“You mean my sperm donor,” I say without thinking. It just slipped out, probably because it’s exactly how I feel. And probably because Lana called me on something I hadn’t realized myself when I should have been the first to get it.
“I can see why you think of him that way. I do, sort of, except I think of him helping me do the best thing I’ve ever done. It was the wrong time with the wrong boy, but I wouldn’t change a thing because now I have this great kid. She can be a total pain in the behind sometimes, but still great.”
“Mom—”
“Chanti, I’m not asking you to repeat what I did. In fact, you better not or I will send my scariest street informant over to talk to your little friend. But you can’t be afraid to take chances.”
“But you’re always saying—”
“I mean take chances with your heart. Not with mobsters and thieves.”
I don’t tell her Marco is already back with Angelique because it would spoil the mood, I’d probably burst into tears the minute I caught Marco’s eye, and what kind of party would that be?
“Only a few minutes until these guys come for Bethanie,” Lana says, giving me an out.
I hang up and walk across the room to Bethanie, making sure I avoid running into Marco and Reginald. I don’t think I can handle any boys after my mother’s psychoanalysis, no matter how right she is. When I locate Bethanie, I pull her into the kitchen and away from the party.
“Okay, since I just gave you the best birthday party of your life, you have to answer my questions. All of them, no holding back,” I say.
“The whole truth, and nothing but,” Bethanie says. “That’s what friends do, right?”
“Exactly. First question: I know from the photos and school stuff on your corkboard you’ve lived all over the place. But where do you call home?”
“You were right about that one. Atlanta is home. That’s where we started, and after years of moving around, we returned there, which is when my dad got involved with DeLong. You made me crazy every time you came close to figuring it out.”
“The phone ... what was up with everybody wanting your phone? I mean, besides the diamonds?”
“Diamonds?” Bethanie asks, looking confused at first, but then she laughs. “Those were zirconias. You think I’d walk around with that many diamonds? I might be rich, but I ain’t stupid.”
“But it must have had something people wanted, maybe more than diamonds, and you walked around with it. Which—sorry—does seem a little stupid.”
Bethanie takes a seat at the bar, the very bar where I first discovered her lottery winnings and where, just a few days ago, she got mad at me and left in a huff. That seems like forever ago, and soon she’ll be leaving forever.
“When we were still in Atlanta and DeLong kidnapped me to scare my father, I managed to take pictures of him and some of his men.”
“But wouldn’t they have taken the phone from you?”
“They did, but I carried two—one for regular stuff, and one for emergencies, the kind only my father could get us into. When that phone rang, I knew it was business.”
“Sort of like the Batphone,” I say.
“What?”
“Like on Batman. The Batphone was only used when all hell was breaking loose in Gotham City. Never mind, just tell me about the pictures.”
“They didn’t realize I had another phone in a secret pocket on my backpack. I snapped a couple of photos and figured if I ever got out of it, I’d take them to the cops. Keeping the phone on me was the safest place I knew.”
“Why didn’t you ever go to the police?”
“Going to the cops would also mean exposing my dad to his part in both the illegal gambling and scamming DeLong. We won the lottery soon after and went on the run. I see now it wasn’t the brightest move, but without my father knowing, I got word to DeLong that if he ever came after my family, the photos would come out.”
“Not a bright move, but definitely badass,” I say. “Next question. Did you really like Cole that much, and if so how are you doing now that you know the truth?”
“I really did, and it sucks.”
“Details, please,” I say. I already knew a lot, but there were holes only Bethanie could fill in.
“Cole was sent by the Family to kidnap me, but his FBI goal was to protect me. When that guy showed up in my parking spot that day, he’d been sent by DeLong to handle the job. Cole was taking too long and DeLong thought maybe he was too much of a rookie to handle it. That morning you saw the two cars leave—one was the bad guy, the other was Cole.”
“So Cole started watching your house to figure out your patterns, but ended up watching it to protect you.”
“Right. But that morning, he realized DeLong’s patience had run out. Cole tried to find the guy and keep a watch on him, at places like the dog and horse tracks, it turns out.”
“I was wondering about that. At first I thought Cole was looking for your dad at the tracks, but that didn’t make much sense if he knew where you lived.”
“But it was too much for Cole to watch me and stay one step ahead of DeLong’s dude. That’s when he came up with the idea of getting me out of town while the local cops got my dad someplace safe. Since he was based in Las Vegas, and knew they had a wider operation going there, he felt it was safer than Denver.”
“Seems like he could have told my ... I mean the local cops what was up.”
“He needed to keep his cover, even with the locals, because the FBI isn’t stopping with DeLong. They’re hoping to take down the whole Vegas operation.”
“But why not tell your family?”
When I ask this, Bethanie looks sad for the first time since we yelled surprise to start her party.
“He wasn’t sure where my father’s allegiance was—to saving me or himself. Not that I blame him.”
Without blowing Lana’s cover, I tell her what I know is true. “I’ve spent some time with your dad. He made some bad choices, but his allegiance is completely to you.”
Bethanie still looks a little bummed, which is the last thing I wanted to happen at her first real birthday party.
“Okay, last crime-related question. Why did you scream when you were in the hotel room?”
“I was playing in-room Keno and had just won a thousand dollars.”
“Seriously? I thought Cole was in there trying to kill you. You have millions of dollars and you screamed like that over a thousand?”
“I’ve never won anything before. I mean something that was just for me, not a poker game for my dad or a math bowl for my mother.”
“How about running? You won medals for that.”
“That wasn’t about winning. That was getting as close as I could to running away, being free.”
“Well, winning a thousand dollars sounds like a perfect reason to scream like you did,” I say.
“You didn’t ask for any romantic details.”
“Didn’t think you’d want me to. But I did wonder how Cole got you to leave town with him. I figured he told you y’all could elope in Vegas or something.”
“Close. He never told me that; he just said let’s take a road trip and when we stopped in Vegas, I thought that’s what was going to happen. Can you believe how stupid that is?”
“You’re a romantic.”
“I feel like an idiot believing in all that Romeo and Juliet stuff. Cole must think I’m a silly child.”
“Not at all,” Cole says, coming in from the mudroom off the kitchen.
I swear this guy has the best timing ever. I don’t know how he does it. I had asked him to try to come if he could. He wasn’t there when the party started, but as usual, he’s right on time.
“What I think is you’re an incredibly brave woman. If you were a year older, I wasn’t an undercover agent, and you weren’t about to go somewhere far away, things might have been different.”
“That’s a lot of ifs,” Bethanie says, looking a lot less bummed even though the Cole situation
is pretty hopeless.
“Yeah, but wherever we’re sending you, some guy is going to be so glad we did,” Cole says, and then he gives Bethanie something else on her list—a kiss.
It’s over before I can turn away and give them a moment, the kind of kiss you might get under the mistletoe when you barely know the boy. But I can tell from the look on Bethanie’s face that it’s enough to last until that guy wherever she’s going discovers her. And then Cole is gone.
“I guess he had to keep his cover,” I say.
“Yeah, but he kissed me first.”
I let her enjoy that moment a second longer before it starts to feel a little too greeting card.
“All right, one last question. Your parents kept calling you E. Is that code for your real name?”
She hesitates, like she’s thinking about whether to tell me. “No code. I just go by my initial.”
“Okay, let me guess,” I say, because I love a mystery. “Eve? Elaine?”
“Stop. You’ll never guess.”
“Edith? Ethel?”
“Echinacea, okay? My name is Echinacea.”
“Oh snap. Your parents named you after a cold remedy?”
“It’s a flower, a kind of daisy. You wouldn’t think anything of calling me Daisy.”
“Don’t con a con. There’s a reason you go by E. Wow. I think I’ll keep calling you Bethanie.”
“You can’t call me Bethanie. After today it won’t be my name, and you won’t be able to call me at all. Or text. Or visit ...”
We both forget we’re so fierce we survived having a mobster turn his gun on us a day ago and give in to the inevitable hug. Then it really does feel like a greeting card moment, but neither of us care.
The next morning, I decide to go to school even though Lana told me I could stay out one more day. With Bethanie waking up in some undisclosed city and Marco avoiding me, I feel like I’m doing my first day at Langdon Prep all over again. But this time I know I can handle it. The Langdonites, Headmistress Smythe included, no longer intimidate me. In the two months since my first day, I’ve busted a burglary ring and helped take down a mobster. Rich, self-absorbed preppies I can handle.
Before I head for the bus stop, I sit down at the kitchen table where Lana is having coffee. There’s still a loose end we haven’t discussed.
“Now that the witnesses and bad guys are all where they’re supposed to be, are you going to tell me who you’ve been trying to avoid the last couple of weeks?”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t been trying to avoid anyone.”
I remind her of all the phone calls. She stays behind her newspaper, no doubt trying to keep me from reading her face.
“Oh, you mean the bill collectors.”
“Bill collectors who also call Papa’s house looking for you?” I ask, which finally forces her to put down the A section.
“It’s an old debt, something your grandparents cosigned for years ago. It’s a debt I don’t believe I owe.”
I give her a look that lets her know I’m not sold.
“Chanti, it’s grown folks’ business, nothing you need to worry about.”
“I’m not worried. But you are, and nothing ever gets to you.”
“Plenty of things get to me.”
“But I never know about it. This alleged debt is big enough that I know it’s stressing you. That stresses me.”
Lana looks at me like she’s just seeing me after a long time away.
“Sometimes I forget you’re not my little girl anymore. You’re half grown now.”
“More than half grown. I’ll be sixteen in a few weeks.”
“Sixteen years. Where did all that time go?” Lana says, looking wistful.
“Mom, I can help you deal with whatever it is—bad debts, bad judgment. No matter what you say, I don’t have a monopoly on that. Even parents mess up sometimes.”
Something about that comment makes my mother look angry, then sad.
“Don’t worry. I’ll always be your girl, just not so little.”
“I hope that’s a promise you can keep,” she says, folding the paper carefully. She’s thinking of how to say her next words, scaring me a little, and I’m beginning to wish I’d left well enough alone. “Chanti, the person ... the man who’s been calling isn’t a perp or my old college boyfriend.”
I’m afraid to ask, but I do anyway. “Who is it, then?”
“Your father.”
“What?”
“I should have told you before, but I didn’t know how. He just took me by surprise; I haven’t heard from him since before you were born. I don’t know how he found us.”
“Where ... I mean why? Why now?” I stammer. Me, Chanti Evans, finally at a loss for words.
“I don’t know. I’ve refused to talk to him, but I don’t imagine it’s good. I haven’t told you everything about him.”
“You haven’t told me anything.”
“I had good reason, but now it’s too dangerous not to tell you.”
“Dangerous? Y’all were in high school when you last saw him, just kids crushing on each other, like Marco and me. How does that make him dangerous?”
“Because that isn’t the whole story,” Lana says, looking more serious than I’ve ever seen her. “But now he’s back.”
“Back from where?” I ask, not sure I really want to know.
“Somehow he’s back and he’s found us and now I have to tell you everything—the truth.”
In an instant, I go from ready to take on the world to having my world spin out of control. I want to undo all of my questions, go back to the way it was before the mysterious phone calls began when my biggest worry was busting burglary rings and chasing down a kidnapper. But now it’s too late. My life is about to become a lot more complicated.
GIRL DETECTIVE’S GLOSSARY
APB: abbr. All Points Bulletin
BOLO: abbr. Be On the Lookout
CI: abbr. Confidential Informant. Someone who, because of their access to the bad guys, can secretly provide information to the police in exchange for money or a reduced sentence for their own crimes. slang snitch, narc
CO: abbr. Commanding Officer. A police officer’s boss.
defendant: Person charged with a crime by the court.
five-o: slang Police officer or detective; comes from the 1970s TV cop show Hawaii Five-O, remade in 2010. also black and white, po-po, the man
JD: abbr. Juvenile Detention. slang juvie. 1. Jail for young people, usually under eighteen. 2. Where Chanti’s friend MJ spent nearly two years before moving to Aurora Avenue.
MO: abbr. Modus Operandi. How someone operates or runs their game.
perp: abbr. perpetrator. Person suspected of committing or perpetrating a crime.
prosecution: A government’s court case against a defendant.
running hot: Police car running with lights and sirens. Cops consider traffic conditions and the nature of the crime when deciding whether to run hot. They generally run hot only when something very bad is happening, like a crime in progress, and getting there fast is critical. If you reported your car broken into, they wouldn’t run hot to take your report. If you called 9-1-1 because you hear gunshots being fired, they’d probably run hot. also running code, rolling hot
street cop: Patrol officer, as opposed to a detective or ranking officer. also beat cop, uniform
vice unit: 1. Police department unit that usually handles narcotics, prostitution, and gambling crimes. 2. Where Chanti’s mother Lana works undercover.
witness for the prosecution: Person testifying against the defendant, for the prosecution.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
CREEPING WITH THE ENEMY
Kimberly Reid
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The following questions are intended to
enhance your group’s reading of
CREEPING WITH THE ENEMY.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Chanti is often her own worst frenemy. Sometime
s her ability to think like a cop keeps her looking one step ahead, so she misses out on what’s happening right now, and overanalyzing situations until she reads into them the wrong meaning. This causes problems in her detective work and in her personal life, as they do with Marco. Do you ever sabotage yourself or your friendships this way?
2. Bethanie feels like she’s living her dad’s life instead of her own. Have you ever followed a certain path (like planning to be a doctor) or doing an activity (like playing basketball) because that’s what your parents want, even though you have zero interest in it? If you could tell your parents what you really feel without them freaking out, what would you say?
3. Chanti says she doesn’t feel one way or the other about her father because he was so out of the picture that it’s like he never existed. Do you think she really feels this way in her heart of hearts?
4. Cole is a little too mysterious for Chanti, who immediately suspects he isn’t who he claims to be. She’s a detective-wannabe so suspicion comes naturally to her. How about you—do you trust your instincts when you think something’s not quite right about a new person or situation, or do you first give them the benefit of the doubt?
5. When Bethanie asks Chanti to be her cover for her weekend with Cole, Chanti reluctantly agrees, thinking Bethanie will do it anyway and at least she’ll be in contact with Bethanie. How would you respond to a friend who put you in Chanti’s position?
6. Chanti tells Marco he has to accept her the way she is—sleuthing and all—even though it may cost her their relationship. It’s true you shouldn’t change who you are just to land your crush, but being in a relationship also means compromise. The question is how much do you give up? On this point, are you Team Marco or Team Chanti?
Creeping with the Enemy Page 20