“You just gonna leave DeeDee behind?” she asked.
“Nobody is more important to me than you, baby sis,” he replied.
Chastity fell silent and looked out of the window. With each passing exit, she felt worse. She loved New York, she loved Brooklyn, and most of all, she loved the power she had gained and all the money she made. Chastity would miss everything. She wondered what Leticia was doing right now. She wondered if the NYPD had gone and arrested Leticia for Tori’s murder, and she wondered if Leticia would ever forgive her for betraying her. Chastity thought about the promise they all had made to each other . . .
“Look at all this money!” Tori said, excitedly.
“Word up! This is more than we ever made boosting,” Leticia commented.
“Don’t get all crazy. Lay low with this shit for a while. We don’t want people to notice us just yet,” Chastity instructed as she counted out ten-thousand-dollars for each of them. The money was the result of their first turnover. It was the first time any of them had that much money in their hands, and it felt good.
“Yo, Chazz, you are a mastermind. We are on our way,” Leticia said.
“M-o-n-e-y, M-o-n-e-y, M-o-n-e-y!” Tori sang out as she flipped through her bills.
“Everybody got an even split,” Chastity lied. She had already set aside an extra five-thousand for herself. She reasoned that it was her hard work that had made them the money; therefore, she was entitled to a larger cut.
“Yo, cash rules everything around me!” Leticia sang, chuckling.
“What you buying first?” Tori asked Leticia.
“A bitch!” Leticia quipped. They started laughing.
“I’m getting my baby back. I’ma buy me a lawyer better than Johnny Cochran,” Tori said.
“Ladies, calm down! Ya’ll acting like ya’ll never had shit before. This is nothing compared to what we will make. I just want one thing,” Chastity said.
“What?” Leticia and Tori said in unison.
“Let’s promise that money will never come between us. Promise we will always put each other before money,” Chastity said.
“We promise!” the other girls said as they all came together for a hug.
“We’re here,” R.J. announced, breaking Chastity out of her thoughts. She looked up at the terminal sign and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.
“Get out here. I’m going to park the car,” R.J. instructed. Chastity complied, hopping out. R.J. opened the back and set their bags on the sidewalk. Chastity waved for an airport porter to come get their things, and headed into the airport.
R.J. looked through his rear view mirror at his sister and stepped on the gas.
Chastity walked up to the American Airlines line and made her way around the dividers. She had three people ahead of her. Looking around she noticed three men in black suits walking in her direction. She didn’t think anything of it and kept moving forward on the line.
“Next!” the lady at the ticket counter yelled.
Chastity walked up to the counter and handed the lady her airline ticket confirmation.
The lady looked at the name and looked up at Chastity. “ID, please,” the lady said.
Chastity handed the lady her driver’s license.
“One moment, please,” the lady said, walking to the other end of the counter. She picked up the telephone, looked at Chastity again, and lowered her head.
What the fuck is the problem? Chastity asked herself, tapping her foot nervously. Someone tapped her on her shoulder, Chastity whirled around on her heels.
“Ms. Smith, you need to come with us,” a man said, grabbing her arm.
“Who the fuck are you?” Chastity asked, trying to pull her arm away.
“I am an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You are under arrest,” he announced, maintaining a firm grasp on her.
“Get the fuck off of me!” Chastity snapped as the other two men surrounded her. She was escorted out of the airport into a waiting black Impala. “Where is my brother?” she asked, looking around for R.J.
“You tell me,” the man replied.
R.J. never came back.
Chastity was handcuffed and placed into the back of the car. “What am I under arrest for? Ya’ll don’t have shit on me! I wanna see my lawyer!” she growled.
“Ms. Smith, do you recognize this person?” he asked, handing Chastity a picture of Deidre. “Nope!” Chastity answered. She wasn’t snitching on her friend DeeDee.
“Oh, I think you do. You see, Ms. Smith, this is what she really looks like,” he said, handing Chastity Deidre’s FBI identification photo.
Chastity’s mouth fell open in shock.
“Ms. Smith, your friend DeeDee Barnes is really Special Agent Deidre Aponte,” the agent said, rubbing salt in Chastity’s wounds.
“Bitch!” Chastity screamed, banging her head into the car window.
“Don’t be angry, Ms. Smith. Agent Aponte will be happy to see you when she testifies against you,” he bluffed. They still hadn’t located Deidre.
“You ain’t got shit on me!” Chastity screamed, rocking back and forth angrily.
“Oh, we have plenty. You’ll never see the light of day again,” the agent said maliciously.
R.J. picked up his cell phone and dialed Deidre’s number.
Deidre looked at her phone, and although her brain told her not to answer it, her heart told her to pick it up. Maybe he is the one person I can trust, she thought to herself. Besides, Bernard said that the F.A.B. was just a pawn. Maybe R.J. was too, she reasoned.
“Hey,” Deidre said, her voice raspy from screaming.
“We were meant to be. How could you leave me?” R.J. said deceitfully.
“I’m sorry. I just had to get my head together,” Deidre apologized.
“Where are you?” R.J. asked.
Deidre was torn. She wanted to tell R.J. everything, but
she didn’t. “I can’t tell you that. When I get settled, I’ll call you back,” she said, closing her eyes regretfully. “C’mon, baby, I need to see you. I need you. A lot of shit has happened,” R.J. pleaded.
“I’ll call you,” Deidre said, disconnecting the line before she got herself in trouble. She tossed her undercover cell phone out of the window on the side of the highway.
R.J. dialed another number. “I just called her. Did you get the GPS trace?” he asked.
“Yeah, she’s heading down 95 towards Maryland,” he answered.
VOLUME 21: THE ANSWERS
Deidre pulled up in front of her family’s two-story log cabin style cottage in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland. Her eyes burned and her back ached, she was exhausted from driving all night, not to mention all of the information she had received had her nerves on edge. She felt all alone.
Exiting the car, she grabbed her bag and her silver briefcase. She stepped up on the wooden porch, reached into the large white sandstone flowerpot and retrieved the house key. Once inside, she flopped down on the old fashioned plaid sofa and busted out crying. Just being in the cottage reminded Deidre of her father, and knowing that she was right all these years about his death made her angry.
Her private cell phone began ringing, it was her mother. “Hello,” Deidre answered.
“Where are you?” her mother asked, concern stringing her words together tensely.
“I can’t tell you, but when I get a chance, I will explain everything to you,” Deidre said.
“Tell me where you are?” Cassandra demanded as Ricky stood right next to her.
“Mom, I gotta go,” Deidre said. She sensed that something was wrong. Cassandra didn’t speak that way unless she was drunk, and Deidre could tell that her mother wasn’t drinking.
Deidre walked around and made herself comfortable. She locked up all of the doors, and shut all of the window shutters. Walking up the stairs, she stopped and looked at a photograph of her father in his younger days. Her heart almost stopped. She was staring into the face of R.J. “I need to get him out of
my head. Shit, I’m starting to think I see him everywhere,” she mumbled out loud, continuing up the stairs.
She walked passed the bedroom she used to stay in as a child, stopped and peeked in. Everything was the same. Her ballerina slippers still hung from the wooden mirror. There were still posters and buttons of Michael Jackson everywhere. Deidre was his biggest fan when she was younger. More importantly, the trunk her father had given her was still at the foot of the bed. “My treasure trunk!” Deidre said, smiling. Walking over to it, she rubbed the wooden trunk, running her fingers over the gold lock and accents. She noticed that there was a small lock on the trunk. “Hey, where’d this come from?” she said to herself, flipping up the lock to look at the keyhole. “Daddy?” Deidre whispered, fumbling with her briefcase to get her father’s key. She took the key out and rushed to see if it fit the lock. It fit! Deidre pulled the lock off of the trunk and flipped the top open. There was a black wool blanket lying inside. She reached in and pulled the blanket up and her mouth dropped open when she looked inside. The trunk was filled with money. “Oh my God!” she shrieked, her heart racing.
She began taking the stacks of cash out of the trunk so she could count them. When she got to the last stack, she noticed something else in the bottom. There was a letter from her father. Deidre was too angry to read it. She crumpled it up and threw it across the room. “Fucking dirty liar!” she screamed, clutching her chest. The pain was unbearable. Everything Bernard had told her was true.
Deidre continued to pull things out of the trunk. There were several pictures. The first one was of Deidre at five, when she lost her first tooth. Then there was Ramon and Cassandra’s wedding pictures, and pictures of Deidre as a baby.
Deidre kept digging until she came upon a picture of a strange woman. She read the back. It said “Donna”. Deidre didn’t recognize the beautiful woman at first. Then she pulled out more pictures, and there were several pictures of two children, a boy and a girl. Deidre read the back of one, and it said “Junior and baby girl”. She stared at the pictures. She immediately recognized the boy and the girl. It was R.J. and Chastity. “Ramon, Junior!” Deidre said in a low whisper as the answers all came together.
She immediately felt sick. “No!” she screamed, putting her hands up against her ears, rocking back and forth. She had slept with her own brother. “Daddy! You bastard!” Deidre screamed, pulling her hair roughly. Her heart was broken, but now everything made sense. All of the fighting and crying she heard as a child was because her father was living a double life and her mother found out about it. Deidre had the answers to all of her questions.
“Ricky knew all along. That’s why he put me under with the F.A.B. He wanted me to find out before he killed me. This must be the money he has been looking for. That’s why he never let me out of his sights. He knew my father would leave the money for me,” Deidre whispered to herself. She walked across the room and retrieved the crumpled letter and unfolded it:
Dear Cassy,
If you are reading this, that means I’m dead or in prison. I never meant to hurt you or Deidre. You both are all I ever wanted. Take this money and move away. There is enough money here for you to live for the rest of your life. I only wanted the best for my family.
I know that you found out about Donna and my other kids. She will not be a problem; I left money for her as well. I want Deidre to get to know R.J. and Chastity. It’s not their fault that I lived my life like this.
You are the only woman I’ve ever loved. Please take care of yourself and stay beautiful. Tell the love of my life I said Recuerda, que tu eres mi muchacha favorita!
Love Always, Ramon
“Liar!” Deidre yelled, tearing the letter into tiny pieces. Flopping down on her knees, she sobbed and sobbed. She was physically and mentally exhausted, and all she wanted to do was take a shower, take a sleeping pill and get some rest. She felt safe at the cottage, but she knew she would soon have to leave for good.
VOLUME 22: THE ULTIMATE BETRAYAL
Chastity waited on the other end of the phone for the operator to put the collect call through. She resembled a sick cancer patient. It appeared as if she’d lost about thirty pounds, her skin looked ashen, and her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail held together with cheap gel and a rubber band, not her usual beautifully coifed locks. Fear danced in her once beautiful chestnut brown eyes. She was so nervous that her legs shook visibly. Chastity hadn’t heard from her brother in the weeks since she’d gotten arrested. The phone rang three times and she was elated when she heard
R.J. pick up the phone. “Collect call from a Chastity at a correctional facility. Will you accept the charges?” the operator asked.
“No!” R.J. replied, disconnecting the line.
Chastity couldn’t believe her ears.
“Ma’am, the charges were not accepted,” the operator relayed. “I fucking heard it!” Chastity screamed, squeezing the receiver until her hand hurt. She slammed the payphone down and turned around to her reality—the gray steel walls of prison that was now her permanent home.
R.J. stuffed another stack of cash into the money counter. He was high from the smell of wealth. He was finally in his rightful position as boss.
“Is this the last one?” the clerk at the post office asked.
“Yes,” Deidre replied.
“That’ll be eighty six dollars,” the clerk informed.
Deidre paid the fee to ship all of the boxes.
“Let me confirm the person who is going to receive these. Is it . . . Cassandra Aponte?” the clerk asked.
“That’s correct,” Deidre answered, looking around nervously. The clerk looked at her strangely as she processed her requests. Deidre looked like a paranoid nut the way she watched her surroundings.
It had been a month, and the weather had changed dramatically. It seemed like the fall flew by and winter was back again. Deidre had cut off all communications with everyone—even her mother. She’d chopped off all of her beautiful hair and dyed it red. She’d also made plans to leave the country. She had enough money to start over somewhere else; she was just waiting for the media buzz about her being missing to die down.
According to the news reports, Deidre was being blamed for Bernard’s death, because he was found in her car. She was also being blamed for Tori’s murder, because they found a partial print on the murder weapon, and the crime scene investigators sent it in to the FBI, who matched it to Deidre. There was no place for her to go, so she decided to wait it out a little longer.
She remembered that Ricky had never gotten a chance to come to her parents’ cottage; therefore, she was confident that he didn’t know where it was located. She also figured that it was that same reason her father had hidden the money there.
Every time Deidre thought about R.J., she became sick to her stomach. But when she thought about Ricky and Ferguson, she became infuriated.
Deidre drove the raggedy green pickup she’d purchased, down the winding dirt road towards the cottage. Pulling up in front, she unloaded the groceries she’d purchased. As she walked in and out of the cottage, she never noticed them watching her.
Once inside, she lit the old fashioned black kerosene stove and placed the cast iron kettle on top to boil water. “That’s set. Now let me go change out of these country ass clothes,” she said out loud to herself. She’d been dressing in overalls and other very rural style clothing, to fit in around town.
She undressed quickly, and rushed back downstairs to the whistling kettle, and hastily grabbed the handle. “Ahh!” She winced from the heat, dropping the kettle back onto the stove.
Suddenly, she heard a noise. Startled, she rushed to the kitchen pantry for her gun. She crept over to the kitchen window, pulled the curtain slightly and peeked out. She didn’t see anything. “Must’ve been a deer,” she mumbled. Breathing a sigh of relief, she placed her gun back in the pantry and settled in for a quiet evening.
After she prepared her coffee, she sat down in the living roo
m to watch television for a while. Deidre hadn’t watched television in the weeks she was there. She’d spent all of her time preparing the volumes of her journal, which she’d just mailed off to her mother. She wanted Cassandra to know everything, just in case she wasn’t able to tell her herself.
“Huhhh!” Deidre let out a relaxing sigh as she flipped the channels. Something immediately caught her attention:
“In breaking news today, federal investigators report that after a one year undercover sting operation dubbed ‘Operation Candy Shop’, a multi-million dollar designer drug ring has been brought down. The ring, reportedly run by three of the most dangerous women operating between New York City, Newark, Baltimore and Mexico, were responsible for the illegal sale and circulation of prescription drugs like Oxycontin, Percoset, and Vicodin. The trio of woman were also reportedly running a large-scale methamphetamine distribution conglomerate. In recent years these drugs have become just as popular and profitable as traditional street drugs such as heroin and crack-cocaine.”
“According to the investigators, the drug ring was brought down by a joint effort between local police, the FBI, DEA, and ICE agents. The FBI credits the director of the Washington field office for the success of the operation. Investigators would not elaborate on the specific roles the women played or their expected dates in court.”
“We will continue to follow this story as it unfolds. For channel 9 news, I’m Chynna Brown. Back to you in the studio, Ed.”
Deidre stared at the television screen, anger welling up inside of her like hot lava in a volcano. Nothing shocked her anymore, but her heart raced as she listened to the reporter’s words. She stood on wobbly legs and the large vein in her neck pulsed fiercely against her skin. Months of lies, deceit and frustration sent a rush of heat through her bloodstream.
“Arggggghhh!” she screamed, sending the coffee mug filled with her favorite hazelnut-flavored coffee sailing into the screen. “Fucking liars! Fucking bastards!” she screamed. The thought of how her life had ended up sent hot tears streaming down her high cheekbones.
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