by B. M. Hardin
Well, once Dakota goes to prison, I guess it’s safe to say that I’ll probably be alone…
Forever.
~***~
Chanel cried loud.
Her cries were so antagonizing that they made everyone else cry; including me.
I was a mess. I sat at the back of the church because I didn’t want anyone to see me. Though Chevey had been my best friend, everyone knew that my brother had killed her, and I was sure that a lot of them would take it out on me. And not to mention that I didn’t want to risk arguing with Chanel in front of everyone. So, I hid in a corner, at the back of the church, drowning in a pool of my own tears. It killed me that I could see Chevey’s face or touch her hand, just one last time. I wondered how her body looked after they’d held on to her body for so long.
I just had to be there. I wished that I could tell everyone how amazing she was and how much I loved her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything. All I could do is cry. I made it through the funeral, and just as the preacher was ending, I tip-toed out of the church before anyone noticed me. Well, at least I thought I had.
“Is your husband going to prison?”
I turned around to face Kenny. I hadn’t seen him following me lately, and I was hoping not to run into him there either. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Me too.”
“You and Chevey dated for what, three, or four months?”
“Long enough to fall in love. I don’t know if she told you, but I’m a lawyer. And I’ll be pulling every string that I can to make sure that he goes down for this.”
I shrugged. “Be my guest.”
I turned to walk away.
“By the way, did you tell the police that you rode by Chanel’s house that day? The day of the murder?”
“What?” My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach.
“The day of the murder. You rode by Chanel’s house. Why?”
Fear slapped me silly, but I knew that I had to say something, fast, or else he might really get suspicious.
“I was going to my brother’s house. He lives---well, he lived close to Chanel. I always take that way. I even told the police that I was trying to reach him. It was important. And when he didn’t answer, I decided to go over there. I told them that I was looking for him.”
“Then why didn’t you go by? To his house? I went by there. What’s her name…Ombre? I found the address on file, and I went by and asked his child’s mother if you’d come by there the day that he was killed. She said no.”
Damn it, Ombre! I hope that she hadn’t told him anything else.
“Actually, I did drive by. When I saw that his car wasn’t there, I didn’t stop. Instead, I tried calling his phone again. And I didn’t stop by Chanel’s because I didn’t care why the police were there. I didn’t know that it was something as serious as---,”
“Murder? As serious as your brother killing Chevey.” He finished my sentence. He pressed his lips together and placed his hands in his pockets.
“Okay, Yaya.”
“Okay, Kenny.”
To portray to him that I was unbothered, I smiled, just before walking away. I was sweating by the time that I’d made it to my car, and as he watched me drive away, I knew right then and there that Kenny, was about to become a problem. A big, heartbroken, vengeful problem!
And I was more worried, now, than ever before.
~***~
“Thank you for helping with the boys. It has been such a big help,” I said to Dakota’s mother.
She stared at me as she patted the homemade biscuits. “No problem. That’s what Grandma’s are for,” Dakota’s mother continued to stare at me. I felt as though she could see straight through me. She made me nervous, so I left her in the kitchen and headed to find Dakota.
It had been a while now, since everything had happened, and at this point, Dakota wasn’t saying much these days, at all. Not to me, or to anyone.
He’d stayed gone for four days that time that he’d left after our fight. I’d even gotten worried because no one had heard from him or seen him, and he wasn’t picking up his phone. And then on the fourth day, he walked back into the house, and didn’t say a word.
It had been weeks now, and he still wasn’t speaking. Not even to our kids. No matter how much they begged him to talk to them or play with them and no matter how many times I cursed him out, he never really said anything.
I’d even caught him crying, once, which completely threw me for a loop. I’d never seen him cry. Ever. Not when he was happy, or when he was sad. He just never cried. But secretly watching him that day, whimpering like a small child, broke my heart. It made me wish that I’d gotten to Chanel’s house that day, in time.
And he’d lost so much weight too. He was barely eating. Or bathing. I’d gotten so frustrated with his smell that one time, I’d mixed soap and water into a bucket, and tossed it on him. I guess he got the hint, because he went to take a shower that day, but still, he didn’t say one word to me.
He had a court date coming soon. And I figured that it was time that I tried to have a conversation with him.
“Hey,” I said to him as I sat beside him on the patio.
He was quiet at first. And then he cleared his throat.
“Hey.”
He spoke. His voice even sounded different. I guess because it had been so long since I’d heard it.
“Never would I have imagined that my life would come to this.”
“You’re not the only one that can say that Dakota.”
“I know. Okay Yaya, I cheated on you. It was wrong. I know that. But you aren’t the one that’s about to go to prison, for something that he didn’t do.”
Dakota exhaled.
“You’re right,” I said to him. I did feel bad about it all. I did feel guilty. But at this point, it was either him, or me, and for the first time, in ten years, I’m sorry, but…I had to choose me.
“I know that I’ve done a lot of wrong; to you and to my family. But I would never want to kill anybody. No matter the circumstances.”
“I’m not the one that you need to convince Dakota.”
“But you’re the one that I need. You’ve always been my rock and I don’t think I appreciated it or even realized it until now, because you’re not there. I’d gotten so used to you just being there when I needed you to be. I never really even thought about what life would be like if you were gone; if I lost you. And being in this situation, without your support, and without you believing that I’m innocent, tears me up inside, Yaya. Our lawyer is good; but even if he wins and gets me out of this mess, without you, a life without you, I still lose.”
I looked at him for a while. He stared at me. He allowed me to see through his eyes into his soul. I knew in my heart that he’d meant everything that he’d just said.
Oh my…what have I done?
~***~
I knew all of Chevey’s information; social security number, pin-numbers, and passwords. So, it didn’t take long for me to find the video of Chanel, that she’d had hidden in her e-mails.
It was the video that she’d talked about in her journal. It was a homemade porno of Chanel and some guy. It was before she’d gotten married, but somehow, one day while using Chanel’s phone, Chevey wrote that she’d come across it and e-mailed it to herself. I didn’t know why in the hell she would do that, or even want to watch it, but she had. I sure as hell never wanted to see my brother having sex, but maybe Chevey had her reasons.
Well, now it was in my hands.
And I wondered what I should do with it. I’d thought that I was done trying to get back at Dakota and Chanel. Truthfully, I’d done enough and I needed to be more worried Kenny or about what Karma was going to do to me, but an opportunity to leak your enemy’s, slash husband’s mistress, and could be baby-mama, sex tape, just didn’t come around every day.
And making things even better, after taking another look at Chevey’s journal, I noticed that she also had Chanel’s e-mail
address and her password written in it. She’d wrote it on the side of a page as though she’d been in a hurry, or as though Chanel had given it to her to do something. Chevey was always doing things for Chanel, like applying for jobs, or taking those aptitude tests that some of them required these days as a part of their hiring process, so maybe that’s why she had it. Either way, I had it now.
Smiling from ear to ear, I got my laptop and sat on my bed. I logged into Chanel’s e-mail account. Of course, immediately, I searched to see if she and Dakota had ever e-mailed back and forth. They hadn’t.
I then searched to see if her and her husband Jerome had e-mailed lately.
Jerome and I hadn’t seen each other since that day, and I was glad that we hadn’t because I didn’t want things to be awkward.
I skimmed through their e-mails, and then one of them caught my eye. It was an e-mail from Jerome to Chanel.
The e-mail heading said: Use this Account for Yaya. He’d sent her a checking account and routing number.
What? What did that mean?
I looked at the date. The e-mail was sent a few days after Chevey and Nick died.
Hmmm…
I changed my mind about sending the sex tape to her entire contact list, and I hurriedly logged out of Chanel’s e-mail.
I continued to think about Jerome and the e-mail.
What the hell was he up to?
Use this for Yaya? An account number?
I didn’t like the way that I was feeling all of a sudden. I didn’t know what to think.
Jerome knew that if I went down, so did he.
So, what’s with the checking account number and what does it have to do with me?
******************
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Thou Shall always remember that only the TRUTH, can set you free!”
“Can you come with me to meet the lawyer?” Dakota asked me, hopeful.
“No.”
He stood there, as if he wished that I would change my mind, but I didn’t.
Once he walked out of the front door, I headed to the window. He was hunched over in the front yard. As though he was tired, or about to breakdown. He turned around as if he was about to come back into the house, but shook his head, and headed for his car instead.
After the news of the safe coming out, Dakota had brought the money home from the office and put it in the safe that we had at home. The police hadn’t taken his money. They couldn’t prove that he was going to use it to pay my brother, and of course it was all clean, so they couldn’t take it. But I could.
I headed to his home office.
I punched in the code and opened it. I took a few stacks of it and stuffed it all into my purse. I closed the safe and then headed to get my keys.
After reading that e-mail from Jerome, I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but I wanted to see if I could get to Chanel first. And since we hated each other, I figured that dangling money in her face was the only option I had. The only thing that I had that she didn’t.
The boys and the dog were still with Mrs. Tilda, so I had some freedom to move around. It was time to pay a visit to Chanel. After cussing her out, I wasn’t sure how all of this was going to go, but I knew that I had to stay on top of the situation. My angle was the baby. Maybe I could say something about having my kids, know their sibling, despite how it was made; or something like that.
That would get us talking, and then I was going to see if she knew what her husband was up to. He’d obviously opened a bank account and he said to use it for me…for what?
When I arrived at Chanel’s house, Jerome’s car was gone, so, I headed to knock.
She hurriedly opened the door. Immediately, I looked down at her stomach---it was as flat as a pancake. She should have definitely been showing by now.
She looked at me as though she’d seen a ghost. I thought that she would yell, or be ready to fight, but she just stood there. And then she spoke.
“The lawyer contacted you?”
“Huh? No. Um, why?”
“Apparently, Chevey had a will and an insurance policy. The reading is next Tuesday. They said that they called you. They called me. Chevey left our numbers for them.”
I rarely answered my phone these days, so maybe they had.
“That’s not why I came by.” I paused. “Look, I just came by, to say, I don’t know, that, I guess---.”
“Ugh! Say what you mean, or shut the hell up already!”
See, it was her smart-ass mouth that I didn’t like! In that moment, I wanted to pull her tongue out of her mouth and stomp on it, but I was on a mission.
“My kids have a right to know their sibling, and---.”
“As you can see, I’m not pregnant anymore Yaya.”
“Oh, thank God,” I exhaled. Chanel folded her arms across her chest. “Look, we don’t like each other. And this situation, isn’t the best. We both lost her. And to be honest, I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”
Chanel held down her head. That’s it!
That’s how I get to her.
“And---,”
“The baby was never Dakota’s,” Chanel said.
“What?”
“It was never his. I lied to him. When I found out that he was also sleeping with some lady that worked for him, too, it pissed me off. So, I started being a bitch to him. I made it like there was a possibility that the baby could be his. Well, I more like convinced him that I was sure that it was his. But it wasn’t. Jerome was good to me, and I’d fooled around on him with Dakota, and for what? Only to find out that…”
“That you weren’t his only side bitch?”
I could kill her, right here, right now!
If she only knew that trouble that she’d caused.
“If that’s how you want to put it. But the baby wasn’t his. I’m positive. I was going to tell him, eventually. But the baby was my husband’s. The few times that Dakota and I did forget to use protection, I always used the morning after pill. Every single time. So, I was just lying to him to make him miserable. To watch him sweat. To hold something over his head.”
“But he said something about you going to the abortion clinic,” I lied. I’d seen her with my own eyes go there that day. If the baby was never Dakota’s, why was she trying to get rid of it?
“I didn’t want the baby because of what I’d been doing to Jerome. I felt as though it just wasn’t the right time. So, being that I had Dakota believing that it was his, he gave me the money for the abortion. But I didn’t do it, at least not that time. I changed my mind. I’d been trying for so long. But I had no idea that it would cause all of this mess. I didn’t deserve to have a baby. I didn’t deserve much of anything. So, a few days after her death, I went back and had the abortion. Only something went wrong. And now…the doctors are saying that I will never be able to get pregnant again. I’ll never be able to have kids. I guess that’s part of my punishment, for lying and for what happened to Chevey. All because of me.”
My mouth was hanging wide open, but something that she’d just said caught my attention.
“What you mean what happened to Chevey was because of you?”
Chanel looked at me. “They say that the truth will set you free, right?” Suddenly she stopped. I could see that she was changing her mind and without finishing her sentence, she turned around, and slammed the door closed in my face.
Huh?
~***~
********************
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Thou shall honor your mother…AND your wife.”
“Mrs. Ramsey.”
I forgot that Kenny was still around.
I hadn’t seen him in a while, but here he was.
“Going to hear the reading of her will?”
“How do you know that?”
“I helped her write it. Though I wasn’t her lawyer; I still helped.”
“Oh.” I tried to walk away, but he spoke again.
“She loved you. But you know that a
lready. Don’t you?”
“We were best friends. Of course, she loved me.”
“No. I mean really loved you. I was her “because she knew that she could never have you” plan. I’m not complaining. But she loved you more than I’m sure you deserved.”
“And what right do you have to say that to me? How do you know what I deserved?” He was starting to piss me off! He was a nobody to Chevey, compared to me, and I’ll be damn if he was going to act like what he was feeling from her death was more or bigger than the hurt and guilt that I felt because of it.
“I just know. It’s such a shame that you helped kill her.”
I spun around to face him so fast that it almost made me dizzy.
“Excuse me? I did not help kill her! And don’t you ever say that again! Better yet, don’t you bring your suit-wearing, corny-looking ass around me no more! Or I’ll see what I can do about harassment!”
“And I’ll see what I can do about murder. You see, now that I’ve been thinking, and looking into a few things on my own, I don’t think your husband tried to kill her. I think you did. Why? I don’t know that yet. From what I found out about the case, maybe it was because your husband loved her. Maybe you already knew of his feelings for her, and just hadn’t said anything. Or maybe you really were after Chanel, and your brother simply shot the wrong twin. I don’t know. But I have this feeling, that it was you. It was you who put your brother up to it all, even if everything points to your husband. And if I look long enough---,”
“You won’t find a damn thing! Fuck you! Don’t come back around me, and don’t ever talk to me again! Goodbye!”
I stormed up the steps and pushed through the glass doors.
“No. No. No. No.” I mumbled over and over again. I was already worried about what Jerome was up to and all the while, Kenny, was out to find the truth.
This was not good! This was not good at all!
I breathed slowly, to keep from screaming as I entered the lawyer’s office.
Chanel was already there.
I sat in front of her. She didn’t even look in my direction.
“Hello Ladies. Before I get started. She wanted me to read you a letter: