Carl Weber Presents Ride or Die Chick 4

by J. M. Benjamin

  Chapter Two

  You killed my mother. I won’t ever forget you! were the words that echoed in Andre Randle’s mind as he struggled to find a comfortable position to lay in. The discomfort from his injuries to the shoulder and face kept him up tossing and turning for most of the night. It had been the norm for the past few evenings after his release from the hospital. The painkillers he had been prescribed by the physician didn’t do anything to ease the pain. Instead, the pills had caused him to become nauseous, overly sensitive, and emotional so he discontinued taking them. He chose to fight the pain off naturally and was now realizing how difficult it actually was.

  He couldn’t help but reflect on why he was laid up in bed in the first place. Ever since the gun battle at Detective Love’s house, his first encounter with Treacherous Freeman Jr. kept playing in his mind. The words, “You killed my mother,” repeated over and over in Andre Randle’s head. Yeah, kid, I had to, or else she was going to put a bullet in your skull, he wanted to say back to young Treacherous that day; but he knew it was not the right or appropriate thing to say. Now, here it was: a young and dangerous man with a vendetta toward him was roaming the streets of Virginia. That didn’t sit well with Andre Randle.

  He remembered how he tried his best to defuse the situation. “Hold your fire!” he yelled out to Teflon Jackson.

  Andre Randle sat upright. He reached over and grabbed the pack of Newport 100s on his nightstand. The nicotine from the cigarette seemed to relax him. Andre Randle closed his eyes and let out a gust of silver smoke. He shook his head as his pleading words replayed themselves in the front of his head: “Ms. Jackson, please don’t do this, and don’t do this to your child!” he remembered saying to her.

  “Fuck that! It’s not my fault!” he bellowed. “I did all I could. She made a choice.” He continued to talk aloud to himself. An image of Teflon putting the gun to young Treacherous’s head illuminated in Andre Randle’s mind right before he heard the loud boom and saw the flashing white light.

  Andre Randle’s eyes shot open. He shook the image of Teflon Jackson’s suicide by cop out of his head and turned on the television to get his mind off of his present condition. He rubbed the swollen part of his face gently while he flicked through channel after channel with nothing in particular in mind to watch. He surfed through cartoons, reality shows, and reruns of CSI. He shook his head at the fact that nothing on television seemed to interest him, not even the news, and that was his favorite thing to watch. Today he was just not in the mood for anything. He was simply going through the motions. No matter how much he tried, he just couldn’t shake the thought of what happened back at Arthur Love’s house between the two of them, Love’s daughter, and Treacherous Freeman. It was a close call, but they had survived. His only regret was that he and Love were unable to finish what they had started together, which was take down the Bonnie and Clyde couple.

  He stopped pressing the channel button on the remote when he came across the Discovery channel. He was sure that if anything could relax his mind, it would be watching something dealing with nature. Just as he was about to get into the show featured, his mind did a quick backtrack. Subconsciously he thought he had recognized something or, rather, someone a few channels back. Randle’s television slowly traveled backward as he pointed the remote at the screen. Four stations later, he could not believe his eyes. He increased the volume on the television as his mouth fell open at the photo on the television screen.

  “Authorities still have no leads as to the whereabouts of the suspects in connection to the murder of alleged Irish crime boss Samuel Duff, known as Sammy Black. Mr. Black was buried in his homeland of Ireland some days ago. We’ll have more as this story continues to unfold.”

  “Christ,” Andre Randle cursed as he switched to another channel. He had no luck finding the report on any other station. Normally he would have been watching the news, but since being out of the hospital and taking the medication he had been prescribed he hadn’t been up on anything as of late. For Richmond news to make it all the way over to the seven cities’ news meant whoever Treacherous Freeman and Baby Love killed was a major figure in the underworld.

  “This just keeps getting better and better.” He let out a disheartened chuckle.

  He flung the cover off his body with his good arm. Time to get up, he told himself as he climbed out of bed. A sharp pain jolted through his shoulder as he rose. He shook it off. He shifted his head from side to side, cracking his neck, then did some basic stretching and leg lifts to get the blood circulating in his body. Andre Randle was beginning to feel rejuvenated. He was ready to get back on the horse and ride out what he and Detective Arthur Love had started. With that in mind, he knew what he had to do when the sun came up.

  Chapter Three

  Arthur Love bent down and picked up the newspaper that had been delivered and placed on his doorstep. For once the front page didn’t headline his fugitive daughter and her boyfriend. He placed the newspaper on the kitchen table then made his way to the fridge and snatched up the carton of eggs and box of Caroline sausage. Minutes later, the smell of pork sausages filled the air as he scrambled three eggs in a bowl. He couldn’t help but think about his daughter as he prepared the meal. It was Baby’s favorite one to make for him. It was also the last thing she had made. He shook his head as he scrambled the eggs in the small frying pan. He tossed two slices of Kraft white cheese onto the eggs. His mind wandered as he mixed the two. Never would he have imagined that his baby girl would become a wanted woman, running around like a maniac with her thug boyfriend.

  “Fuuuuuuck!” he chimed. The impact of his fist slamming down on the kitchen counter nearly knocked it off the hinges. Where did I go wrong? he questioned himself for the umpteenth time. He wondered how his once perfect life had turned into what it was today.

  So much time had passed. So many unanswered questions and apologies never made, Arthur Love believed, as he thought of how his family had been ripped apart. He had yet to recover from the shocking news Baby had forced her mother to confess to him. And it was still a hard pill to swallow as far as what happened next. He could still hear Baby’s cries:

  “You were supposed to protect me! You were supposed to protect me! Goddamit!”

  Arthur continued fixing his meal in a daze as his mind drifted to visions of his wife’s murder at the hands of his daughter, a murder that he knew Baby believed to be warranted and justified. He could hear his wife’s words as if it were yesterday.

  “I was wrong.”

  Arthur Love squeezed his eyes tight. He didn’t want to relive the ordeal but he could not stop the thoughts that were occupying the space in his mind. Arthur Love watched as he tried to reason with his daughter.

  “Baby, I’m begging you. Whatever it is or whatever it was, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, but I’m here now.”

  He knew what scene was coming next. He tried to shake it but couldn’t. For as long as he lived, Arthur Love would not forget the final moments between him, his wife, and his daughter.

  “I hope, wherever you’re going, you’re forgiven for what you did to me because I never will,” were the words Baby said her mother, and, “Daddy, I’m sorry,” to him, that echoed in Arthur Love’s mind right before his daughter had squeezed the trigger and blown his wife’s brains out. He ran his hands down his face. It was as if he could still feel his wife’s blood and brain matter on him.

  “No!” he cried out.

  He felt like a failure as a father. He had let down the two most important people in his life: his wife and daughter. It was the main reason he worked the case so diligently. He knew he couldn’t turn back the hands of time; but in his mind he thought if he could at least be the one to get to his daughter first, he could save her life, even if it meant spending the rest of it in prison.

  The phone rang, taking Arthur Love away from his thoughts. He looked at the caller ID and grimaced. “Hello.”

  “Hey, Arthur. I wanted to know if you wanted to m
eet me at the gym.”

  “Oh yeah. What time?” Arthur tried to sound interested. He recognized Detective Daniels’s voice.

  “Can you meet me in an hour?” Detective Daniels asked.

  “No. I won’t be available until the evening,” he declined. Any other time he would have accepted the offer from his colleague and workout partner. Working out was the furthest thing from his mind. He was not in the mood for anything. “Sorry, man. Let me call you later, because someone’s at my door,” Arthur lied as he ended the call. It wasn’t anything personal toward him. It was just the mood he had been in since recuperating. The truth was he had become somewhat of a loner. And today he’d rather indulge in breakfast and not be bothered.

  He finished cooking and placed his plate at the table. He thumbed through the newspaper until he located the sports section. His mind drifted again as he read the paper and ate his food. He thought of Baby and the eventful day that changed her life forever. Since that night, he kept asking himself, was there something that I could have done to prevent the molestation? No matter what, he still felt somewhat responsible. Baby was a victim of circumstance, he kept telling himself. She was a child and no child deserved to be abused. He felt some type of empathy for his daughter and her actions. Arthur Love somewhat understood why her life had taken the illegal turn that it did. Over many years on the force at Richmond PD he saw many files of sexual abuse, and he had heard it all, from fathers doing bad things to their sons or daughters, or even both in some cases, or parents who made their child perform sexual acts on them; but never did he think it would come to his doorstep.

  Arthur Love took the last bite of his meal. He had tried for the last few minutes to take his thoughts away from Baby. He sat at the kitchen table gazing out of the window. He wondered where Baby could be. He didn’t know where to begin to possibly find her, but he intended to search high and low, leaving no stone unturned.

  Just then, his phone rang, interrupting his thoughts again. When he saw the name flash across the screen, he hoped he didn’t have to wonder any longer.

  Chapter Four

  “You gots to be freakin’ kidding me!” Forty-four-year-old Dr. Peter Jackson’s eyes shot open. His sleep was broken by the thunderous sound of cages rattling and loud barking on the other side of his bedroom door. He looked over at the alarm clock. It was just a little after two a.m. He flung the warm down comforter off of his body with irritation and climbed out of bed. He was used to being awakened in the middle of the night, all hours of the night for that matter, and was fine with that. He knew it came with the job. But he had just managed to fall asleep nearly an hour ago, after delivering six Labrador retrievers during a C-section, and was not in the mood to be dealing with another cranky animal.

  He slipped into his bedroom slippers and sluggishly made his way to his room door. Seconds later, he was feet away from the door to his place of business. Having his workplace intertwined with his residence was like a gift and a curse for Dr. Jackson. This had been the story of his life for the past ten years of being in private practice. He was thankful to the Army for his degree and profession. He was also fortunate to have received an honorable discharge after shattering his pelvis from the impact of a pipe bomb during a terrorist attack in Iraq, versus being shipped home in a body bag. The whole experience left a bad taste in his mouth and deterred him from pursuing the medical field for human life. He didn’t believe he had the stomach for it. He still felt obligated to use his God-given talent to help save lives. That’s when he came up with the idea of becoming a veterinarian. Since then he had dedicated his life to catering to animals. He came to find that animals could be just as much of a handful as humans when sick or in pain. There were times when he’d have to spend seventy-two hours dealing with an animal under observation. During those long, tiring days, one of the perks was the fact that he didn’t have far to travel to get home. But it was times like this, when his patients were riled up or simply being difficult, when he wished the two places were separate.

  The closer he got to the door, the louder the barking and cage rattling became. Dr. Jackson shook his head and grimaced as he entered the room.

  “Okay! Okay! I’m here!” he announced as he flicked the office light switch on. “What’s all the fuss about?” he added as he made his way over to one kennel in particular.

  “What’s the matter, boy? Huh?” He directed his words to a white spotted terrier, who seemed to be making the most noise out of all the animals. Although he was used to it, he was a little surprised by the terrier’s behavior. Since he had found him on the side of Interstate 85 with a broken leg and fractured ribs three weeks ago, just outside of Richmond, all he did was bark and whine the first two weeks. But for the past week he had been pretty quiet like the others. He had been nursing him back to health ever since. He watched as the terrier spun around in circles and continued to let out his high-pitched barks.

  A sedative ought to do the trick, thought Dr. Jackson. “Don’t worry, I got something for you,” he assured the terrier. He stuck his hand through the top of the kennel and massaged behind his left ear. Normally that would do the trick, but the terrier kept barking. He had been so engrossed with the terrier that he hadn’t noticed that, aside from the barking dogs, he was not alone.

  A sudden voice startled him and caused him to spin around. It all made sense to him. The terrier was not trying to be a peace disturber; he was being a protector and alarm system for Dr. Jackson.

  “Who are you?” His words came out choppy. He immediately threw his hands up in the air. His eyes widened at the sight of the gun the intruder was brandishing.

  “I’m not here to cause any trouble. This was the only place I could find nearby. We need your help,” Baby replied all in one breath.

  Dr. Jackson’s eyes shifted from Baby to the figure she had laid on his examining table. He could see that both she and who appeared to be an injured male were just young teens. He could only imagine what happened. Lately, he had been hearing about the violence in the Richmond area, from black-on-black crime to police brutality, and he wondered which applied. Whatever the case, being from Glen Allen housing projects himself, he knew how things could easily happen and felt everybody deserved to be helped. The only thing was that it had been a long time since he had attempted to perform any type of medical assistance on another human being. His experience in the medical field since the service was with animals. He couldn’t believe the irony of his profession.

  “You do know I’m a veterinarian, right?” he stated as a matter of fact.

  “Yes. We can’t go nowhere else. I’ll take my chances,” Baby retorted.

  Dr. Jackson understood loud and clear. Although animals were his primary clients, he knew there was not much difference with a human life. What if something goes wrong? crossed his mind. For his sake, he hoped that would not be the case.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “But first, I’m going to need you to not point that gun at me. It’s making me nervous.”

  Baby studied him for a second. She then lowered her weapon.

  “Thank you.” Dr. Jackson made his way over to where Treacherous lay unconscious. He noticed he was sweating profusely. “Now, what happened?”

  “My boyfriend’s been shot,” was all Baby offered.

  Dr. Jackson peered over at her. Her stony facial expression was enough to convince him that that was all she was willing to tell him.

  “We have to get him out of these bloody clothes,” Dr. Jackson informed Baby. He then walked over to the tray table where he kept his medical tools neatly laid out. Baby watched as he twisted the top off of a bottle of peroxide and poured some over the sharp-looking object he held over the small metal pan in his hand. He split Treacherous’s shirt open with the sharp blade he’d just retrieved from the tray of tools and sterilized. He noticed the bullet hole in Treacherous’s lower chest area oozing blood. Once he had his shirt off completely, he saw a bullet protruding from his forearm.

  “Do you kn
ow if he’s been hit anywhere else?” Dr. Jackson asked Baby.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Okay.” He began cutting Treacherous’s pants off of him. Once he’d established there were no other gunshot wounds he sprang into action. He pulled out a pair of rubber surgical gloves and began to selectively pick and choose medical instruments he felt he’d need for what he was about to do. He brought his mask down over his face and placed the instruments in a pan of liquid. Although he always sterilized all of his medical tools, he felt compelled to do it again since he was about to perform on a human being and not an animal.

  Once they were all sterilized, he snatched up a bottle of alcohol, iodine, a couple boxes of bandages, and tape. Every move he made, Baby made. She became his shadow. Dr. Jackson felt smothered, as if he couldn’t breathe. Everywhere he turned, she was right there. He asked her to give him some elbow room so that he could operate on Treacherous. Baby nodded and backed up off of him. She went off to the side near the corner of his office. Her pacing back and forth both annoyed and distracted him. Finally, Dr. Jackson got fed up.

  He couldn’t help but keep looking back over his shoulder at Baby. Realizing she was going to stop, he got fed up.

  I’m going to need you to wait out there.” He pointed toward his waiting room area.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to focus with her in the room hovering all around him.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Baby stated.

  “Well, then that means you don’t care about this young man’s life, because it lies in your hands,” Dr. Jackson informed her. “It’s your call. Wait out there, he lives. Stay in here, he—”