“Do you own a gun, Ms. Douglas?” Thomas said with a bit of aggression behind his question.
“Do I need a lawyer?” Sanaa asked. She was beginning to get irritated with all the questions.
“Do you?” Detective Boyd asked.
Sanaa looked at both of the detectives. This interview was over in her eyes, and there was only one way to get them out of her sight that she was aware of.
“I’m not answering any more questions without my lawyer present,” Sanaa requested with a slick grin on her face. “Now, if you’re not gonna arrest me for anything, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said getting up from the stool and walking to the door.
Detective Thomas wished he had something to arrest her for, because it looked like Sanaa was taunting them a little bit with her slick choice of words. But the detectives knew that this line of questioning was now over. She had requested a lawyer, and once a suspect requested an attorney during an interview or an interrogation, all questioning had to stop.
As the detectives were about to leave, Detective Boyd looked down at the floor in frustration. When he did, he noticed a small blood stain in the wood floor. He looked at Thomas, who looked down to what had his partner’s attention and noticed the same thing. It was the blood from Kemo’s mouth when Yellow kicked his tooth out. Sanaa noticed what they were looking at and tried to rush them. Even if it was blood, that alone wasn’t enough for them to claim probable cause and get a warrant. They needed more, so they decided to give Sanaa the first round, but both felt that it wouldn’t be long before they would have enough to get a warrant.
Yellow had his eyes glued to the rearview mirror at a cop car that had just pulled in behind the van. Kemo and his boy were sitting up in the rear seat with their hands still tied behind their backs. Yellow was in the seat right behind them with his gun pressed against the back of their chair. His heart was racing, and every case scenario ran through his head of how this was going to end if the red and blue lights began flashing.
“Just be easy,” Yellow told Joi as he peeked out of the back window.
Kemo looked in the rearview mirror himself and saw the patrol car behind them. He nudged his boy with his leg, making him aware of what was going on. He too looked into the mirror and saw the cop car. This was the only chance Kemo had to get out of this situation alive, and he knew it. He’d be damned if he wasn’t going to take advantage of the situation. His boy, Bread, felt the same way.
“Don’t do nothing stupid,” Yellow threatened the two.
A red light brought the van to a stop, trapped behind a couple of cars. It’s now or never, Kemo thought as he noticed the cop car had its turn signal on. He swung his legs around, pressed his back against Bread, and kicked the side window. It didn’t break the first time, so he kept kicking. Yellow yelled at him, and even punched him in his jaw, but that didn’t stop Kemo. He kicked until his feet went clear through the window. The shattered glass blasted out of the frame and onto the car next to them.
All the commotion got the attention of the police officer, who immediately turned on his lights. When the officer got out of the car, he drew his weapon and cautiously advanced toward the minivan.
Trapped, Joi stepped on the gas, crashing into the car in front of her. She kept pressing on the accelerator, trying to move the vehicles out of her way.
“Turn the fuckin’ car off,” the officer yelled. “Turn the fuckin’ car off,” he screamed again.
In an instant, the side door of the van opened and out jumped Yellow. He hit the ground running.
Kemo managed to squeeze out of his restraints. He reached up and wrapped his arm around Joi’s neck, right before she popped opened her door and was about to take off. She tried to reach for the gun under her lap, but it fell to the floor. Kemo had a tight grip around her neck and was squeezing so hard she thought she was about to pass out.
“Get ya hands in the air,” the officer continued to yell, walking up to the driver side of the car.
Seeing that the cop was itching to pull the trigger, Kemo let go of Joi and threw his hands up. Joi put her hands on the steering wheel, trying to catch her breath.
Two other cop cars pulled up within minutes to assist the first officer. “Gun,” one of the officers yelled when he opened the slide door and saw a gun sitting right by Kemo’s feet.
During the struggle, Joi had kicked the gun from her feet, all the way under her chair to the back where Kemo was. He hadn’t even noticed what she’d done, being so engaged with trying to break her neck. That one move had put her in a better position. In order to find out whose gun it was, everyone was going to have to go down to the police station. And that’s just what happened, all except Yellow, who was out of sight and halfway back to the club.
Ariana woke up from a quick nap to feel something rubbing against the bullet wound on her stomach. She reached for it and grabbed a hold of Sleepy’s hand.
“It’s okay, it’s me,” Sleepy said in a low, calm voice, into her ears as he lay behind her.
This was something personal for Ariana, and for a moment, she felt violated. Until now, she had been the only one who rubbed the wound or even touched it for that matter. But it was something in Sleepy’s tone that told her that she was safe. She kind of felt like he had just as much right to touch it as she did; he too shared the loss of their baby. She put her hand on top of his and guided Sleepy’s finger to the rhythm she used to rub it.
“I think about her every day,” Ariana confessed, leaning back against his body. “She would have been a couple of months right now,” she said, almost bringing herself to tears.
“And what makes you think it was going to be a girl?” Sleepy joked. “She could have been a he.” He chuckled, play biting her neck, trying to make Ariana laugh.
“Yeah, you right.” She smiled. “As long as we had a healthy baby, I would have been cool, you know.”
“Well, maybe after everything is all said and done, we can try again,” Sleepy suggested.
It got quiet in the room. Ariana wasn’t even sure if she could have kids after all the damage the bullet did to the inside of her stomach. It wasn’t just that, but it was also a mental thing. Ariana had trouble dealing with not knowing whether she was in fact ready to have another baby. She felt like she couldn’t even protect the first one, so how was she going to be there for another one? Then there was her lifestyle. She knew beyond a shadow of doubt that along with being a mother came responsibilities. The kind of responsibilities that would force her to put down her guns and become civilized, something she wasn’t sure she was ready to do.
“Listen, Ariana, I love you,” he said, turning her over to face him. “And I know things look kind of crazy right now, but you gotta believe me when I tell you that everything is goin’ to be all right. I swear on my life that I’m going to protect you and be here for you until I take my last breath,” he said with sincerity in his eyes.
“I love you too, Sleepy, but what’s gonna happen after I kill Joi? What’s gonna happen then?” she asked.
Ariana couldn’t help but to think about their future. There were a lot of things Sleepy wasn’t taking into consideration or he just refused to acknowledge. It was a fact that one of two things was going to happen, and that was either Ariana was going to kill Joi or Joi was going to kill Ariana. Either way, somebody had to die, and if it was Joi, Sanaa was never going to rest until she got revenge. And that was just one part. What would happen if Sleepy somehow found out that she had murdered his father? Ariana was now having regrets for shooting Balil; she wasn’t ready to lose Sleepy again.
“From now on, I don’t want you to worry about Joi. I’ma take care of that myself,” he told Ariana. “After that, we’re gone. We can start a life somewhere out of the country for all I care,” he said with all seriousness.
Ariana could tell that he was serious and it brought her a sense of security. She felt calm and relaxed and loved the idea of running off with him. That was exactly what she ne
eded to build her confidence to one day start a family. If there was anybody she could spend the rest of her life with, it was Sleepy. She just had to make sure he was going to go through with killing Joi, because if he didn’t, she sure as hell would.
Chapter 17
Kemo and Bread sat in the holding cell waiting to be booked. Kemo was facing gun charges and Bread was being charged with joy-riding in a stolen vehicle. Joi was in a separate cell, waiting to be charged with the stolen car and the gun that could have easily been hers also. But at this point, the officers were just trying to sort things out.
No help was coming from any of the accused, because nobody was doing any talking. Kemo was an OG and he wasn’t doing any telling, even if he was kidnapped and almost murdered. Bread just rode with Kemo on whatever he was doing, despite the fact that he was the only one in the car with restraints on. The detectives who interrogated everyone had a feeling of what was going on, but they couldn’t get a confession. It was frustrating for the detectives, because they had no idea what to charge everybody with that would stick in a court of law.
The floor officer pulled Kemo out of the cell so that he could be fingerprinted and photographed. The fingerprinting station was right by the female holding tank where Joi sat looking through the thick Plexiglas. Kemo looked over and gave Joi a sinister smile that said, “I’ma kill you!”
Joi gave him the same grin in return, but hers said, “I almost already killed you!”
The female officer tapping on Joi’s window brought her out of her stare. She pulled Joi out to be processed and fingerprinted, unaware that Kemo had just tried to strangle her. It really didn’t matter though, Kemo definitely wasn’t going to do anything to her while they were in the police station anyway. At this point, all he wanted to do was see the judge so that he could get bail and get out before Joi.
“Mr. Turner, could you step over here?” The officer motioned Kemo to the photo area.
Another officer led Joi over to the fingerprinting station, and when she looked down, she noticed that the previous officer had left Kemo’s personal information on the table. She hurried up and tried to read as much as she could, but was cut short when the officer remembered his paperwork and came back to get it. Joi only got as far as knowing his first and last name, and his date of birth. His birthday was what stood out, which made him forty-six years old. He didn’t look more than thirty-five. He was in excellent shape, and that was probably because he had done almost half of his life in prison, eating healthy and exercising regularly.
“Brandon Turner,” Joi mumbled to herself, making sure she didn’t forget his name.
She looked over and saw Kemo taking off his shirt so that the officer could take pictures of his tattoos. He looked like an action figure the way his body was ripped. She could see every bit of the ten years he had done in a state penitentiary around weights. Above all things, Joi did get a good look at a couple of his tattoos before he put his shirt back on. He had a picture of the Liberty Bell in the center of his stomach with the numbers 215 over top of it. He had another tattoo with the name ANGEL written across his chest. All this was documented into Joi’s memory, because these were the very things she was going to use in order to find and kill Kemo the day she got out of the police station.
Yellow called Sanaa ahead of time to tell her to meet him at the back door of the casino. She called Royce, sensing that something had gone wrong, and she was unable to get a hold of Sleepy. When Yellow finally walked up, Sanaa looked at how tired and dusty he was. He walked right into the casino, stepped behind the bar, and grabbed a bottle of Christian Brothers off the shelf. Sanaa and Royce just took a seat at the bar and waited for him to get his thoughts together.
“Ya girl is locked up,” he said after taking a swig out of the bottle.
“What?” Sanaa yelled in shock. “What da fuck happened?” she asked, grabbing the bottle out of his hand.
“A cop pulled up behind us and ya boy made a move,” he told her.
Sanaa put her head down into her hands and shook her head. She instantly felt responsible, and it weighed heavily on her. It felt like everything was starting to go south, and the end result wasn’t looking good for anybody. Sanaa jumped out of the stool and headed straight for her office. Royce and Yellow followed, Yellow explaining everything that happened before he jumped out of the car and ran.
“So now what?” Royce asked Sanaa.
“So now I’ma go bail her out,” she said, opening her safe against the wall and taking a few stacks of money out.
“You don’t know what she’s locked up for.”
“It doesn’t matter what she’s booked on, if she get a bail, I’ma be standing right there wit’ the money,” she said, grabbing her pocketbook and leaving the office.
As they were walking out of the club, Royce’s phone began to ring. He looked down at it and completely stopped moving, seeing that it was Krystol calling. His heart raced, knowing that she had to be at home in order to call from her cell phone.
Sanaa stopped at the door and looked back. She smiled at the excitement on his face when he answered.
“Yeah, what’s up,” Royce answered, slowly walking back over to the bar and taking a seat on the stool.
“Hey. I just wanted you to know that I brought Raven by. I know you wanna see her, and I think that me and you should talk,” she told Royce in a low, soft, and sweet voice.
Just hearing her voice meant a lot to him. He had been worried sick about Krystol and the baby, especially not having the slightest idea where they had gone.
“Yeah, I’ll be there in about an hour,” he told her, hanging up the phone and heading to the door.
Sanaa looked at him, wanting to know if she and the baby were all right. She knew how important family was, and would never stand in Royce’s way when it came down to his.
“You go get ya family. I’ll be fine,” she told Royce, giving him a hug. “What can go wrong at the police station?” She laughed. “I’ll stop by when I’m on my way home.”
Royce took off running to his car. He wanted to see Krystol and his baby girl so bad, and if Krystol thought they were going to be leaving again, he had another thing planned for her.
Detective Thomas needed to make a connection between Sanaa, the money, and the murders. He stared at the screen of his computer, waiting for the results of his local and federal search of Sanaa, and her employees. He knew she had something to do with the funny money, but they had been smart enough to keep the cash circulating with the legit cash. They also let it flow with the patrons; that way, he couldn’t say definitively it was connected to them or the business. He needed more, a witness or something else to give him the break he needed for that damn warrant.
When the computer stopped, Thomas damn near broke his neck sitting up in his chair. He read the contents of the federal case involving one Sanaa Anderson, and although the last name didn’t match, this woman had also owned a night club where a murder had occurred. The case was from out of Atlanta, and although it was a long shot, he decided to pick up the phone and call the case agent who was over the investigation, Special Agent Razor. He answered almost immediately. Thomas began breaking down everything to him about what was going on in Philly.
“Hey, Dave,” Detective Thomas yelled out, calling Detective Boyd. “Come here for a sec, buddy,” he said picking up his phone. “Take a look at this,” he told Boyd, pointing at the screen.
“Well, do you have a picture of her?” Detective Thomas asked Special Agent Razor, who was on the phone explaining the case.
“The case pictures that I took were lost in evidence. They really weren’t that good anyway,” Razor explained.
“Well from the way you’ve described her, I think we might be dealing with the same girl,” Detective Thomas said.
This wasn’t the first time Agent Razor had gotten one of these phone calls. Most of the time they just ran him into a dead end, having him start back over from scratch. He’d never gotten any word t
hat she had traveled up North, and as far as he knew, she was still in Atlanta.
“This is what you do. Take a few pictures of the woman you believe is Sanaa, and send them to me. I’d know her if I seen her. That would possibly save me a flight to Philly,” Agent Razor suggested.
This song seemed all too familiar to Thomas. Everything that he’d done thus far in the investigation hadn’t come easy, especially trying to get a warrant from the judge. It was frustrating for Detective Thomas, but if the Feds wanted to see some pictures of Sanaa, then that wasn’t going to be a problem at all.
He looked at Detective Boyd after hanging up the phone with Agent Razor. Boyd could see it in his eyes and knew they were in for a long night.
“You up for a photo shoot?” Detective Thomas asked his partner.
“Yeah, sure, rookie.” Boyd chuckled, leading the way out of the office.
Chapter 18
Sanaa stood outside the police station waiting for Joi after paying the $5,000 bail that was set in her case. She was mindful to watch where the cameras were positioned; although she was confident that she was cool, she didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances that some overzealous detective might have seen her picture on the Feds’ wanted list. She needed to get Joi, and get the hell out. This was the first time Joi had been arrested for anything, and due to the bizarre circumstances and the lack of cooperation, the judge really didn’t know what else to do but give a lowball bail. The only charge that was likely to stick anyway would be the stolen vehicle charge.
Sanaa had a lot of time to sit outside in front of the building and think about her next move. The sound of a familiar voice snapped her out of her daze. The bass in it sent chills down her spine, and if she wasn’t standing in front of a police station, she knew that this would have probably been the last voice she heard.
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