got big enough and loud enough so as not to be ignored. When people of color protest, we call it a riot and bring in riot gear. Peaceful protesters at Standing Rock were met with violence by with police in military gear. Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia were merely supervised by police in standard uniforms. And, when one the neo-Nazis killed a counter-protester, people ironically said that they shouldn’t have disrupted the demonstration.”
Victor paused to take a breath.
“Bear with me. I’m in speech delivering mode.” Victor chuckled, reaching for the glass of water that was placed aside for him.
He took a sip and held up one finger to ensure that the crowd remained quiet. He replaced the glass on the table beside the podium before he continued.
“But it is Black Lives Matter that is ‘too violent’ and ‘too disruptive’ and therefore, they don’t have a message worth hearing. When they can behave themselves, we’ll hear them out. The message has been undeniable: If people of color, particularly, black people want to be heard, first they should be quiet.
When members of the black community kneel during the national anthem, we scream over the disrespect toward the flag. The black community can protest, we say, but they need to find another way to do it. We don’t like this way.
People, you’re not supposed to like it. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable and draw your attention. That’s what protesting is. And guess what? It’s working. It has people all over America, even the world, talking. Now, it’s up to us to listen, understand, and fix it.
Instead, we are, as always, debating the means of protesting rather than the purpose. We call it unpatriotic even though protesting injustice is about as patriotic as you can get. We say that quietly kneeling is a slap in the face to veterans who fought for our freedom, conveniently ignoring the fact that our freedom includes the freedom to kneel.
We are collectively more upset about disrespecting our flag than we are about people being treated as second-class citizens and shamefully, often being killed. We’re willing to hear them out and fix the problem, we say, but only when the black people find a better means of telling us about the problem that we already know about.
At the end of the day, when the concern over respect for a flag is greater than our concern for people’s lives or when it’s even an issue when people are saying, ‘stop killing us’, we’re shining an ugly light on ourselves. Instead of standing with people who feel so disenfranchised by their own country that they can’t stand for the flag, we demand respect from a group of people who’ve been stomped on for generations before we’ll consider not stomping on them anymore.
I say this to my fellow Americans, if you’re angry about people kneeling during the National Anthem, maybe it’s time to stop and think about how marginalized and angry they have to be to refuse to stand. Think about the pride you have in your country, and then be ashamed of how that country treats some of its own people. We are that problem. And it’s time for us to do something about it instead of policing the tone of the people who are suffering.”
Victor, not expecting to the room to erupt with applause, sighed and took a step back from the podium. Renee stepped up a whispered in his ear.
“You love to make me earn this money, don’t you?”
Victor turned to her with a smirk. “That’s why you get paid the big bucks,” he teased.
“Great speech, Governor, but your white brethren are gonna be gunning for you.”
“Fuck ‘em,” Victor muttered.
Victor and Renee’s conversation ended when the room when eerily silent. The sound of phones ringing and buzzing reverberated throughout the press room. That kind of buzz meant a breaking story.
“Go, now, Governor,” Renee urged.
If it was breaking news and they both knew that any statements made or answers to questions would be unprepared and straight off the cuff.
Victor turned and hurried out of the press room. But not before he heard a reporter shouting at his back.
“Governor Creed, did you know that your wife was alive?”
Stunned by the question, Victor stumbled, thankfully, out of view of the cameras. He was rushed into a small office by Gregor. Renee was on his heels. In the past, she had never been anything but composed. But, as she stared at the breaking story on her iPad, her demeanor bordered around panicky.
“Governor, please tell me that you are just as shocked as I am. Tell me that you didn’t know anything about this,” she demanded.
Victor couldn’t lie. “I knew she was alive,” he admitted.
“What the fuck?!” Renee exclaimed.
Victor was taken aback. He’d never heard his press secretary use profanity. She was the epitome of calm rationality.
“What the fuck am I doing here? Why wouldn’t you tell me? This is some bullshit, Victor!”
Yep, that calm rationality shit just went out the window.
Victor knew that Renee was fuming because it was the first time that she’d addressed him so informally. She tossed the iPad on a table and pulled out her phone. She dialed hysterically and pressed the phone to her ear. “Cameron, my office now!” she shouted into her phone.
Cameron was Renee’s assistant. She ended the call and stuffed her phone in her briefcase. She turned to Victor and sat down in a chair at the table. Renee inhaled a deep breath and then exhaled it. After gathering her composure, she grabbed the iPad and handed it to Victor.
Victor looked at the picture and gasped. “What the fuck is…what the fuck is she doing?”
“She’s shopping at Tiffany’s,” Renee scoffed.
“I don’t…I gotta make a call.”
“First, I need you to tell me everything,” Renee requested calmly.
****
Gregor and his team ushered Victor through the sea of reporters from the Thompson Center to the dark SUV. They were hammering him with questions about Rosemary so much so as to suggest he’d forced her to fake her death so that he could gain a sympathy vote in the election.
Once he was safely tucked inside the vehicle, Victor pulled his phone out of his pocket. He needed to warn Taylor about the fallout. Renee climbed in next to him and Gregor hopped in the passenger’s seat.
“Take me to Lucas’ place!” Victor barked at the driver.
“No.” Gregor intervened. “I’m sorry, Governor. Your wife just put a huge target on her back. We won’t be taking you there.”
Victor ran his fingers through his already mussed hair and leaned back in his seat. He was worn and not in the mood to fight with his head of security.
“Can we summon them?” Victor asked in compromise.
“Yes, sir, we can work that out,” Gregor conceded.
“Great,” Victor muttered.
Victor hit the number two, speed dialing Kena. When she answered, he could tell by her tone that she’d seen the news
“Kenyatta, I need you to call Lucas, my other brothers, and Detective Devereaux right now. Tell them to meet me at the penthouse.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and Kenyatta?’
“Yes?”
“You tell Lucas that if he has to drag Rosemary by her hair, I want her in my apartment ASAP.”
“Will do, Governor,” she softly replied. “Umm, do you need me there?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?” The sound of real concern was bleeding from her voice.
“Yeah, I will be. Go on. Get it done. I’ll see you in a few.”
“Yes, Governor.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
BELLA
Bella poked her head into the autopsy room, which was NiYah’s domain.
“You rang?”
NiYah looked up with a smile despite the fact that she was ho
lding a human brain.
“Yeah, come on in.”
Bella frowned. I don’t want to. I hate it in here. It smells like old death and emptiness.
“Old death and emptiness?” Bella chuckled. “Da fuck does emptiness smell like?”
“It has a smell,” Bella quipped.
“I got work to do here.”
Bella was used to dead bodies. But, watching NiYah carve them open, she could do without.
NiYah placed the brain on a scale and returned to the body that she was working on. She was face deep in guts. Without looking up, she said, “I have something for you.”
Bella took one last breath of unscented air and walked into the autopsy room. She stood over the open cadaver, one of her female victims.
“Can’t you just call me?” Bella complained.
“Oh, my God, Bella. You see dead bodies all the time.”
“Yeah, but not their spleens!” Bella exclaimed. “What do you have for me?”
NiYah looked up at Bella and rolled her eyes. She covered the decedent with a sheet and pulled off her gloves.
“Well, for starters, that barcode was linked to a human trafficking ring from a few years back. It was run by some Russians.” NiYah washed her hands and walked over to a work table.
“How do you know this?” Bella asked.
“There were several women found in a van a few years ago. They were all logged with the same type of barcode. These women were mostly Eastern European.”
“Logged by whom?”
NiYah flipped through a couple of pages in the file. “It says here, Officer Natasha Walker and Officer Steven Shaw.”
It had all come together for Bella. Natasha, Victoria, Robert, and her three dead girls were connected to the same criminal enterprise. Shamefully, Bella had avoided launching a real investigation into Robert’s death. She knew that her cousin was into some shady things. And, for the sake of her aunt, Bella didn’t want to drag Robert’s skeletons out of the closet. Truthfully, it was just easier to blame Victoria and her associations.
“There’s more,” NiYah added, interrupting Bella’s thoughts.
“Okay?”
“Well, that beauty over there,” NiYah said, pointing to the dead girl. “She fought back. We pulled DNA from her fingernails and teeth.”
Bella instantly became excited. “Did you—”
“Send it to the lab? I did,” NiYah interrupted with a wide smile. “I rushed it. And I got a hit!”
Bella felt like dancing. She would have hugged NiYah if she wasn’t covered in dead juice.
“NiYah, NiYah, NiYah, you are the shit!” Bella squealed.
“I tried to tell ya,” NiYah joshed. She pulled a file from a cabinet and handed it to Bella.
“Happy hunting, Detective.”
If Bella could prove that the three dead girls were somehow linked to Rosemary, she could close both cases. The DNA profile couldn’t have come at a better time.
****
The uniformed officer walked over to Bella’s desk. He was stuffing his handcuffs back in the case on his duty belt.
“All good?” Bella asked.
“Yeah. He’s in interview 3.”
“Thanks, Todd,” Bella said with a smile.
She was outright giddy. She’d promised Lucas that she would take a few days off, but Bella hadn’t expected NiYah to hand her suspect. She couldn’t resist going in. She stood, grabbed a file folder and her notepad, and happily made her way to the interview room.
Bella opened the door and stepped inside. She smiled and placed the file and the notepad on the table that separated her from her suspect. He was handcuffed through a metal loop in the table. His irritation was evident as he shifted in the hard metal chair.
“Michael Anderson, I’m Detective Devereaux.
“Maybe you can give me some answers. Why the hell am I here?”
Bella was happy to explain. She took a seat across from him, opened the file, and showed him photos of the three dead girls. The look on his face told Bella that he had a fairly good idea as to why he was there.
“I will tell you this, Mr. Anderson: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Mr. Anderson, do you understand your rights? And with these rights in mind, I’d like you to realize exactly how fucked you are.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BELLA
Bella sat patiently in the chamber of The Honorable Judge Jessica Franklin. She was waiting for the judge to finish reading the warrants that she’d prepared. She was going over them with a fine-tooth comb. After all, it wasn’t every day that a warrant request to arrest a senior United States senator as well as warrant requests to search his home and office were placed on her desk. But Bella had crossed all T’s and dotted all I’s. Michael Anderson, Henry Craven’s security chief, had sung like a canary when Bella revealed that it was his DNA on the dead girl. His loyalty to the senator clearly hadn’t overshadowed his basic need for self-preservation.
While she waited, Bella turned to the judge’s television. Victor was giving a news conference.
“May I turn that up a bit, Judge.”
The judged looked up at Bella and then over to the TV.
“Oh, sure. I’ve been waiting for this press conference.”
She grabbed the remote from her desk and turned up the volume. She was about to return her attention to the warrants until Victor made an unflattering comment about the president. He went on to address the protests during the national anthem.
Victor’s eloquent condemnation of those offended by the players’ peaceful protest made Bella proud to know him. It was about time more white people stood up against the injustices inflicted on black people and other people of color. Bella looked over at the judge. And Bella had suspected that as a black woman, she agreed.
“Oooh, that man,” The judge crooned, closing her eyes. “Mm… mm…mmm.”
Bella laughed at the judge’s lascivious behavior.
Judge Franklin opened her eyes and giggled. “Girl, I wish I could summon that Caucasian to my chambers, so I can have my way with him. That Taylor Montgomery is one lucky sistah.”
Bella didn’t comment, she was too busy staring at a picture of Rosemary Creed shopping on Michigan Avenue.
What the fuck?!
When Judge Franklin reached for the pen on her desk, Bella was elated. But she needed to call Taylor. No one told her that they were gonna reveal the fact that Rosemary was alive. The judge signed the warrants. She stood and handed them to Bella. “Go get that son of a bitch, Detective,” she hissed.
****
Bella threw the driver’s door open and hopped out of her car with enthusiasm. She couldn’t wait to put handcuffs on the crooked senator.
Sergeant Carver climbed out of his unmarked vehicle and walked over to Bella. “You ready for this?”
“Real ready,” Bella quipped.
The tactical team that was lent to them by the watch commander began to pull up. Once they were out of their cars, Bella pulled them in for a huddle. They were divided into three teams: the entry team, security, and the search team. Two uniformed officers were to post up out front. Bella was going in with the entry team. She wanted to see the look on the senator’s face when he realized that life as he knew it was over.
One of the larger tactical officers went to his car and pulled out a battering ram and a Chicago bar out of the truck. They didn’t have a no-knock warrant, but they wanted to have tools on the ready in case the senator refused to open the door.
Just as they approached the property, three additional cars pulled up. Bella’s lieutenant, her commander, and the superintendent climbed out of each. Bella turned to her sergeant with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.
“What? I had to tell my supervisor. I guess he told his,” the sergeant defended with a shrug.
Bella turned back
to the house, ignoring the presence of the bosses. Since they hardly ever participated in the execution of a warrant, Bella was sure that they were only there, hoping for a photo op.
The entry team hurried up the long driveway. Bella followed close behind. Once they were near the massive double doors, the team fell to the side. Bella walked up and knocked hard on the door.
Less than a minute later, a small African American woman opened the door. “May I help you?”
“We’re here for Senator Craven,” Bella announced as she walked past the woman.
“The senator is in the shower!” the woman shouted. “What is this all about?”
One of the entry team members grabbed the woman by the arm and pulled her aside.
“Who else is in the house?” he asked her.
She stumbled as he dragged her into another room. Bella walked across the foyer.
“Search everything!” she yelled over her shoulder.
Bella found a staircase and climbed them to the top. Just as she turned down the hall, the senator burst through one of the doors wearing only a robe.
“What the hell is going out here?” he bellowed.
“Senator Craven, you’re under arrest for pandering, human trafficking, and conspiracy to commit murder.”
The senator turned as white as a sheet. There was no disguising the fear in his eyes. He knew that his time had come. “What?” the senator gasped, stumbling against the wall. “What are you talking about?”
“Michael Anderson, Senator.”
“What about Michael? He’s part of my security!” barked the senator.
“He gave you up,” Bella revealed with a satisfied grin.
At the sound of that, Senator Craven clutched his heart and dropped to his knees. Bella pulled out her cuffs. She walked over and stepped behind him, pulling his arms behind his body. Bella read him his Miranda rights as she secured the cuffs around his wrists.
Creed 2: Black Widow Page 13