Trouble's Always Watching Volume 1: Volume 1 (The Trouble Series)

by Courtney Smith

  Trouble’s Always Watching

  VOLUME ONE

  Courtney L. Smith

  A Spiritscribe Publishing, LLC Production

  Trouble’s Always

  Watching

  VOLUME ONE

  Copyright © Courtney L. Smith

  Spiritscribe Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 2241

  Humble, Texas 77347

  www.spiritscribepublishing.com

  (832) 445-6229

  ISBN 978-0-692-07312-4

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923 978-750-8400, fax 978-750-4470,or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Send requests to the publisher for permission.

  Contact Courtney L. Smith clsmith766@yahoo.com

  Prologue

  The balmy air of July revealed scattered silhouettes moving quickly and nervously without casting shadows in the morning darkness of four o’clock. Cars scrambled across Kelly Street like roaches on a dark floor. A few scantily clad women bent over the driver-side windows of stopping cars, resembling filthy rags teetering on the edge of a garbage can. One woman placed her hand on the passenger-side door's handle of a stopping car before fluorescent lights glimmered in her eyes. Their casual faces fell quickly before glancing around themselves, skittishly.

  Suddenly, those same women stumbled down the street, breaking the heels on their shoes and falling upon one another in an attempt to dodge an unpleasantly familiar vehicle charging toward them. The sound of a sleek, black Lincoln Navigator’s engine permeated the area as the ladies ripped stockings and tore dresses in order to escape the pending danger. Bulging eyes and a gaping mouth stared at one unlucky woman from the tinted window's reflection with the vehicle abruptly stopping beside her. Red trim gleamed in her eyes as she stumbled backwards from the sub utility vehicle. A man's piercing eyes and wicked smiled slowly replaced her face during the window's descent. Evil laughter faded behind the fleeing woman.

  Terrance Jackson strained his eyes as he glared down at most people's scalps from his six-foot frame. He possessed bulging contours, which stood out like mountains throughout his body. His coffee-grounds skin only reflected a fragment of the darkness within him. Terrance delicately brushed the sleeve of his cashmere suit and glanced down at the smooth, brown texture of his Italian, leather shoes. The glimmer from his gold chains mildly blinded people upon tilting his head, and his rings’ luster flashed with each motion of his fingers. Terrance's smile stretched widely with the cool feeling of his shifting Rolex or his reflection glaring at him from his twenty-four-inch-chromium rims on his sub utility vehicle.

  The woman heard the engine roaring behind her. She knelt, covered her head, and closed her eyes, as the engine's sound filled her ears. The vehicle’s warmth massaged her skin while she heard a door opening and closing. She opened her eyes to see Terrance standing over her. Her arms and legs trembled uncontrollably with his shadow rising over her before he chuckled and climbed into his vehicle as though he were the President of the United States boarding Air Force One. The woman watched her fading face in the reflective bumper become distorted with the vehicle’s departure. The burly man turned onto Hirsch Road, went under the freeway, and made a left along a virtually clear feeder road. He drove onto 610 Freeway for a few seconds until he used an exit.

  Terrance turned right onto North Wayside Drive and traveled until discarded cans, paper, and a worn-out mattress bombarded his vehicle's tires upon driving onto the lot of a warehouse. He slowly cruised beside a corrugated, sheet metal wall. The door of his vehicle swung open quickly upon stepping out. He walked twenty feet away from his automobile while the engine rumbled.

  The moon's silver beams cascaded several hues upon a dull-gray building surrounded by pungent, brown, and white feces. He followed the dim light into the building's entrance where two, muscular, hickory-skinned men stood on both sides of a short, thin, alabaster man and his small girl, who were both restrained by ropes tied to wooden chairs with a sparking light from a broken bulb swinging above them. The captive man's brown hair swung from side to side as his motion in the chair resembled a metronome. Two black eyes protruded from his face with red drool falling upon his previously white shirt.

  The girl's big, innocent, brown eyes widened upon looking up at the men surrounding her with trembling lips. However, her father pulled, jerked, and jumped with the men holding his arms steadily despite its apparent vanity. The burly, well-dressed tyrant walked toward the child, spat in her face, and turned to the restrained man shouting, “You know whistleblowers have short lives!”

  “Good! My daughter and I will be dead before your face kills us!” screamed the belligerent man.

  “Paint the walls with their brains,” said Terrance coldly as he removed his pistol from his holster. The large man’s cohorts followed their boss’s lead as he pressed the barrel into his victim’s forehead. Flares streaked from the guns, but nothing was hit except the walls before the shells bounced off of the ground.

  “What happened to that snitch!” hollered Terrance. A lean, young woman with braids, well-defined hips, and gold-trimmed glasses stepped out of the shadows into the flickering bulb’s light before emphatically shouting “Me!”

  The cohorts mouths fell open with widening eyes after whipping their heads in the direction of the bold, young lady. Terrence frowned with glaring eyes, and he clenched his fists.

  “Give ‘em up before I splatter yo’ brains on da floor!”

  “That would defeat the purpose of getting them out of your possession!” snapped the young stranger. The impatient man and his cohorts redirected their pistols in the mysterious young lady’s direction. Small veins began to pulsate in Terrance’s face as he shouted, “Last chance! Give ‘em up or die!”

  “Are y’all gonna shoot or stare at me like you’re constipated!” taunted the beautiful stranger, confidently. Small explosions repeatedly flashed from the metallic objects. Terrance's eyes literally strained from trying to follow the young woman's movements. Smoking holes appeared in the sheet-metal walls, the roof, and pigeons fell from their nests upon the steel rafters. The other numerous, colorful birds scattered wildly as their fluttering and feathers filled the air in response to sounds like firecrackers.

  Terrance’s cohorts glared at the large, crimson blemishes on each other’s clothes before falling on the fecal-stained concrete. They trembled with great grimaces upon their face before they stopped moving, altogether. Fumes burned Terrance's closing eyes with the smell of urine and smoke.

  Terrance slowly slid his arm over his body without finding blood or wounds before slowly rising from the ground and clutching his pistol, tightly. Silence bombarded his ears upon glancing around the area.

  The eyes of his associates bulged with frozen expressions upon their faces and rapidly increasing breaths. He glanced at his subordinates with an empty gaze, mildly beat dust from his sleeves, adjusted his tie, and straightened his collar. He calmly uttered, “Gentlemen, I had to make some budget cuts, anyway. Your services are no longer needed or required.” He stepped over his cohorts as though they were curbs and strolled out of the warehouse as though he just left church.

  I don’t know who that woman was, but she should b
e mulch after spraying those hollow points, anyway. Cold, steel ridges pressed against his back, while he eased along the corrugated wall with his clenched weapon. The darkness and the chirping crickets were all that resulted from his search. He just shrugged his shoulders and strolled to his idling vehicle. She’s probably somewhere bleeding to death. He snickered, climbed into his idling vehicle, closed the door, and drove it until he reached a parking garage surrounded by several skyscrapers beneath a loft in Downtown Houston.

  He flashed his card at the gate attendant without stopping. He charged throughout the ramps and swerved inches away from other moving cars before he drove into a space being entered by a luxurious, cherry-red vehicle. A blue-eyed, blonde-haired driver with a furrowed brow lowered his tinted window and parted his lips. A large coffee-grounds hand gripped its clenched fist with a pair of frowning eyes returning a similar expression. The man simply waved, turned his head, and drove, away.

  The large man smirked as he parked the sub utility vehicle into the recently available space. He stepped out and briefly glanced in his driver’s-side mirror at various angles before shutting the door and walking, away. He swaggered past a staircase toward a pair of grey, steel doors. He frowned and tapped his foot repeatedly before the elevator opened. Terrance walked in and punched the button corresponding to the fifth floor as though he were punishing the apparatus for being too slow.

  The mild smell of bleach and citrus stroked his nostrils when he stepped off and strutted to his unit. Terrance shoved his key into the lock of a door with crimson, glossy paint. He gazed at his black, marble floor tiles and his self-indulgent reflection in the mirror at the end of the foyer during his entrance. A deep inhalation of his potpourri made him relax, slightly. He quickly and gently pulled his clothes off and creased his suit’s articles.

  Terrance briskly walked around the corner into a large room and threw his clothes onto a white, Corinthian leather sofa next to a pecan, young, shapely woman in slightly dingy, silk, red lingerie. She glanced at him and scowled before casually returning her glance to the television without staring at him a second time.

  “Where have you been, Terrance?” asked the woman with a hostile tone.

  “I been taking care of business; that’s all you need to know, and don’t ask me about my whereabouts again, woman!” replied the man. He stomped around in his boxers and clutched his cellular phone as though it were a pacemaker. Terrance stormed to his bedroom and locked his door before heading toward his bathroom. He quickly removed his boxers, neatly folded them, and placed them on the black, granite counter.

  Terrance stepped into the shower, turned on the gold-plated faucet, and basked in the powerful streams of heated water. The steaming flow sent his body into a paradise of soothing sensations. Potent silence saturated his mind. He relaxed as though he sat on hot sand, numbing his feet on a tropical beach. He almost lost all consciousness before the sound of shattering glass destroyed his mental paradise.

  He heard a scream from the living room, rushed in with a towel wrapped around his waist and water dripping from his body while holding a pistol. The bewildered man gazed at the floor to see a familiar shape lying upon it. He nonchalantly stepped over his unconscious companion with his eyes toggling between several, gold-framed pictures, African-sculptures, and platinum statuettes. The resident's eyes saw the same still surroundings and returned to the spot his sleeping girlfriend occupied to find only her subtle imprint left in the carpet.

  “Looking for someone?” taunted a mildly, familiar voice. Terrance immediately raised his gun and fired off several rounds, but he struck the walls, furniture, and some spots on the floor. Small portions of sheetrock flew into the air with the smell of gunpowder lingering around his nose.

  “Are you shooting or swatting flies?” taunted the feminine voice, once again.

  “What’s the matter, Terrance? No one ever taught you how to aim?” He looked around and saw everything except the source of the voice.

  “I don’t know who you are, but you're about to meet God!” shouted Terrance. He knocked over books, tables, chairs, and vases between rooms with no one sighted. Terrance returned to the kitchen and placed the gun on the counter. He turned around after hearing a slight, sharp sound to see the same young woman from the warehouse aiming his pistol at him within half a blink, standing on the other side of the room.

  “Just put down the gun! You don’t want to shoot me!” ordered Terrance with his hands raised.

  “Why not? You’re big enough to make the perfect target!” shrugged the teenager before throwing the gun through the window with broken shards falling onto the street and sidewalk.

  “You’re gonna wish you had kept that,” smiled Terrance, wickedly. The large man ran toward her, but she avoided him as easily and stepping around matted gum on the sidewalk. Terrance wildly kicked, but blurred, nearly invisible movements surrounded his legs before he lowered them. He repeatedly swung at her to see glimpses of her yawning with blinding speed.

  Terrance threw an uppercut, but he found himself missing only to have five, clenched fingers strike his face before he was dazed. His fading awareness allowed him to hear a phrase from the lovely trespasser before it disappeared, altogether.

  “Good night, Sleeping Beauty. Oh, by the way. Trouble's always watching!”

  …Terrance felt something cold against his face while he opened his eyes. He saw the familiar black, marble tiles of his loft against his cheek. The perplexed man looked ahead of him to see a cheap, black shoe he cringed at wearing. He saw the cuff of dark-blue trousers overlapping the tasteless footwear, leading up to a uniformed man, staring down at him with a wry smile. He attempted to move his arms only to realize his wrists were bound in place by something very strong, cold, and metal.

  A voice behind Terrance yelled, “He’s awake now! He must realize that he is under arrest!”

  Sunlight weighed down Jacob Jones's back when he staggered to his mailbox. He brooded when people with easy mobility casually passed him while each of his steps felt like a marathon. The older man took several short gasps as he pushed his walker with tennis balls on the back legs for smoother travelling against the irregular, cracked, and torn path of his sidewalk. His arthritis made bones strain to the extent of shattering. The resistance of his badly eroded and broken sidewalk made his short journey feel more like a global trek. The elderly, cinnamon man with a mild-bronze tint strained as he reached for his completely rusted mailbox and slowly opened the door.

  He gasped and stared into the opening. The elder leaned on the dull, red container’s side. He stretched his arm in the direction of the postal material. His fingertips were about to grasp the white letters and ruffled sheets before a lean, jet-black hand snatched the contents and threw it all over the yard. The senior citizen turned around to see a thin, muscular teenager holding a few of his letters.

  “Gimme my mail, you evil punk!” shouted the disgruntled man. The teenager walked up the stairs to the porch through the open door into the red house with brittle stucco. Jacob heard objects falling, glass breaking, and pots rattling with pans. The elderly man shook and trembled along the broken path. He hobbled down the sidewalk with inflammation in his lungs. His muscles shook upon stepping upon the porch, and he nearly fell backwards from a startling shout. Jacob raised his stiff neck to see the young man walking out and laughing, loudly. The owner screamed before the feeling of a boulder hitting his chest interrupted him. His back felt as though it were being ripped open when he rolled backwards upon his lawn. Jacob’s eyes rolled up to the peaceful, blue sky as sunlight partially blinded him.

  He turned his head to avoid the sun’s brightness and saw a glimpse of the young man, leaping over his three-foot, chain-link fence. The delinquent turned around and shouted, “Trouble's always watching!” Then, he immediately turned around and walked away.

  A petite, caramel woman with a shiny, white negligee felt cool breezes graze her legs as she ran upon the pavement along the street. Her bare fee
t sent stabbing pains through her legs with pebbles and debris penetrating her soles. The fingers of her right arm grazed the twists in a chain-linked fence, and her left side was completely obstructed by a brick wall. Her feet pushed her forward until her head struck the solid surface.

  The desperate woman ignored the pain and bleeding from her forehead as she leapt and stretched her bruised fingers toward branches, but the tree's limbs were too high. Her eyes widened and arms trembled upon hearing approaching footsteps. The woman shrieked when she felt recognizable tobacco-scented breath, grazing the back of her neck. She turned around to face her pursuers, and she saw a stout, three-hundred-pound man with pinewood skin, a torn white T-shirt, ripped jeans, fully shaven scalp, well-groomed goatee, and large contours walking enthusiastically in her direction. His companion was adorned in a black, silk suit with gold cufflinks, wavy jet-black hair, and a sandy-brown tone with a gold tooth on his top, front-right incisor. He walked toward her casually and rebuked her with his Spanish accent.

  “You know better than to try to run away from me!”

  His open palm slammed into the side of the gentle face. The small woman fell to the ground and rolled a few times before her body struck the fence. She grasped the links and cringed as her assailant came closer to her with his cohort. The well-dressed man smiled and shook his head lightly as he strutted toward his victim before a subtle movement to his right grasped his attention. He turned in the direction of the motion to see his three-hundred-pound henchman flying through the air.

  The criminal fell six yards away from where he stood, only moments ago. He saw something in the corner of his eye he had not noticed, earlier. The man slowly turned his head to see a petite woman with blonde hair, dusty, blue, denim jeans and a clean, tan leather jacket smiling as she walked briskly in his direction. She could not have possibly done that to my hired muscle! That’s crazy! The night air is playing tricks with me!