by Kira Graham
Talk about a smorgasbord of crazy. My kinda people!
Need to pee. So bad that I almost hate Hector for the supersized coffee, until I remember how it was made exactly the way I like it. Four sugars, half milk, a quarter foam, and an extra shot of espresso that set my nerves jangling.
“Fine, but I need something to wipe with. I get the itch if I don’t wipe,” I grumble, rolling to my feet while the two female officers outside the cell smirk at me.
“Here ya go, darlin’,” Jan barks in her smoky, husky voice, handing me a piece of shirt that she tears off.
I don’t want to take it, the main reason being the brown crud that spatters the fabric and smells slightly tangy, but beggars can’t be choosers, and my bladder isn’t going to hold out forever.
Unfortunately, my pee session turns out to involve more than just pee, and I end up making a disgrace of myself while the women all chuckle and stand as a wall. What the hell is wrong with me? I think, groaning through another watery fart before finally falling still and using the fabric to clean myself up.
Golden. That piece of shirt is silk as far as I am concerned, and after I clean up, I rise to flush and fix my clothes. But with my luck, the thing doesn’t flush, leaving the toilet filled with…let’s not talk about that right now.
“Goddammit!” I mutter, slapping the flusher over and over while eyeing the others with a mortified blush heating my cheeks. “Just flush!”
“Oh, honey, that ain’t happening. Why you think the thing smelled so bad?” Bee mumbles, killing my dreams of saving this situation dead in its tracks.
I don’t know what the heck is going on with me, but what just came out of me isn’t right, and it gives me an idea that makes my stomach convulse.
“Someone drugged me,” I whisper, loud enough that my friends all whip around and stare down into the toilet, with varying degrees of horror lining their faces.
“With death?”
“Hell, darlin’, that is some ugly that you just produced outta that fine body,” Jan mumbles, giving me another once-over, though this time not with lust but with a look that makes my face so hot that my skin feels tight.
“Oh, shut up, you buncha idiots. Didn’t you just hear what she said? That explains the whole memory thing! You gotta tell them cops,” Carla says excitedly, her face falling when I shake my head.
“That would kill my alibi.”
“Oh, yeah. But—but it’s proof, though,” she points out, leading me back to the steel benches where I slump back down and think about the timeline.
“Yeah, but only in that I know for sure that someone was in my apartment.”
Bee whistles softly, and I see Carla shudder as she slinks back down against the wall.
“No offense, honey, but that creepy shit only happens to you rich folks. I’d just about piss my thong if some freak done snuck into my house while I was passed out on the couch. If my Davey was still alive, he’d have beat that man to death with a baseball bat,” she says, affection filling her tone.
I want to snort because this is coming from a woman who used that same bat to kill the very man that she’s gushing about. But I have the need to live, and besides, that doesn’t make her Davey worthy of life. Her face is a purple mask of bruises and blood, and, from the size of her left cheek, I’d say she’s got some sort of fracture there.
“That creepy shit never happened to me before this. Or to my sisters. Before Cleo and Adonis met, we had a completely normal life. We all worked hard to have the lives we have, and things were fine.”
“Then it’s the men,” Bee says, starting off a round of nodding.
“No—funnily enough, it isn’t. Cleo was always the target, and she still is.”
“Then why do this? Because we all know, this shit is tied together. You told them cops ’bout that freak?” Jan asks, sniffing when I nod.
“They said that we have no proof that it’s tied together. To make things worse, if I implicate the stalker by having a blood test, then it makes my alibi questionable,” I whisper, eyeing the female officers who thankfully aren’t paying attention, at least not that I can see.
“I see your dilemma. Reminds me of the time that I told my pimp that I’d been doing business, when I was actually out at the beach with my man. I ended up paying the guy almost six hundred dollars of my own money ’cause I didn’t factor in his cut of the mythical earnings,” Bee chortles, her large belly jiggling while her breasts fight against the neckline of her leopard print “dress.”
She reminds me of that girl from that movie…Precious! Yeah. The same one who acted in American Horror Story. Love that girl! No wonder I like Bee.
“Catch twenty-two,” Carla muses, stroking her purple cheek while snapping on a wad of gum the size of her tongue.
“Exactly.”
“Well, honey, then I’d say you gotta drop that line of thinking, get your ass outta here, and then go on a hunt for this guy. Now, don’t misunderstand ol’ Jan—I don’t want ya running around out there on a wild tear and getting yourself hurt, but my daddy always told me that the best defense you got is a good offense. Course, my daddy ended up getting knifed to death in a bar fight, so I’m thinking that he wasn’t all that good in the brains department, but the rule still applies. You gotta catch him yourself, and the only way to do that is to become invisible.”
Carla scoffs at that, and so does Bee, who gives Jan a long, disgusted look.
“You been checking out them redhead’s titties since she walked her fine ass in here, girl. You think this firecracker’s capable of being invisible?” she asks, chortling when Jan flushes and peeks at me.
“I meant to the killer, idjit! She gotta be harmless far as the killer is concerned,” Jan argues, giving me a startled look as something occurs to her. “You been speaking about this to anyone lately?”
I consider this, biting my lip as I think back on the last few weeks. I spoke to Zeus about it for the first time last night, and then hours later, I get arrested and find myself basically strung up for a crime that I can’t prove I didn’t commit. The only thing saving me now is an alibi that’s been manufactured. Since the police and the DA can’t prove that my alibi isn’t rock-solid, they can’t really convict me of this crime. If Zeus says that I was with him last night, all night, and therefore not out committing those murders, then I have to be in the clear, but without that…?
Gone. Over. Game over. And Jan is right; the timing of this is really specific, but could a conversation that I had with Zeus have spurred such an intricate plot in a matter of hours? I ask myself, chewing on my bottom lip with a sigh.
“I told Zeus that I didn’t believe that Cameron Black had been behind the kidnapping and attempted murder of my sister,” I tell them, watching these women think this over.
“Well, it ain’t that man,” Bee pipes up instantly, popping the bubble of anxiety that’s filling my gut.
“Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
“Totally agreed.”
“But that must be the reason, and if that’s the reason, then I gotta tell ya, boo, someone’s watching y’all very closely,” Bee says, shivering delicately as if the very thought gives her the willies.
Not that I blame her. It gives me the outright freaking creeps, but I don’t tell them that because I don’t want a round of sympathy. These women are streetwise, smart thinkers who can give me a fresh perspective on things and maybe help me to figure it all out. What am I missing? What am I overlooking because I’m thinking with my logical mind and not the mind of a lunatic? These women are all nuts in their own ways, so maybe they can point me in the right direction.
“We were walking out of the hotel as we were speaking, and then riding in the limo. I don’t think that anyone was following us, though. Zeus is very observant, guys. He even eyeballed my neighbor when we were leaving my building and noticed the homeless guy near the corner. If someone was there, he’d have said something.”
“Then you been bugged, girl.
Nuh, just listen to your good pal Carla. Being a woman whose man was crazy obsessive, I had my fair share of bullshit from Davey. You know he got one of his illegal buddies to bug my phone with an app that I thought was a beauty camera? There I was, taking all them selfies and putting the bunny ears on and what not, and the next thing I knew, I was getting slapped upside the head and beat on ’cause he’d heard me telling my hairdresser that he’d ejaculated too early one time,” she grunts. “You been bugged, and I’d bet it’s your phone, your purse, or something you carry around with you all the time. I reset my phone, and then the man put one of them microphone things in my mama’s cross. God bless her soul,” she murmurs, making the sign of the cross, as do we all.
“That’s possible, I guess, but it would have to be something that I had on me last night, and the police have gone through it all. Even my phone.”
They shrug, even Jan falling silent.
“Then he either took it out, or it just ain’t been found.”
“Carla, hush up! You scaring Rosie!” Bee barks, hauling my head onto her huge bosom and stroking my hair in a motherly way that I’d enjoy, if my nose wasn’t so close to her.
She smells like old cigarettes, sweat, and a sickly sweet something that I would attribute to sex-dirty genitalia, if I knew what that smelled like. Oh, God—just hold your breath, Rosetta. She’s a nice person who just wants to help you.
“I, uh—thanks, Bee,” I murmur, pulling away and getting myself together before she pulls me back in again.
I need a bath. Or seven. Maybe a sinus purge with a neti pot, and then a stiff drink. Or eight.
“No problem, sister. So, you think this X-Files Mulder wannabe is right?” she asks, flipping Carla off when she curses and bares her teeth.
The thing is, I don’t know. It all sounds way too unrealistic to me, and yet there has to be some validity to the theory. We were in the limo, and since I know that Joe and Zeus aren’t responsible for any of this, then I would have to say that someone heard us talking. The question is, how? I can’t answer that while sitting in this cell, and since my arraignment is tomorrow, all I have is time to think and ask myself why, how, and who—three questions that have eluded me for months and driven me near crazy.
What I do know?
Someone knows that I know that Black wasn’t the culprit, and that person was trying to get rid of me before I started digging. But that only means that I’m going to dig even harder now. Maybe Jan is right. Sitting back and trying to find this guy hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I need to stop looking for him and do something that will make him come to me.
Zeus
“Absolutely not,” I seethe, nodding at Joe to keep driving even when Rosetta curses and tries to slap me. “Goddammit, Rosetta, I said no! You cannot go back to your apartment right now. The place is crawling with journalists, psychos, and God knows who else. Going there will only cause more of a press sensation, and it isn’t safe.”
She huffs and flops back against the seat, completely ignoring my sulky looks and the fact that I did her a favor by refusing to let the whole family arrive at her bail hearing.
I’m still pissed about that one, and not at all okay with the fact that she’s still going to have to stand trial for these crimes unless I can prove that she’s innocent. According to the DA, an alibi is great but is something that he can work around, considering the huge body of evidence that he has against Rosetta. Thank God that the judge didn’t see it entirely that way and agreed to grant her bail on the premise that she is indeed innocent until proven guilty.
And that’s where we’re at right now. We just left the courthouse, and we’re on the way to my apartment, where I have a bath, a meal, and clean clothes waiting for my woman. She smells bad, and I feel bad that I’m slightly relieved that she’s sitting in the opposite seat, a good enough distance away that I don’t have to get a direct whiff of her again.
I can’t quite put my finger on that sickly sweet stench, but if I had to try to explain it, it would be something close to the smell of sweaty nuts that I remember from my football days.
“I need to check my place for bugs, Zeus. Carla made an excellent point while we were in the slammer. I could have been bugged. That’s the only way to explain how this killer knew that I was on to him.”
“And I just told you that Chilli took Brent Ulster and Nathaniel over there after the scene was cleared. They looked at everything, babe. There were no bugs. Not in your apartment, not on your phone, and not even in the limo. Your theory is a good one, but there just isn’t much proof to support it. That Carla woman could be right. Maybe the guy swiped them after he planted all the evidence in your apartment,” I point out, thinking that it’s the only logical conclusion.
That Carla woman is savvy, and I mentally cross myself and shudder at the thought of Rosetta’s meeting her and those other women. Firstly, they’re all dangerous and have committed some sort of real crime in the last week. Secondly, while I don’t judge them for their actions, because I don’t know why they did those things, I don’t think that it’s a good idea for Rosetta to be befriending street-smart criminals. It will just spur on her already unhinged ideals, and, as things stand, she isn’t exactly the soul of morality.
“Shit! I knew it. Dammit, Z, this is driving me crazy. This guy definitely tried to get rid of me because I was going to investigate this further,” she seethes, her face going hard.
I see the fear underlying her bravado, though, and take note of her pale skin and the drawn lines around her mouth. She’s scared. Afraid enough that she’s stopped arguing about going home, something that is unheard of with Rosetta. If she really wanted to go home, she’d get her ass home, no matter what. The fact that she’s still in the limo tells me that my indomitable little vixen is afraid, and my temper spikes at the thought, hating the idea that someone like Rosetta, usually so fearless and full of life, could be cowed by something. It makes me want to coddle her and protect her from the world, and yet I know that I can’t do that. Not just because she’d hate it—because she would, and that would make me unhappy, too—but because the facts are staring me in the face.
My woman is on the hook for three murders, and, unless I can prove otherwise, she could go to prison for the rest of her life. With her background as an attorney, we both know that her alibi should be airtight and unarguable, but the DA isn’t seeing it that way. The charges haven’t been dropped, and Rosetta is not off the hook.
“What if I can’t prove that I didn’t do it?” she asks, whispering the words into the ensuing silence, her voice a hoarse tremble that transmits her fear more clearly than the moisture that suddenly fills her eyes.
“Rose, baby, come here,” I growl, pulling her over and into my lap despite her smell. “We’re going to clear your name. I swear it.”
“What if we can’t?” she sniffles, clearing her throat as she attempts to pull herself together. “I can’t go to prison for this, Zeus. I can’t spend the rest of my life in prison for something that I didn’t do. And I swear to God that I didn’t do it!”
“I know, Rosie. Shh, stop fighting it and cry, babe. I’m here.”
“But—but what if they actually take this to trial? I saw all of that evidence, Z. The dress, the knife. They swabbed me for residue, and I know for a fact that it’s going to come back positive. The odds are stacking up against me.”
She sounds so forlorn and defeated that it tears me apart. I should have been there with her, I hiss silently, pulling her closer and cursing myself when her ass grinds down, and my body reacts. Now isn’t the time for this. Sex won’t solve anything, but the moment that I try to move her away, Rosetta does something that shocks me.
She kisses me, and it isn’t a kiss of thanks or even of relief; it’s the same kind of kiss that we shared before, when I was so hard and desperate that I almost took her against the wall.
“Rose,” I manage to groan, the sound getting strangled when she shifts suddenly and straddles me, forcing her sex
down hard against my cock so that I feel her heat. “We should talk—”
“I don’t want to talk. I want to forget that I just spent hours in a cell with three criminals that I ended up liking. I want to forget, just for a moment, that I’m in deep trouble and likely to end up…I just, I don’t want to think right now,” she whispers, her eyes grave but shining with a desperate lust that I can’t ignore.
This won’t fix anything, but it doesn’t matter, because no matter where this goes, I won’t let anything happen to her. Giving in, I pull her face down and kiss her deeply, our moans mingling when she starts to grind into me, the hot core between her legs creating a hard friction that has me seeing stars.
I flip us around and lay her down on the seat, using her moment of shock to settle myself between her splayed legs once more. This is what I’ve dreamed of for months. It’s what I’ve jacked off to, though admittedly, in my fantasies, she’s stretched out on my bed, her red hair and pale skin a shockingly sexy picture against the backdrop of my dark blue sheets.
This will do, though, and it will actually do very well, because Rosetta doesn’t seem to care about romance, beds, or the need for privacy. Her hands move between us and start to rip at my clothes, spurring me to pull at the thin white jumpsuit she’s wearing until all that’s left is a pair of ugly white panties, an uglier white bra, and her hair, the first thing about her that ever caught my eye. I rip the underwear off her with a snarl, promising to buy her a thousand pairs made of silk so that nothing else will ever touch her soft skin. Then I pause, my mind going blank when I get my first glimpse of her naked skin.