CHAPTER 13
BLOOD MOON . . . BLOODY MONEY
“So when exactly was you gonna tell me you knew for sure Rah was back?” Ris didn’t wait five seconds for the limo to start moving before she started in with the questions.
“Damn, Larissa, I just found out my damn self.”
“You ain’t think I needed to know dat shit? What was you tryin’a do, make friends wit’ his ass or somethin’ before you told me?”
I was not in the mood. I just wanted to hold my babies, make sure they were okay, and get past this new chapter of bullshit as quickly as possible.
“Look, I handled the shit okay? What the fuck good would it have done if I did tell you, aside from have your ass worried too?” I’d started grinding my teeth so hard my jaw hurt. I stared out the window, content with watching what little traffic there was on the road at 4:00 A.M. whiz by, anything to keep me calm until we got to the house, anything to keep Ris from bringing up all of her insecure-ass doubts about Rasheed. I let my eyes wander and focus on the moon glowing a bright reddish orange in the distance. It was so big it looked like I could reach right out and touch it.
“Do you miss him? I mean y’all was togetha for a long-ass time. Ain’t nothin’ wrong wit’ missin’ the nigga.”
She was pushing my damn buttons.
“If I was wit’ a nigga for that long, I’d pro’ly miss his ass. Even after bein’ wi’chu all this time. I can’t even lie. But unlike how you do me I probably wouldn’t lie to yo’ ass ’bout it, Michelle.”
“How many times do I have to tell you I don’t miss that nigga? Stop fuckin’ askin’ me. Stop bringin’ it up. Just fuckin’ stop! And why you ain’t tell me Keyshawn came by the damn house?” I was so pissed my voice cracked.
“He just came by to bring me my autographed ball. Said you weren’t answerin’ his calls. Why you gettin’ so mad if you ain’t got nothin’ to be mad for?”
Her question made absolutely no fucking sense. I didn’t know where it came from but it was there. I felt outright rage. Maybe it was because I was under too much stress, I wasn’t sure. My hand went across Ris’s face so fast her head snapped to the side and still it didn’t feel like enough. All the shit I did for her, everything I bought for her, everything I did, I did to make her ass happy and I didn’t get anything in return for it but bullshit.
My entire world revolved around Larissa and the kids and making sure they had everything they needed. Suddenly it was all too much for me. Ris was staring at me, holding her cheek, disbelief written all over her face at the fact that I’d even dared to hit her. In that moment I didn’t see her as a wife, or a partner, lover, or a friend. She was a possession. I clothed, fed, watered, provided, and she’d take, took, and keep taking.
My rationale was nothing like anything I’d ever thought of before but the fact that she’d dare to question me relentlessly and challenge me and then tonight she would be so bold as to offer my body to another woman as consolation for a bet she lost! Growling like a mad woman I lunged across the limo. There was nothing that I wanted more in that single moment than to just choke the living fuck out of her dumb ass.
“Michelle, what da fuck is wrong wi’chu?” she shrieked, drawing her knees into her chest. Larissa kicked at me but I just grabbed her legs, digging my fingers into her thighs, purposefully bruising her, trying to hurt her.
“Whoa now! There’s no need fer all that.”
I was grabbed by my shoulders and pulled backward out of the limo. I was so caught up in my anger I hadn’t even noticed that we’d stopped. I gave Larissa one last glare before straightening myself up and turning to Jim. Damn I was gettin’ out of shape. It took me a few deep breaths before I could speak.
“Sorry about that, Jim. Please tell me what’s going on.”
He looked shyly toward Ris, who was now starting to climb out of the car. Her hair was a bird’s nest on top of her head and I’d torn her fishnet top and broken one of her heels. I was so glad Jim already knew who she was, because I’d hate trying to explain why I was but really wasn’t just trying to beat a stripper’s or a call girl’s ass in my limo.
“Well, like I said on the phone I didn’t want to alarm ya. Jackson, over there, works for the Miami PD. He’s already started the forensics so we won’t have any issues.”
“Wait, forensics? I thought you said the kids were fine.” No, I know I heard him say that there was nothing wrong with my babies. I know I wasn’t that damn out of it when we talked. I was shaking my head back and forth, my eyes filling with tears and my heart splitting in half because I was already thinking the words that no mother wants to hear.
“Right. Right. The kids were taken to get somethin’ to eat. We had to get ’em away from here. Didn’t want ’em seein’ too much more than they might already have.”
Jim needed to hurry the fuck up and explain to me what was going on, because if he hadn’t noticed I was in an ass-whooping mood, and not only did I not see my babies but I had no clue where Rasheed was at or if he was dead or alive.
“Okay, Jim, I need the CliffsNotes version. I can’t take this long, drawn-out shit.”
“Ahhh, well. Blood on the moon tonight. Reckon we should have known somethin’ would be afoot somewhere. Darla was stabbed in the livin’ room on the couch. We have her over there in the truck if you’d like to see her.” He started to walk toward the truck and Ris and I followed him. Hearing that Darla didn’t make it and knowing it could have been me or Ris made me immediately regret how I’d treated her on the ride home. I put my arm around her in an attempt to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry I got that mad at you,” I whispered to her as we followed Jim. It suddenly dawned on me that the “her” he was referring to wasn’t Darla. There was someone sitting in the back of one of the cars Jim approached. I recognized Keith from the highway and exchanged a polite smile with him.
“See now from what we can tell, she swam in from the ocean and climbed up to that third-story window that was left open ’round back. Keith was the first one inside after hearin’ Darla scream, an’ apprehended her. The li’l ones were asleep, didn’t see it happen.” Jim swung open the driver’s side door and the interior light beamed on. Ris and I both stared at the younger black woman in the back seat but neither one of us recognized her. I shook my head at Jim.
“She ain’t got no ID. Won’t talk either. I was hoping maybe y’all would know who she might be.”
I stared harder at the girl in the back of the car. Rah was good for conning young women; that’s what he did for a living at the strip club. He conned women out of their bodies, their youth, their money, and eventually their minds. She couldn’t have been any older than nineteen, maybe twenty, very slender and dark skinned, her hair cut into a edgy, curly Mohawk; nothing like the princess-dancer types Rah messed with back home. She refused to make eye contact with any of us, content with staring down at the floor in the car. I didn’t place her face and couldn’t figure out how or when I would have ever run into her in Florida or Virginia. I’d turned to walk toward Jackson, who was now calling the scene into the police, when I heard a whisper.
“Blood for blood money.”
“What ye’ say there, young lady?” Jim approached her, his head tilted to the side.
I didn’t need her to repeat it. I’d heard her loud and clear and I knew exactly what it meant, but this was so unlike Rah to send a woman to do his dirty work. There had to be a reason why he wouldn’t have come himself.
“Jim, where exactly did you send my kids?”
“Just down the street with David and Jacob. There was a little twenty-four-hour diner where they could get pancakes an’ cocoa while we cleaned up and got the nanny’s body outta the house.”
Panic was coursing through my system. Did Rasheed send that girl here as a decoy? Was she supposed to distract us, or do something to flush us out on purpose so he could get to the kids? I didn’t think anymore, I just took off running.
“Baby? Where you
goin’?”
I didn’t answer Ris. There wasn’t any time. I’d explain after I had my kids in my arms. Until I saw that they were okay there was no room for anything else.
My car was blocked in on one side of the driveway by Jim and the other guys’ vehicles. I ran into the house and grabbed Ris’s car keys from the ring beside the front door. I didn’t dare look into the living room. I was too scared to see Darla and all the blood. I ran out into the garage and climbed into the red convertible. It was the only car on the side of the garage that I could get out so the kids would just have to sit in each other’s laps when I picked them up. I’d risk a ticket, fuck it.
I pressed the garage door opener and sped out. Jim and Ris both called after me but I didn’t stop. I had to get to Trey and Lataya before Rasheed did, or at least if he was already there maybe, just maybe, I could talk him out of whatever he was planning on doing. The diner Jim mentioned was no more than a few blocks away and the sun was just starting to come up, illuminating the layer of dust on Ris’s car. I made a note to get all of the cars washed later.
I could see the sign for the diner and signaled, braking to turn into the parking lot. The kids were coming out with two big guys on either side of them. They looked fine, smiling and laughing, and I smiled for the briefest moment before realizing that the digital gauge on the Benz was accelerating on its own. I stomped the brake pedal with everything I had but the car kept speeding up.
The sun was back in my eyes again and I pulled down the visor. That’s when I noticed the slender, small, feminine handprint in the dust on the hood and I realized what that girl was doing in our house. She hadn’t come for the kids. Darla must have seen her, or caught her off guard when she was trying to get out of the house. I threw up the parking brake.
“Shit.” It didn’t do a damn thing. She must have disengaged it.
Fortunately it was early enough that there were barely any cars on the road on a Saturday morning and I was praying like I’d never prayed before as the car hit eighty, eighty-five, and ninety. I could see Jim’s men in the rearview speeding to catch up with me. My heart felt like a runaway train in my chest; it was thudding so painfully I could barely breathe. At 145 miles per hour I could barely keep the car on the road, and I was coming to an area where I knew I wasn’t going to make it. The turn was too sharp and I was going too fast to jump out.
Squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as possible I turned the steering wheel, praying that maybe, just maybe, I could Tokyo drift or do some kind of donut and keep-it-moving shit I’d seen in movies. For that split second the only sound I heard was my breath as I inhaled what I thought would be my last one. Piña colada air freshener and new car leather would be the last smells I’d ever smell. The tires screamed and the best way to describe the body-jarring effects of slamming into a concrete wall is that it sounded and felt like God Himself put His foot down in the form of an underpass and I’d run right into it. Glass shattered as the passenger side crumpled, the car frame bending around me like a tin can tomb.
My life didn’t flash before my eyes. I didn’t relive all my happiest moments. In the blink of an eye I went from scared shitless to pitch black.
CHAPTER 14
I SAID—LOVE IS A HELLUVA DRUG
“Michelle? Try to squeeze my finger if you can hear me.”
Ugh. Who is this squawking-ass woman in my ear? My head was killing me and my mouth felt like straight yuck. Like I hadn’t brushed my teeth or drunk anything since who knew when. I felt so tired. I didn’t even bother trying to open my eyes. All I wanted to do was drift back into the dark silence that I’d somehow slipped out of.
“I need you to squeeze, Michelle.”
“Scream.” My voice sounded crackly and froggish to my own ears. I could barely speak above a groggy, funky whisper. I tried and, damn it, I couldn’t squeeze shit. But if she didn’t shut the fuck up . . .
“What? Say it again. Use your words, Michelle. Say it to us again.”
Oh my God, I groaned to myself, will she ever stop? I just wanted some ice water and lots of sleep.
“Shut. Fuck. Up. Scream.” It took all the energy I had to get those words out, but whoever the fuck she was left me no choice; she’d refused to let up.
“Well, you are definitely a gutsy one. I think everything will be just fine, Larissa. You can come and talk to her if you’d like; she can definitely hear you.”
“Hey, Chelle.”
God, if I weren’t so tired . . . I tried to say “hey” back to my baby but I was just so damn weak. It felt like the life had somehow been drained out of me and all I was left with was this darkness. Ris sounded so pitiful. I could her sniffling and blowing her nose, and all I could recall was me hitting her and being so nasty to her.
“I love you so much, bae, an’ I hope you can forgive me.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to forgive her for when I was the one who acted like a complete fool, hittin’ her and shit. Maybe she just meant she was sorry for her being an all-around bitch for the last few weeks. I smiled in my mind and let myself drift back into that quiet, dark place, praying that Bird Bitch wouldn’t come back for at least a few hours so I could get some rest.
When I’d finally come to my senses I found out I was in Memorial Hospital. The car wreck put me in a coma for a week and I slept off and on for a good week afterward. Ris and the kids came to see me every day and I could remember vague bits and pieces of hearing Trey’s or Lataya’s little voices saying they loved me or asking me to wake up. Ris said tears would roll down my face when the kids would talk to me but aside from that I was pretty much unresponsive. I even thought I’d heard Keyshawn’s voice a few times, but I could have been dreaming. Thankfully, even though the car was totaled, I didn’t suffer any serious injuries. Still, no one could believe I’d survived the crash. They’d been doing all types of blood work and screenings, trying to make sure I was at 100 percent and clear to be released, when Dr. Traverson came in. As soon as she spoke I immediately knew who she was.
“Michelle, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” She glanced at Ris. “Alone please.”
I nodded for Ris to wait outside so Bird Bitch and I could have this private convo.
“Okay, what seems to be the problem?”
“The toxicology reports came back from the lab. Now, initially we asked you several times, upon waking, if you were a user of any types of recreational substances, legal or illegal.”
I stared blankly at her, waiting for further explanation, not completely understanding where this was going. “I don’t use drugs, Dr. Traverson. Never have. I did leave a party and did have a few drinks. I told you that, and my wife told you that also.” I was now frowning at her, confused as to why she would insist on asking me these same questions damn all over again.
“I understand your dilemma. You have young children in a same-sex household. A drug-related automobile accident and investigation would not bode well for you or your children, I’m sure.”
“What the fuck does my sexuality or how I raise my children have to do with any of this? I don’t use drugs. Someone did something to my Benz. I was almost murdered and you have the nerve to come after me? Jim Bartell can vouch for all of this, any mechanic can look at my car and tell you it was tampered with.” My head was starting to pound and the IV in my hand was itching, aggravating me. For a second, I debated on snatching the thing out of my skin and just marching my ass right out of that damn hospital.
“The toxicology report shows you had pretty high levels of cocaine and ketamine in your system, Michelle. We kept you sedated initially as a means of rehabilitation, to ease the withdrawal symptoms. Would you like to tell me, on average, about how often you use?” She waited and I stared at her like she was a complete idiot.
“Michelle, we have several very highly recommended and very confidential programs I’d like to recommend to keep you from relapsing once we release you.”
“Oh hell no, there has got to be some kind of
mix up. I . . . I barely touch a glass of wine here and there but I would never do that kind of shit to my body. What the hell is ketamine?”
The thought of possibly losing my children over some dumb shit like this was making me want to slide right back into another damn coma. What the fuck really happened at that party with Keyshawn? I tried to remember every single little detail because that was the absolute last time I could remember even being under the same roof as any kind of drugs. My body shook uncontrollably as tears fell down my face. My life was falling apart and there seemed to be nothing I could do to pull it back together.
“Dr. Traverson? I’m sorry, did you say we was gonna lose our kids?” Ris had poked her head into the room. She’d obviously been listening the entire time.
I lay back and rolled onto my side on the hospital bed facing the wall. For the moment, I was content with just hugging myself and crying quietly. I didn’t care to look at Ris or Bird Bitch right that second.
“Yes, Larissa, it is possible. If the mother has an ongoing issue with a controlled substance and refuses assistance, I may have to suggest that we get the state involved before we can release her back into the household. She was in a life-threatening accident under the influence and next time the children could very well be in it with her. It is highly possible that the children will be taken into Child Protective Services. Doctor-patient confidentiality prevents me from discussing this any further with you, however.”
Fuck that shit, I’ll just get myself a damn good lawyer. These types of things get fought all the time and won. I just ignored Bird Bitch.
“Well, Dr. Traverson, um . . . what if she ain’ know she was um . . . actually doin’ cocaine or anything else? I mean like voluntarily?”
That one simple little question made all the blood rush to my head. The vein in my forehead suddenly throbbed and probably swelled to the point that I looked like Frankenstein.
“And how on earth would she not know she was consuming an illegal narcotic, Larissa? Several illegal narcotics?”
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