The Dirty Red Series

by Vickie M. Stringer

  “Well . . .” He shrugged. “Why are you trippin’ off of that? You fuckin’ him, too?”

  “No, I ain’t fucking him,” Foxy told him truthfully. “He’s just a good person and you trying to kill him over a bitch who don’t give a damn about either of you. Why are you so concerned about Q anyway?”

  He shoveled the last bit of spaghetti into his mouth, then got up and threw the plate away.

  “No reason, just making conversation, Foxy.”

  Foxy knew something was up. He never asked about anyone unless it was for a specific reason and he wasn’t one just to make conversation. Bacon had too much of an interest in Q, usually was about that scandalous bitch Red, but Foxy noticed he hadn’t even bothered to ask about her ass. She decided right then and there that she was going to use her street connections to find out what was going on. She knew that Bacon wasn’t going to tell her the truth, but maybe she could gain a little information through pillow talk.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  With each passing week, Q was getting stronger. He was released to an inpatient rehabilitation unit where he was to undergo physical therapy for the next three to six months.

  Q lay back in his bed and tried to remember the shooting. Chass had told him about it, but the memory was somewhat blurred because of his drunken state. He remembered Red pointing a gun at him, but he knew that she wouldn’t actually pull the trigger on him. There was something else he was forgetting. He was confused about why Red hadn’t been to visit him and the longer she stayed away, the angrier he became. I’m going to have a limp for the rest of my damn life, and I got this damn shit bag on my side. Fuckin’ bitch. I swear, if I ever run into her again, I will—

  Just before Q could finish his thought, Chass walked in.

  “Hi, Quentin!” She happily bounced over to where Q was resting and placed a kiss on his forehead. “How you feeling?”

  “I’m good. Just waiting for my therapist to come.”

  She smiled at him.

  “What’s that smile for?” Q asked.

  “Nothing in particular. I’m just happy that you’re alive and you’re getting better.”

  Q looked at her and smiled back. “Chass, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “The day everything happened, how did you know?”

  She looked at him and didn’t know if she should tell him. She was enjoying her time with him and wanted to let everything happen as it was supposed to. She remembered having a long speech she was going to give him that day, but she decided against it. Her being with him through all of this should tell him what he needed to know.

  “Quentin, can we not talk about that day anymore? I really don’t want to think about that—I almost lost you. You’re on the road to recovery now. Let’s not mess up anything by talking about the past, okay?”

  Q looked at her and wondered what she was trying to hide. The silence was thick in the air but then Chass’s cell phone rang, granting a reprieve.

  She fished around in her bag to find it. “Hello,” she said frantically, hoping she hadn’t lost the caller.

  “Ms. Reed,” a voice said.

  “Yes?”

  “Detective Thomas.”

  “Oh, hi, Detective.”

  “How’s Mr. Carter?”

  “He’s doing a lot better.” She looked at Q and beamed. “Actually, he’s been moved to Scott’s rehab facility. He’ll be walking again in no time.”

  “That’s great,” the detective told her truthfully. He hated to see a young brotha be taken out by nonsense. “Would you mind if I talk to him for a minute? I need to ask him something about that night.”

  Although she was an attorney, Chass didn’t mind him speaking to Q. She was going to help the detective find whoever it was who tried to kill Q and help to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. She didn’t want Q to know she was in cahoots with the detective, though. This was between him and her.

  “You want to talk to Quentin?” she announced to give Q enough time to decide if he wanted to talk to him.

  Q shook his head and hand no, but Chass continued, “Sure, I’ll put him on the phone.”

  With his lips turned upward in disgust, Q reluctantly took the phone.

  “Hello,” he said in a flat tone.

  “Mr. Carter. I’m glad to hear you’re doing better.” Q remained silent. “We’re still working on your case but I’m afraid we’re coming up with no leads. I’m going to get the surveillance tapes from that night. Once I get them, would you mind going over them with me to see if you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Yeah,” Q spoke. “When are you trying to come by?”

  “In a few days. I’m working on something else but I could probably get to you on Thursday.”

  “Okay, Detective,” Q told him. He handed the phone back to Chass.

  Chass spoke to the detective briefly then hung up.

  “What did he want?” she asked.

  “He wants to bring the surveillance tapes by here and see if I notice anything suspicious.”

  “You up to it?”

  “Guess I’ll have to be.”

  Q’s therapist walked into the room. “Are you ready, Mr. Carter?”

  Chass noticed she was a young pretty woman. She resembled Red, only with dark brown hair. She also noticed how Q’s eyes lit up upon seeing her and he perked up.

  “Yes, I’m ready.”

  The cute therapist helped Q into his wheelchair and rolled him out the door.

  She looks like that bitch, Red. Is he truly over her? Chass wondered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kera looked in the mirror and didn’t like what she saw. Her skin had become ashen and flaky. Her hair was brittle and she looked like she was going to unravel at any minute.

  She was getting ready for her monitored, court-ordered visitation with baby Mekel and she wanted to look good. She hated that her visits had to be supervised, but if that was what it took to see her son and Mekel again, then that was what she had to do.

  Looking down at her wrists, she cringed. She had been cutting herself for some time now. In fact it had become a habit whenever she was stressed. She knew that she could not see her son with visible cuts and scars on her arms, so she opted to wear quarter-length sleeves and cover the fresh wounds with gauze and white tape.

  She got into her old station wagon and drove to Terry and Mekel’s house and waited for a representative from the courts to show up.

  Looking at the house, Kera became angry again. “It should be me up in that bitch,” she said to herself.

  Just then, a sleek Honda Accord drove up and parked behind her. A white woman was driving. The woman got out and flounced toward Kera’s car.

  “Kera?” she asked. “I’m Reisa, and I will be supervising your visitation with your son today.”

  “Great, let’s go.” Kera got out of the car and headed slowly up the walkway to the front porch.

  “Are you okay to do this?” Reisa asked.

  “Yes, it’s just kind of awkward,” Kera replied.

  “I understand.”

  Kera stood in front of the doorbell, counted to three and rang it.

  Within moments, Terry opened the door with Mekel Jr. in her arms.

  Eyeballing Kera, and only because the social worker was with her, Terry held the door open for both of them. “Come on in.”

  The ladies stepped inside and were taken aback by the home’s splendor.

  “Let’s go into the great room,” Terry said, still carrying lil’ Mekel.

  The women followed her. They sat down, then the social worker spoke. “Terry,” the social worker said, “will you please give Kera her son.”

  Terry looked at Kera, then back at the baby, who was fully awake. She handed him over to her.

  “Be careful.” Terry spoke in a motherly tone. “He still doesn’t have full control of his neck muscles.”

  Kera allowed Terry to place her son in her arms and once
she had him, she looked at his face tenderly.

  “My baby,” she sang. She pulled him close to her and hugged him tightly. Inhaling deeply, she took in his scent, then pulled him away and took a good look at him. He was thriving and growing. Lil’ Mekel looked at Kera and his eyes became quizzical. He gave a few heavy breaths and his bottom lip protruded as best it could. Next came a wail that Kera hadn’t expected. Startled, she almost dropped him, but Terry and the social worker were there to prevent anything from happening.

  Terry caught the baby and took him from Kera. “It’s okay,” she told the infant, patting his back and walking back and forth.

  “Terry, I’m—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Kera. You almost dropped him.”

  Kera noticed how Mekel stopped crying when he was in Terry’s arms.

  Her heart cried. My own son doesn’t even want anything to do with me anymore, she said to herself.

  Seeing the bond that Terry and her son had, Kera knew she couldn’t compete with that.

  “I’m ready to go now,” she told the social worker.

  “Are you sure?” Reisa had noticed the same thing.

  “Yes.”

  Without saying a word to Terry, or even saying good-bye to her son, Kera got up and headed for the front door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Red was growing stronger with each passing day. She played the submissive role that Bacon wanted her in and played it well. She fucked and sucked him whenever he wanted as well as whenever she wanted it. Doing what she was told without asking questions gained Bacon’s trust more and more. He had moved her from the jail-like confines of the brownstone back into the mansion with him. At first, Bacon still didn’t trust her and had cameras monitoring the exterior and interior of the home, but she was so compliant with his wants and needs, he had even taken to turning those off sometimes. He was watching her less and less each day, and giving her more and more freedom. Her plan was working.

  This particular day, he returned from handling some business and found Red in the same place he had left her. On the couch, watching TV. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator. Strolling back into the great room, he walked past Red, sat down next to her on the couch and picked up the remote.

  “Wait, I’m watching this!” Red told him.

  “Man, the Cavaliers are playing. Don’t nobody want to see no Lifetime bullshit!” Bacon told her. “All this bullshit is the same. A nigga done killed his bitch, a nigga done beat his bitch, a bitch done disappeared and got a new identity. Man, you watching this shit like you getting some ideas and shit.”

  Red laughed.

  “You know you can’t disappear on me,” Bacon told her. “I’ll find your ass or let them folks find you.”

  “Disappear on you? You think anyone else can take care of me the way you do, Bacon? I don’t think so and I ain’t stupid. I’m here.”

  “Good muthafuckin’ answer. That’s what I want to hear.”

  “It’s almost over, Bacon,” Red begged. “I want to see how she gets justice.”

  “Get justice? Why you want to see that?”

  “Because it’s personal.”

  “Personal how?”

  “If only you knew my story,” Red said softly.

  Bacon saw that something was bothering her. He reached out and put his arm around her. “What’s wrong?”

  “My mother’s boyfriend Jerome did the same thing to me that this little girl’s stepfather did to her,” Red told him.

  Bacon glanced at the TV and then back to Red. “What are you saying?”

  “I was molested when I was a child.” Tears fell from her eyes.

  “What?” Bacon declared.

  Red nodded, and began crying harder. “He forced me to have sex with him for years.”

  Bacon couldn’t believe his ears. “What do you mean he forced you to have sex with him?” He looked at her and waited for an answer.

  “He did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell somebody and stop him?”

  “I tried to,” Red said. “I told my mother. I was a six-year-old girl telling her what happened and she didn’t believe me. When I told her again when I was ten—”

  “Wait a minute, he did this to you for four years?”

  “Yes. But when he started giving me things, that’s when she started to take notice. When I got tired of him fucking me, I told her again; and then she told me I had to get out.”

  “Yo’ mama did that?”

  “Yes. I grew up being molested, and not thinking that I was worth shit. I grew up thinking that it was my fault, and that I was trash.”

  Bacon pulled her close. “Stop crying. That shit ain’t your fault. You was a kid.”

  “I was a child.”

  Bacon shook his head. “Man, that shit is foul.”

  “That’s why I am the way I am. I grew up not being able to trust nobody, not even my mother. And if you can’t trust your own mother, who can you trust? I didn’t have anybody but myself growing up, Bacon. So I had to look out for myself. It was a survival game.”

  “Red, you better not be lying to me and making this bullshit up.”

  “You think I would lie about something like this?” Red asked angrily.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me this shit before?”

  “How could I?” Red said, sniffling. “What was I supposed to say, ‘Hi my name is Raven, and I’m damaged goods’?”

  Bacon felt fucked up inside. “Damn, baby, don’t say that. You not damaged goods.”

  “That’s how I felt my whole life. That’s the secret that I’ve carried with me all these years. People don’t understand. They think that I’m just some dirty bitch out for myself. But the truth is, all my life I grew up without love and trust. I didn’t know how to love or commit to something or somebody. All I knew was how to look out for Red.”

  Bacon nodded. Now he understood her better.

  “I’m sorry, Bacon.”

  “What?” He looked into her eyes. He couldn’t believe those words came from her lips and they sounded sincere.

  “I’m sorry that I abandoned you when you needed me. I didn’t know any better. I ran away because I was still that same scared little girl inside.”

  Bacon didn’t know what to say. She’d hit him where it really hurt. “Damn, Red, you know how to hit a nigga deep.” All this time he hadn’t really understood Red, or why she was the way she was, but now he did. She couldn’t give loyalty and love, because she didn’t know it. No one gave it to her as a child. She wasn’t fucked up, she was just abused. It would take a real nigga to show her how to love, and how to be a rider for real. And now he was really fucked up, because he had damaged her even worse. He had piled more shit on top of what her mother’s boyfriend and her mother had done to her. Red didn’t need to be broken, he thought. She needed to be built up and shown love. She ain’t never apologized for this before, so I know she being real with me. She looked me in my eyes and apologized.

  Bacon realized she really had a reason for being the way she was. Red had a way of fucking people’s heads up, especially niggas that she fucked with. She had the looks to make niggas act a fool over her and now she was fucking him up with her heart. She had opened up to him in a way that he knew she hadn’t opened up to anyone else. Bacon marveled at the thought that Red was finally becoming his.

  Bacon pulled Red close and wiped her tears away. He kissed her, repeatedly, and she reciprocated by kissing him back. She felt herself lean back on the couch. She wanted him to make love to her. Bacon unbuttoned Red’s pants, slid them off and then tossed them on the floor. He pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor as well.

  Breathing heavily, Bacon and Red stripped each other’s clothing off until they were completely naked. There was something different between them now. Something that drew them to each other. Instead of roughly entering Red, Bacon held her closely to comfort her, then he gently slid himself inside of her. In slow
, rhythmic movements, they enjoyed the feeling that each gave to the other. They made love on the couch and for Bacon, it was the first time.

  After it was over, the two showered, got dressed and went back to the couch. Red broke the silence after a few minutes.

  “What just happened?” she asked.

  “It was different, wasn’t it? Better.”

  Red smiled.

  Bacon rose from the couch, walked into the bedroom and returned moments later with a stack of cash. “Here.” He handed it to her.

  “What’s this for?” she asked, looking at the crisp bills.

  “Go out and get you some more clothes,” Bacon told her. “Get your hair and nails done, and handle your business.”

  Red looked at him. He was still sitting.

  “What are you waiting for?” he asked her.

  “I can’t go anywhere without you,” she reminded him.

  Bacon took one long look at Red and spoke sternly. “You go handle your business.” He tossed her the car keys. “Do you, ma.”

  Red smiled. “Thank you, Bacon.” Her plan was definitely working. He trusted her enough to let her go out on her own. Red knew that she was his downfall. She was now free to move around and it was now time to accelerate the pace of her plan dramatically. And all it took was a sad story and a little ass.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Red parked the large Range Rover in a parking space and stepped out. She had on a pair of low-rise dark denim jeans, a fitted black House of Deréon shirt and a pair of her favorite stilettos. Her long hair bounced as she stepped toward the salon.

  Walking past a group of men, Red didn’t allow herself to get distracted by them trying to holla at her. She was focused on her task at hand involving Bacon, so she also wasn’t fooling around and missing her appointment. There was no way she was going to get sidetracked. She and Bacon were going on a trip to Mexico in the morning and she had to look her best.

  Three weeks had passed since Bacon had given her more freedom and now she had a standing weekly hair and nail appointment at the salon.