Guarding Secrets

by Pat Tucker

  If I thought if I threw the baby in there, it would help her back up off me, I was wrong. She came even harder.

  “Yes, the baby,” she began. “Are things complicated with the baby’s father too?”

  That wasn’t what I expected when I mentioned the baby.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you, KenyaTaye. You’re here more, but totally detached from the kids and me. Either you stay locked up in that room, or you’re zoning out so bad that it’s almost like you not here.”

  How could I get her to understand that this wasn’t the time for her to analyze my life? Everything was fucked up. If I had answers, things wouldn’t be complicated.

  “Then that nasty-looking new friend of yours, where’d he come from all of a sudden?” She twisted up her face. “I’ve made my mistakes in my day, but even at my lowest, a man like that? Umph, he couldn’t do nothing for me.”

  It was hard for me to really be mad at my mother, because she had been my true ride-and-die. Long before I made money with DaQuan, she helped me make ends meet no matter what she had to do.

  “All I know is things are changing around here, and I know for sure nothing good is going to come from it.”

  “I get it. I know how you feeling right now, but I’m trying to make some moves and figure a few things out.”

  “You know I don’t usually get all up in your business, but I have a feeling things might get the best of you and I don’t want to see that happen to you. I’ve been there and back and it’s not fun.”

  Whenever problems came knocking, my mother would talk about her relationship with my father. I knew the reason she worked so hard to help me was because he left us, but what happened with my father was nothing compared to what I was going through with DaQuan.

  When I didn’t say anything else, my mother’s eyes moved down to my stomach. She swallowed, then looked back up at me. The look on her face reminded me of the look she had when she’d first met E-Dawg.

  Since I knew my mother was strong, there was no use in trying to prepare her for what was ahead. She’d be able to handle whatever would go down.

  “I have a real important meeting at my job, so I gotta get ready.”

  She stared at me like she didn’t believe a word I said.

  I shrugged, but she didn’t move.

  “So you’re going back to work?”

  “Kinda, I think. It’s complicated all around.”

  “Well, I’m not trying to slow you down anymore, but thought I’d try to get through to you.”

  I didn’t move an inch as I waited for my mother to turn and walk back toward the living room. I stood for a few minutes after she had left to think about whether I should try to warn her or move on as planned.

  There was no point in backpedaling so I went to my room to get dressed.

  Two hours later, as I sat across from Mr. Richards, things got real. His secretary had called me to say I needed to bring in my doctor’s note so we could talk more about my transfer request. That worked for me because I’d planned to share a few things with him anyway.

  But as I looked into Mr. Richards’s hazel-green eyes, I realized my transfer was not the only topic he had on his mind. He never got off that conference call the first time I stopped by, so this would be my first chance to offer him the solution to his contraband problem. As he wrapped up another call, I thought about how hard it was to get to him.

  First, I had to wait nearly an hour-and-a-half to get into his office, and he was the one who had summoned me. But after I got over that, I tried to pull myself together because if I got that transfer, I’d be far enough away from the drama at the Jester unit.

  “What do you mean, why do I want to leave Jester?”

  I repeated his question, because I needed to remember what I had written. I thought the transfer was already done, or close to being done.

  “If you leave Jester, what’s gonna happen with the people you leave behind?”

  Frowning, I played like I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Instead of saying another word, Mr. Richards pressed a button on his phone. “Send them in,” he said.

  Moments later, two of my coworkers walked into the office. Both of them looked different than I’d ever seen them before.

  Suddenly, the collar around my neck felt like it was too tight.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHARISMA

  A blank stare focused in on me.

  “The gig is up! What the fuck are you up to?”

  DaQuan told me to be straight with her, and that was exactly what I planned to do when I called and invited her over. She rushed over, like she might have already been trolling the neighborhood. I watched as she skipped herself in, like we were about to have a sleepover. I ushered Lena straight to the kitchen and that’s where we’d been for the last twenty minutes.

  We had no idea what all she knew and we didn’t know what she would do with whatever information she had. But I’d be damned if I didn’t find out.

  Lena blinked a few times and gave me that prim-and-proper expression she liked to pull on people who didn’t know any better. But I wasn’t about to fall for any of her shit. My time was too precious to play a guessing game with her.

  “What are you talking about?”

  It was obvious she was gonna make things difficult, as usual.

  “Lena, you’ve been following me around, snooping around my job, asking a million questions and you’ve been hassling Lance. Now what the fuck is going on? What are you looking for?”

  She had pissed me off and I didn’t have time to play her game.

  “I just wanna know more about your mystery man.” She giggled like she was nervous. But Lena was so used to playing the innocent role, she couldn’t even tell it wouldn’t work with me.

  The batting lashes, the lost and confused expression.

  This time, that shit was not gonna cut it.

  “Who you working with? KenyaTaye? Did she get to you and put you up to this?”

  Lena’s perfect, pretty face contorted. “Kenya who?” She tilted her head slightly, her shoulders shifted, and she crossed and uncrossed her legs. I wasn’t sure whether she was telling the truth. But because she couldn’t keep still, all the fidgeting made me feel like she was lying.

  All of a sudden, Lena jumped up from her chair and threw her hands up. “I swearforGod, I don’t know nobody named Kentaye, Kenta, Brumquisha, or whatever the hell you said. I really only wanted to find out who your mystery man was because you wouldn’t tell me more about him.”

  She paced the area between the table and the couch. Silence hung between us for what felt like a really long time.

  After a few minutes, she looked up, pulled in a deep breath, then exhaled. “I know you’re gonna be pissed, but honestly, Charisma, I’m the one who deserves to be pushing a Beamer that my man bought. I should be taking you on shopping sprees for designer bags and shoes. I get up every day and go to that stupid job at the insurance office and I hate it.” She started to fidget with the button on her shirt. “I know you don’t trust me, and I’ve given you lots of reason not to. But I really just want to know about your dude, so I can help you figure out how to keep him.” Her eyes fell to the floor. “And, we need a man like him in the family. Well, I thought, if he had a brother, or even some close friends, then maybe I could find someone like him too.”

  Translation, I’d find him, then convince him that it was me he really wanted and screw him into believing that.

  Her little performance told me that she really was trying to figure out how it was possible that I could be on top while she still lurked on the bottom.

  Lance had told me everything. And from what he’d said, Lena worked overtime to figure out how my money flowed the way it did. There was no way she’d consider helping me keep anything she wanted.

  But after almost two hours of grilling her, I was exhausted. I felt like Lena had at least told the truth about one thing. She didn’t know KenyaTaye. In
the end, it seemed like she really was just trying to get next to my man, as usual.

  “So, you finally believe me?”

  Before I let her completely off the hook, I stared her down real cold and hard. If looks could say anything, I hoped my mean mug told her that blood or not, she shouldn’t try to fuck with me.

  “Yeah, Lena,” I finally said. “It’s just all this shit’s got me paranoid and messed up in the head.”

  Lena moved closer to me.

  “See, that’s what I was trying to tell you. You can’t be the best you if you all stressed out and shit.” Her eyes lit up. “I know.” She rushed to her bag and pulled out a large bottle of Coconut Ciroc. “Here, let’s get white-girl wasted and you can tell me all about it, Cuzzo.”

  I looked at Lena, and busted out laughing.

  She wasn’t slick. Everything else she had tried didn’t work, so she figured my lips might loosen up a little if she got me drunk. With all the mess I was dealing with, her idea and her drink didn’t seem like a bad idea.

  So, we drank.

  Sometime after we started, I glanced over and noticed the massive liquor bottle was empty. Had we drank all of that liquor? My eyes suddenly struggled to focus, and I felt sick. The bottle looked bigger than I remembered.

  When I got up slowly and cautiously, I looked around the room and noticed Lena stretched out on the couch. Her face was frozen in a frown, and she had one shoe off and her legs cocked wide open. We had no business drinking that entire bottle of vodka. When my stomach rumbled, I actually begged God to help me throw up, but when that didn’t work fast enough, I stumbled toward my bedroom and collapsed onto my bed.

  Either I passed out, or slept fast and hard.

  When the shit started to fly, there was no place for cover. Before daybreak, a loud, booming noise disrupted my sleep and I was completely discombobulated. It must’ve been before dawn, because it was still dark outside. Or were my eyes still closed?

  Was I dreaming? Was this my life?

  “Charisma Jones!” a loud, angry voice yelled. I bolted upright, or tried to, but was shoved back down in a forceful way.

  What the hell? How did someone get into my room?

  The last thing I remembered was being in the kitchen, or was it the living room? DaQuan and I had talked last night about some changes we needed to make, or me dealing with Lena, but what was this?

  The fucking pills, the cash?! Was somebody trying to hit us for our stash? Jesus! What if that was Lena’s game all along? What if she had been working with or for somebody who wanted to hit DaQuan?

  My heart was about to explode, or was that my head? Oh shit, the liquor. Was I still drunk? When did I go to bed? Had Lena left? All of a sudden, I was wrestled to my stomach, in the dark, with green and red lights dancing all around the darkened room.

  I heard scuffling down the hall, and noises from the front room. One of the kids screamed, or was that a kid? My kids weren’t here, were they? It was chaos, and it was in my house. I needed to call DaQuan. Yeah, he’d help me figure the shit out for sure.

  But I couldn’t move. There was a sharp pain in the middle of my back, like an elephant squatted on me. The angry voice jerked my arms, one at a time, to my back.

  “Stop resisting!”

  “I’m not! What the fuck is going on? Who are you?”

  When I tried to turn my head to see, he yanked it back and shoved it into the mattress. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to tell them where to find the money. They could have it all. I knew DaQuan wouldn’t want me hurt over money and pills.

  Suddenly, cold, hard steel connected with my wrists, and that’s when I realized, it wasn’t a robbery. I was being arrested!

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  KENYATAYE

  The wooden chair felt hard and cold as my ass pressed down on it. I tried to adjust my butt in the seat, but it didn’t work. Suddenly, the temperature in the room seemed to drop from comfortable to freezing within seconds. Mr. Richards cleared his throat, and was cooler than a cucumber. It was clear he felt good about something.

  He walked around me and moved behind his desk. He had the nerve to whistle a song I couldn’t place.

  “Dunbar, you should know by now, that this is not going to end well for you. Right now, you’re probably trying to consider your options, but let me warn you, they are few, and limited.”

  As I looked into Mr. Richards’s eyes, I knew he meant every word. He was calm and straight to the point. When Sanchez and Sheppard stood by on either side of me, I swallowed hard. It was clear, the gig was up.

  I wondered if they had ratted me out; everyone knew, the first one to get the deal usually sealed his or her fate. I hadn’t moved fast enough. Neither of them looked pressed or worried.

  Mr. Richards opened a folder and slid two sheets of paper toward me. My eyes glanced down at it, and he said, “Go on, pick it up, read it; it’s quite amusing.”

  With shaky hands, I reached for it. But he snatched it back before I touched it.

  He held it up like those reporters do when they’re showing something on TV.

  “It’s okay; allow me to give you the Cliff Notes’ version. This is a how-to-guide, confiscated from inmate DaQuan Cooper’s cell. You’ve probably never seen it before, and I won’t bore you with all the details, but I’ll let you know this. The kind of tips include, dropping a ‘kite,’ or love note, confessing to your C.O. target that you ‘felt a connection to her, and that she was beautiful.’ ”

  He looked up at me, and raised his eyebrows. “But, Dunbar, my favorite part in here…” He shook the papers. “My favorite and the most creative part is the tip that tells the inmate soldiers they should only target women who have low self-esteem, insecurities, and certain physical attributes.”

  It was clear to me that he ended with that for the most impact, and he was right to do that because I was pissed beyond words. But mostly, I was hurt.

  I didn’t want to believe my ears. DaQuan had a how-to guide like that?

  There was no way I could hide the way I felt. So that bastard thought I was insecure? He thought I had low self-esteem? And what were the certain physical attributes? Jones was fat, but I was phat, wasn’t I?

  After the assistant warden dropped the bomb and watched it explode, I looked on with hatred as Mr. Richards leaned back in his large leather chair. He exhaled. Again he chilled, while I choked back tears and struggled to keep the bile down.

  After a few minutes, that felt like hours to me, Mr. Richards leaned forward, but this time he looked at Sheppard instead of me. “So what can you tell us?”

  She spoke on cue, “All of the contraband I delivered is properly marked and tagged. Obviously, the cell phones and batteries as well as some of the pre-paid cards are all we will have left,” C.O. Sheppard said.

  In all the time I had dealt with her, I never once heard her speak like she had sense. As she delivered her report, she wasn’t fidgety and she sounded real believable, even smart. I was sure about one thing—she was one helluva actress.

  I was dumbfounded; all this time, that bitch was a plant, a fucking informant? How could I not have realized she was playing us all?

  “I made sure to speak loud and clear so that the wire could pick up conversations I had with C.O.s Dunbar, Edwards, Franklin, Jones, Bishop, and inmates DaQuan and R.J.”

  My mind raced with memories of her crazy behavior. I thought she was a crackhead. Who knew she was undercover all that time?

  “Good work. How would you say things changed after Sanchez was busted?” Mr. Richards asked.

  My head started to spin again. Sanchez was a snitch, too? What the hell was I doing?

  “We thought for sure after we set it up for Sanchez to get busted and spread the word, that things would’ve slowed down. At first they did, but as you will see in my report, the flow of pills never slowed. Also, when inmate Cooper started to show a romantic interest in C.O. Jones, a power struggle began between her and Dunbar. Again, all of this is detailed
in my report.”

  After she spoke, C.O. Sheppard stepped back to my side. It was obvious, I was fucked.

  Mr. Richards looked me in the eyes, but he spoke to C.O. Sanchez.

  “C.O. Sanchez, to whom did you report regarding your contraband, before the well-publicized bust?”

  “Sir, I reported directly to C.O. Sergeant Dunbar here, and she acted as a go-between by delivering my items to DaQuan or his minister of finance, R.J.” He quickly added, “All of those items are properly detailed in my report, and items are tagged and marked as well, Sir.”

  Mr. Richards’s unibrow elevated slightly.

  “Oh, and as the sergeant on duty, did all of her subordinates take part in the illegal smuggling business? What about C.O. Scott?”

  “Sir, Scott was not in on the business. She was an outsider. Everyone who had a role has been properly identified and his or her role is clearly detailed in the reports.”

  Without another word, Mr. Richards opened his drawer and pulled out a large plastic bag. He put it down on his desk, in front of me. I wanted to die right there.

  It was my gun.

  I swallowed hard and dry. How the hell had they gotten my damn gun?

  Our eyes met, but only mine started to fill with tears.

  The only time Mr. Richards’s focus left me was when his phone rang. He looked down, pressed a button on it, then spoke. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Richards, Special Agent Anderson on line one,” the secretary’s voice said.

  Mr. Richards pressed another button and a different voice rang out through the speakerphone.

  “We have three females in custody, and two minors in state care.”

  “Great. When will you pick up the others?”

  “We’re headed to your unit now.”

  “Roger that!”

  Mr. Richards ended the call, then returned his focus to me. A single tear ran down my face like it wanted to escape too. I was speechless and helpless. My heart had gone through so many emotional highs and lows, I felt empty. I had no one to turn to. Were those my kids in state custody? What must Mary have thought when they came to the door?