Who Can I Trust: A Naptown Hood Drama (Trust Issues Book 1)

by Tamicka Higgins

  “Are you serious?” Myesha asked. “Who?”

  “Girl, I don’t even know myself,” Kayla said, lying. She knew right away that she was not going to tell even her best friend Myesha everything about what was going on. Knowledge is power and she did not want to give anyone else any more power of her than they already had. It was safe so say that her nerves were already on edge. The last thing in the world she needed was for somebody to know too much. “Some nigga that him and his boys, I guess, did a bad deal with or something. Now, from the sounds of it, this dude, who name I can’t even remember, is going after Marcus. Marcus swore up and down to me that he ain’t even do it, but I just don’t know what to believe right now.”

  “Where is he even going up north?” Myesha asked. “Why?”

  “I forget the name of the town,” Kayla lied. “Somewhere up north, I think near the border with Michigan or something. Anyway, he got a cousin who live up there that his mama talked to today. Dude said that he could come stay with him until everything blows over, if everything blows over.”

  “How long is that going to be?” Myesha asked. “Are you thinking about what if whoever these people are come back after Marcus or something? What if they hear about where he is and come after him there?”

  “Girl, I tried to bring all that up,” Kayla said. “I really did and he seem to think that I’m being paranoid. We got into it real bad when I was droppin’ him off at his mama house just now.”

  “Over what?” Myesha asked.

  “Girl, he just don’t get it,” Kayla said, shaking her head while keeping her eyes on the road. “He seem to think that whoever did this is just gon’ let it go. I told him, and so did his mama and his uncle, that when whoever find out that they bullet did not kill him, there was no doubt in my mind that they would try again. Whoever got fucked over in this deal, or thinks that he got fucked over, obviously must have some money if they sendin’ niggas after you and shit. That’s what I told Marcus. And if they ain’t got no money, they damn sure got them some buddies who got time for this kinda bullshit. Girl, I am so tired.”

  “I bet you are” Myesha said. “So, he gon’ be headed up there tomorrow?”

  “That’s the plan,” Kayla said. “He gon’ go up there tomorrow, I guess with his mama or uncle taking him, I don’t know. It wasn’t like I was even invited or nothing.”

  “Girl, you know you gon’ ride up there with your boo,” Myesha said and giggled. “I don’t even know why you try’na act like you not. You gon’ be right there in that car with him, Misses Ride or Die.”

  Kayla smiled. “Girl, shut up,” she said. “You don’t know that. So, what you doin?”

  “Girl, just got back in the house,” Myesha explained. “I went to meet up with my partner from class and get this book from her so I could use it. You remember, don’t you? That girl I told you about that I was sharing a book with?”

  Kayla thought about it for a second. “Yeah,” she said. She then started to think about how right now she was talking to her best friend, who was in college and moving forward with her life. It was such a contrast to her own life, in her eyes, because here she was having to watch her back. At the back of her mind, she could not help but to fear the idea of whoever coming after Marcus coming after her. Sure, she thought about how she could indeed be overreacting. However, something deep down in Kayla’s heart and soul told her that she was not.

  “Girl,” Kayla said, deciding that she might as well go ahead and tell Myesha about what happened with her brother and sister. “There’s more, too. I’m so fuckin’ nervous I swear I ain’t never been so nervous in my life. I don’t remember if I told you earlier, I don’t think I did cause it was after we talked.”

  “What, girl?” Myesha said. “What?”

  “Okay, so,” Kayla started. “Earlier, when I got off the phone with you, I went downstairs, I called in Latrell and Linell from outside. They was out there playin’ in the snow after they ate they little afternoon meal and stuff. So, yeah, I call them inside from the snow and stuff and you not gon’ believe what they told me.”

  “What?” Myesha asked, practically on the edge of her seat even through the phone. “What, Kayla?”

  “They told me that two dudes in a car rolled by while they was playing and stopped and asked if Marcus was there,” Kayla said.

  “No,” Myesha said. “Are you serious? Girl, please be safe. Watch your back, I’m tell in you.”

  “Girl, I know,” Kayla said. “At first I wasn’t even gon’ tell them, up at the hospital about it, but Miss Lorna, Marcus’s mom, was really goin’ in hard on Marcus’s boys Brandon and Juan. And I really didn’t think they did this and now I really don’t because they was still at the hospital when I got back and Marcus and Lorna both said that they hadn’t left.”

  “Well,” Myesha said. “That’s good you at least ex-ed them two off the list. But still, if somebody coming by your place asking for him then it really sound like he is involved in some deep shit. Girl, you sure that you shouldn’t just go stay somewhere else too?”

  “Girl, you know I can’t do that,” Kayla said. “I got Latrell and Linell. Their fuckin’ lives would go to shambles if I left them with just Mama. I just can’t do that right now, girl. I just can’t.”

  “I feel you on that,” Myesha said. “Your mama is really wilding out nowadays, ain’t she?”

  “Girl, yes,” Kayla said. “She thinks she is like twenty-five or somethin’ again, and it is really getting’ ridiculous. You have no idea. My phone been blowin’ up all day, basically since like a couple of hours after I left, and I know it’s my mama calling. She probably wanted to know when I was comin’ home so she could know when she could leave and lay up with some nigga. I’m on my way home now and, girl, I would not be the least bit surprised if I get there and she gone and done left my brother and sister to fend for themselves. I swear to God I’m gettin’ so fuckin’ tired of her I don’t even know what to do. It’s like sometimes she wants to be a mother while other times, it’s like she’s a teenage child with an attitude.”

  “Glad that ain’t me,” Myesha said, sounding relieved. “I don’t know, though, girl. You might be surprised when you get home in a minute.”

  Kayla chuckled. “Why you say that?” she asked. “God knows I don’t need no more fuckin’ surprises right now. I had one big one that was several gunshots long this morning. That was enough for me.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Myesha said. “But no, that ain’t what I’m talkin’ bout. I’m talkin’ bout she just might be there when you get home in a minute. When I rolled by your house earlier, when I was going to meet my classmate, there was this car parked out front that I’d never seen before. I figured it was either one of your neighbors, although I can’t think of who, or some many that your mama had over. I remember how you told me that she be having men over in the middle of the night and stuff. I already knew that you’d be gone this afternoon and evening, so I figured she would just have them over instead of her going to wherever they stay.”

  “Fuck,” Kayla said. “I hope she ain’t got no nigga over there right now. That is some shit she would do, though. My boyfriend is up in the hospital, shot and shit, and she take it as her chance to have a date night with her two kids at home. How fuckin’ trifling can you get? What the car look like when you seen it? Maybe I know which nigga it is tonight?”

  “Girl, I ain’t really look at it like that,” Myesha said. “All I remember was that it was a black car. I don’t know what kind of model, but I know I never seen it before.”

  “Wait a minute?” Kayla said, alarmed. “A black car? Parked out front of my house?”

  “Yeah, girl,” Myesha said. “Earlier, when I drove by, heading downtown to meet up with my classmate, I saw it. It was a black car, kinda shiny with some sort of rims on it. It just look like a nigga car, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh shit, girl,” Kayla said.

  “What? What?” Myesha asked. “What’s wrong, Kayla
? What’s wrong?”

  Kayla’s heart jumped. Suddenly, her hand holding the wheel felt very stiff; the several miles between where she was at the moment and where she lived seemed to be so far away.

  “I fuckin’ knew it!” Kayla yelled, almost forgetting that she was on the phone.

  “Girl, what?” Myesha asked. “I’m confused. Girl, what are you talkin’ about?”

  “Earlier, when I found Marcus on the floor, he said that he saw a black car pull up and two niggas get out,” Kayla said. “When Latrell and Linell were coming in from outside, they said that it was a black car. Girl, this shit ain’t no coincidence. These the same people. They at my house.”

  At that moment, Kayla and Myesha could hear the other one breathing. All Kayla could think about was her brother and sister, and hope to God that this was just a third coincidence as she put the pedal to the metal.

  Sneak Peek: Who Can I Trust 2: A Naptown Hood Drama

  Chapter 1

  Kayla just could not believe the words that she had just heard from her girl, Myesha. As she was heading home from dropping Marcus off at his mother’s house, she had simply planned for her 20 to 30 minute ride, by taking the street way, as being a little time where she could think to herself. Now, she wound up on the phone with Myesha, which was just fine. While basically updating her on what was going on with Marcus after sitting in the hospital for so many hours, she was now putting the peddle to the metal and trying to get home as quickly as possible.

  “Girl, no,” Kayla said. “I hope it ain’t what I think it is.”

  “You mean, them?” Myesha asked. “I’m so sorry, girl. Kayla, I ain’t…I ain’t…I ain’t think when I was riding by your house that it might be them. Girl, what you want me to do? You know what? Let’s just hang up and I can call the police or something.”

  Police? Oh hell no.

  “No!” Kayla said, quickly responding to what Myesha was saying. “No, no. Myesha, girl, what is you thinking? You know that somebody gon’ wind up dead if you call the damn police. And what if you call them and it ain’t even what we think it is?”

  There was no doubt in Kayla’s mind at this point. There were just too many coincidences for her to think for one second that whatever car Myesha had seen outside of her house was the same car that Marcus had said he had seen when the bullets started to fly into his apartment – maybe even the same car that Latrell and Linell said they had seen when they came in from playing in the snow earlier in the afternoon. Kayla’s heart must have been pumping a good sixty miles an hour at this point. Suddenly, what would normally be a quick 20 minute trip across the east side of the city seemed like a road trip through a never ending urban jungle. Every block seemed twice as far and twice as long in distance; every stoplight seemed to last twice as long. There were even a few stoplights, like at the intersection of 30th Street and Emerson Avenue, that Kayla slowly rolled across since there were no cars coming. At the front of her mind were Latrell and Linell. No matter what, she could not let anything happen to her little brother and sister.

  Kayla began to feel oh so guilty that she had ignored her family when they had been calling her earlier while she was with Marcus. It was getting to be so much to think about that she was practically breaking a sweat – practically imagining herself as being in one of those true crime specials that you turn on the television and watch at night. Kayla just could not let something like that happen. And, God willing, she would pull up in front of the house and find that it was all just a big overreaction. No matter how big the city or how small the town, a black car is nothing unusual or usual the least bit, in any way. Still, though, Kayla could feel in her heart – deep down in her soul – that she was not wrong. Her woman’s intuition was kicking in. She only wished that it had kicked in much earlier, like when Marcus brought up the idea of moving to Atlanta, or when he was constantly checking out of his patio door.

  Myesha rambled on in the background, but Kayla was not listening. Well, she tried to listen, but it was proving very hard to really focus on the words that were coming through to her ears. Eventually, she just had to stop it all.

  “Myesha,” Kayla said. “Girl, I’mma have to hit you up when I get there or something. I swear to God. I hope they ain’t do nothing with my family. Not Latrell and Linell. Shit, shit, shit. Girl, let me call my mama phone and see if she answer.”

  “Okay, okay, girl,” Myesha said. “You right. Call your mama. I hope everything turn out okay. Let me know, okay?”

  Kayla did not even bother answering Myesha’s question. Rather, she just pulled the phone down from the side of her face and hung up. Curse words practically slipped out of her mouth as she scrolled through her call log and looked for her last MISSED CALL from her mother. When she found it, she frantically pressed her name and called. Each ring was loud and twice as terrifying as the previous ring; the longer the ringing went on, the harder and more forceful Kayla’s heart pumped.

  “Answer, answer, answer,” Kayla said, over and over again between rings.

  Eventually, the line picked up.

  “Mama?” Kayla said. “Hello? Hello?”

  “Kayla?” her mother Rolanda said. It was oh so obvious to Kayla that her mother’s voice was trembling. In fact, she had never heard her mother sound so timid. Any other time she answered the phone, there was without a doubt a little tension and maybe even bitterness in her voice. Noticing the difference, Kayla knew why there was a change. At this very moment, as she drove as quickly as she could down 30th Street, across the east side of the city and heading toward the west side, she knew that her worst fears were coming to be a reality. At that very moment, she wished that she had warned her mother before she left the house about what Latrell and Linell had said they had seen while they were playing out in the snow. How could she not tell her mother, if nothing else? The guilt that had consumed Kayla was starting to feel like walls on either side of her body slowly inching toward one another. The night sky seemed so dark and the city seemed so dead, Kayla rarely passing by headlights in the oncoming lane. Never had her drive seemed so terrifying and eerie.

  “Yeah, Mama, yeah,” Kayla said. “It’s me.”

  “Kayla, baby,” Rolanda said, her voice still sounding oh so timid. “You still at the hospital?”

  “What’s wrong, Mama?” Kayla asked. “I’m on my way home right now. I swear, I’m on my way home.”

  “Fuckin’ ask her,” a man said, in the background. “You fuckin’ hear me, bitch. Ask that bitch what fuckin’ room that nigga stayin’ in and stop with all the lovey dovey bullshit. Ask her.”

  Kayla almost stopped breathing for a moment as she heard the man in the background make that command.

  “Mama!” Kayla yelled into the phone. “Who is that? Who is there with you?”

  “Kayla, these niggas…” Rolanda began saying. Her voice trailed off, making Kayla worry even more. Within seconds, all she could hear was her mother crying (something she rarely had seen let alone heard) and curse words spewing out of a man’s mouth.

  Suddenly, a man picked up her mother’s cell phone and began to talk into it.

  “Call the fuckin’ police if you want to,” he said. “And when they get here, they gon’ find three dead bodies.”

  “No,” Kayla said. “Please don’t. No, no, no.”

  “Tell us where the fuck that nigga at and you won’t have to worry about all that,” the man demanded.

  Tears now strolled down both of Kayla’s cheeks. She had always seen situations like this play out on television. She had even read them in words on pages in books she would get from the library. However, not for one second, did Kayla ever, in a million years, think that she would be one of the main characters when something like this went down. This kind of stuff just did not happen to her.

  Kayla blew straight through a stoplight, not even noticing that the light had been red until she was a good block or two passed it.

  “Please, don’t hurt them,” Kayla pleaded.

&
nbsp; Just as Kayla was starting to bring up Marcus, she knew that if she at least waited until she got there to say whatever she was going to say, then maybe she would be able to keep whatever nigga this was from killing her mother, brother and sister. If only, Kayla thought. However, she still had several miles to go before she would even get to her side of the city. On top of that, her situation was even worse in a lot of ways because with where she was now, there was no highway for her to get onto that would make her trip that much quicker. In so many ways, Kayla felt helpless, so she knew that she had to play what few cards she had been dealt in this entire situation to her advantage.

  “Just tell us where the fuck the nigga is,” the dude said. “Tell us that and won’t nobody here get hurt, simple as that. Now…tell me where the fuck that nigga Marcus is. What hotel room?”

  Us? As in more than one of you? Upon hearing that particular word choice and understanding right away what he was really saying, Kayla almost felt as if she could have had a stroke or heart attack.

  “I’m coming,” Kayla said. “Just don’t hurt them. I’m about to be there, I’m about to be there. Just don’t hurt them.”

  “Whatever,” the man said.

  Whatever?

  Just then, Kayla could hear a gunshot go off through the phone. It was so loud that the speaker on her phone vibrated in her ear, painfully. Kayla screamed as she could hear the muffled yells of terror of her mother and brother and sister. She was now sobbing uncontrollably.

  “You hear that,” the dude came back on the phone saying. “Next bullet ain’t gon’ go into the damn ceiling. Show up with some police and find out.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Kayla said. “Just please, don’t kill’em.”

  Rather than responding to Kayla, the man simply hung up the phone. Kayla, without even thinking, threw her phone down onto the passenger side seat. While still gripping the wheel with one hand, she would alternate arms and wipe the tears away from her face.

  “God, oh God,” Kayla said to herself. “If anything happen to Mama or Latrell and Linell, oh God. Please, please, please.”