by Zaire Crown
Chapter Twenty-one
By the time Tuesday made it home, her adrenaline had waned, starting a chorus of aches from her lower body. Without shock absorbing shoes, her ankles and knees had suffered for all that running barefoot on concrete. She also intended to swallow a few aspirin for the throbbing in her head.
From her tub Tuesday looked over that spacious master bathroom she used to share with her husband: platinum basins set into beige marble with olive-green trimming, his-and-her vanities sat side by side. Marcus’s remained a shrine with his toothbrush, beard trimmers, and shaving mirror untouched since he cleaned up for their dinner at Dominic’s.
She used to love watching him groom himself. She could still see him shirtless, back and arms swollen from the day’s workout, as he lined his goatee. He would catch Tuesday’s reflection staring at him like a schoolgirl with a crush then give her a curious look that asked: “What the fuck are you looking at?” He would smile at her as if she were crazy then go back to what he was doing, not knowing how horny he was making her.
Her husband never understood that women do this type of weird shit when they’re deep in love. Sometimes they liked watching their men do ordinary stuff, man stuff. They also did weird things to feel closer to their man, which was why Tuesday finished her bath and put on one of Marcus’s T-shirts and a pair of his baggy sweats that still held his scent.
Outside of the blow to her ego, the most painful thing that came from her run-in with La Guapa was the fact she couldn’t keep lying to herself about Marcus. During the drive home she and Brandon had talked about setting up the plane crash scenario then starting the paperwork to have him legally declared dead.
If she couldn’t lie to herself, that meant she could no longer lie to her daughters. The line: “Daddy was away taking care of business,” would temporarily placate Tanisha’s whining but not Danielle’s growing suspicion. The girl was old enough and smart enough to know that no business, no matter how important, would keep a loving father ignoring his phone when his daughter called. Whenever Danielle confronted Tuesday on this, Tuesday came up with some excuse that sounded weak even to her. The constant lying only produced more friction between them.
It was time for the truth to come out and Tuesday agreed to drop that bomb in the morning. It was a conversation that she didn’t look forward to, but she didn’t just put it off out of cowardice. It was eight and Tuesday didn’t think a little girl should learn her father was dead ninety minutes before bedtime. She would allow her girls the gift of blissful ignorance for another ten hours and would enjoy that with them.
Tanisha was in a playful mood this evening and her musical laughter was contagious. Tuesday found herself on the floor in her daughter’s room, crawling on all fours chasing her and playing with Barbie dolls. Spending time with her baby helped to soothe her wounded pride as much as the bath helped to soothe her joints. Tanisha tired herself out and was asleep ten minutes into Frozen.
Lately, stepping into Danielle’s room had been like entering enemy territory, but Tuesday brought a peace offering to show she wasn’t coming for a fight. She carried two bowls of ice cream set over a few of Esperanza’s homemade cookies. Tuesday was trying to play the cool mom even though Danielle had already had dinner and it was way too late for sugary snacks.
Danielle was playing a fighting game with realistic graphics and Tuesday just asked to play without bringing up that it seemed too violent for a nine-year-old. For the most part, the bribe worked because Danielle gave up a controller, showed her how to select a character, how to punch and kick. Then she chose a sexy female ninja in a bikini and mercilessly beat Tuesday’s ass in twelve straight matches.
Tuesday didn’t get the warm and fuzzy moment she hoped for; Danielle was mostly as cold as the dessert she scooped into her mouth between beatings. However, for the first time in a long time they didn’t argue. Tuesday took that as a win.
Tuesday returned to her room, climbed into bed. At first their huge mattress had felt too lonely without Marcus, but sleeping in the same spot where they had spent so much time and shared so much passion felt right. She curled up on her side of the bed. Some delusional part of her still expected him to slide in next to her, wrap her from behind, press his warm body against hers, then start grinding his hard dick into her soft ass like he often did.
Tuesday got ambushed by a montage of memories but didn’t want to feed into it. She chased some Xanax with some Remy XO to fight off the loneliness and still drifted off with tears on her pillow.
Tuesday couldn’t remember much of the dream. What she did recall involved Marcus, her best friend Tushie who had been dead for three years, and several four-hundred-pound hogs that smelled like burnt flesh. She experienced those sudden and inexplicable shifts in location that happens in dreams. Tuesday figured that the combination of Remy, Xanax, and ice cream right before bed triggered a strange head trip.
The dream was scary but not as frightening as what she saw when she opened her eyes.
She first thought the acrid stench was a carryover from her nightmare until she heard the smoke alarms blaring.
The house was on fire.
Chapter Twenty-two
Tuesday jumped out of bed, stumbled a bit. Sleep and Remy still weighed her. She found her house shoes, slid her feet into them. Then she found the .40 caliber Marcus kept in the nightstand.
Both kitchens were on the first floor and in a different wing of the house; the smell of smoke was too strong to come from anything Esperanza might have neglected on the stove. Tuesday confirmed this when she opened the door to the master bedroom and a noxious gray cloud assaulted her. She fought her way through it, down the hall, screaming for her daughters.
She burst into Tanisha’s room to see her tiny bed was empty. Tuesday thought the smoke and blaring alarms might have scared a three-year-old into hiding so she checked the closet and under the bed. She scoured the room, kicking and stepping on plastic toys.
Tuesday considered that her baby girl might have run to her big sister in a time of crisis but in Danielle’s room all she discovered was another unmade bed. Neither daughter was in their room nor answering to the repeated shouting of their name.
Then Tuesday saw something that dropped her heart into her stomach. Large grimy boot prints stained Danielle’s carpet.
She scrambled down the foyer stairs, blinded by panic and the thickening smoke. On the first floor the acrid gray vapor became a black beast, stinging her eyes, trying to choke her. Tuesday’s mind tortured her with images of the girls trapped somewhere in the fire: hurt, unconscious, or worse.
Tuesday felt her way forward into the great room. The smoke was heavier there. She was closer to the source of the fire because she could feel its heat.
Tuesday screamed their names at her highest pitch then paused for a moment. Her ears were attuned, hopeful for a response or the sound of crying children. Twenty-two thousand square feet offered too many places where the girls could be.
Tuesday groped around blindly when she tripped over an unseen object. Her house shoe slipped off; her bare foot landed in something sticky and wet. It took a few seconds for her blurry, burning eyes to bring the shapeless mass on the floor into focus. The body had a dark crimson stain pooled around it.
The live-in housekeeper Esperanza was facedown, head cocked, eyes wide. Three bullets left exit punctures in the back of her nightgown.
Tuesday thrust the pistol forward with both hands, elbows locked, just like she had learned from A.D., who had given her her first gun. She swung the barrel from left to right then a full three-sixty degrees. Black smoke swirled around her, blocked her vision, possibly concealed the murderer.
“Dani? Nisha?” It was a desperate plea capped by rough coughs. She inched ahead into the poisonous mist, praying that she wouldn’t trip over a smaller body.
She moved into the main hall and saw flames at the far end climbing the walls, devouring the ceiling. Crackling, hissing like a snarling beast, and Tuesday
figured it had probably been birthed in the rarely-used commercial kitchen. The fire had grown large enough to make the entire north side of the house resemble a Christian’s worst fear of Eternity. It consumed studio portraits of Marcus and the girls which felt strangely prophetic for Tuesday. She continued to search all the rooms and spaces on the first floor yet to be touched by the blaze.
The home theater was at the southernmost side of the house and one of the last rooms to be checked. Tuesday eased inside, allowing the .40 to lead her through the door. Their theater was modest when compared to some of the more elaborate estates in Beverly Hills: one-hundred-twenty-inch screen with comfortable seating for twelve.
At a glance Tuesday could see the room was empty, but through the haze of smoke she glimpsed a quick shadow moving behind her. Before she could swing the pistol in that direction, someone hit her. Hard.
Chapter Twenty-three
Tuesday didn’t know if she was hit with a fist or a bat. All she knew was that something impacted her jaw hard enough to send her eight feet into the room. She skidded to a stop at the foot of a sofa, stunned, her world spinning.
The silhouette of her attacker shifted and blended from one person to three. Tuesday fired wildly, barely able to lift the big pistol which suddenly felt like a hundred-pound dumbbell. She couldn’t tell if she hit him or not because he seemed to disappear like a phantom after the third shot.
Her head was ringing from the smoke she inhaled and the blow she took. The irritating screech of the fire alarms pierced her skull. When she tried to stand, her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
Then Tuesday heard two large booms that sounded like they came from a cannon. A sofa cushion exploded a few inches from her head. She scrambled over the couch to shield herself behind it.
She had to flatten her body on the floor as bullets tore through the upholstery, the wall and the movie screen overhead. She stuck out the gun, bust four more times in the direction of the shooter.
Her head was still ringing but she had enough sense to stop wasting bullets. Marcus’s .40 was a nine-plus-one weapon and she’d already spent seven. She didn’t intend to fire again until she had a face to aim at.
Smoke poured into the room at a faster rate. The fire was drawing closer.
Tuesday was afraid to peek out from her hiding spot for fear she might catch a bullet in the eye. Her head was on a swivel, expecting the man to try to creep around either side of the sofa. She didn’t expect him to dive over the top. Tuesday was caught by surprise when a big body landed on her.
She was belly-down and scrambling to overthrow him. He pinned her arms above her head and she felt his lips on her ear. “La Guapa says hello.” His Latino accent was as strong as the smell of shit and cigarettes on his breath.
Tuesday couldn’t use her gun hand but luckily he couldn’t use his either. He needed both arms to secure hers but he was battling for a more dominant position. If he mounted her back, used his knees to lock her arms, his hand would be free to strangle her, pound her face, or deliver a kill shot from his gun. Dealer’s choice.
“Bitch, this is for Emilio. Where I’m from, it’s blood for blood.”
Tuesday grunted, “Where’s my girls?”
“Saving them for something special,” he whispered. “Gonna take them to Guapa, but first they’ll meet a few friends of mine. The type of guys who really like girls that age.”
While he was bigger, stronger, and easily overpowering her, his words put another level of fight and fury in Tuesday. She whipped her head back as hard as she could, smashed his face with the back of her skull.
For her it hurt like hell but Tuesday knew it had to be worse for him because he let go of her arms. Through his pain he called her another bitch and whined about his tooth being broken.
She tried to slither from underneath him but he caught hold of her legs. Tuesday kicked at him, tried to wiggle free. He held her ankles and started to crawl back onto her.
Meanwhile, flames had crept in from the hall, clawing at the walls and chewing up the floor. Tuesday looked back and could see the face of her attacker tinted orange in the firelight. Red Shirt was now dressed in all black. Blood smeared his mouth and nose, hatred reflected in his eyes.
Tuesday still had the .40 but her angle prevented her from getting a good shot. She had to awkwardly reach the gun down, back and around her.
Tuesday couldn’t line up the muzzle with his face, but the pistol was just to the side of his head. She fired anyway. Even though she missed him, he screamed like a wounded lion. She hoped the loud gun blast had burst his eardrum. He clutched the sides of his skull.
Tuesday tried to aim again but this time he was quick enough to take control of the gun. He grabbed her wrist, twisted her arm into a chicken wing, then put his hand over hers and forced her to squeeze the last two shots into the wall. Once multiple clicks indicated the pistol was empty, he ripped it from Tuesday’s fingers and tossed it away.
He pulled Tuesday to her feet then slammed her face first into the wall. He spun her around, slapped her across the face with his own pistol and the blow sent Tuesday back to the ground.
She was on her back, writhing in pain, holding her cheek. He stood over her, and with the fire spreading across the ceiling over him, looked like Death incarnate.
He kneeled over Tuesday. He ran his tongue over his chipped front tooth and winced at the pain.
He pulled out the clip and showed it to Tuesday. “No games. Real bullets this time.”
He placed his barrel to her lips. “Open your mouth.”
Tuesday shook her head. Her eyes stared back at him defiantly.
He punched Tuesday harder than she had ever been hit by a man or woman. Her head rolled to the side, her eyes rolled in their sockets and the room spun faster than before, only this time peppered with flashing white spots. Her body wanted to quit but it took all she had to fight off the pull towards unconsciousness.
“I don’t give a fuck what Guapa said. Emilio was my brother.” He let out a series of coughs, probably from the smoke, then pushed the gun back to her lips. “Bitch, I said open yo’ fuckin’—”
Tuesday didn’t hear anything, just saw his body jerk, felt a red mist spray her face and saw him tumble to his side. She looked left and he was face-to-face with her, only with a newly formed hole in his forehead.
When someone helped her to her feet, she knew it was her stepfather. Her eyes were stinging from the smoke, but she was familiar with the feel of Egyptian cotton in Brandon’s rare custom shirts as well as the scent of his cologne. He supported her with one arm while his silenced pistol was in the other hand.
“Nisha? Dani?” Tuesday’s speech was slurred like a drunk.
He navigated Tuesday over towards the window, fired two muffled shots then cleared out the shattered glass with several kicks. “I got ’em. They’re already outside. After last time, I promised nobody would ever take either of my babies again.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“You know this is just the beginning.”
Brandon was behind the wheel of a faceless white Ford economy van without windows or logos. Tuesday was in the rear cargo space sitting on the floor with Danielle, holding Tanisha who still hadn’t stopped crying since being taken from their beds.
Brandon explained that it was only by chance that he was stopping by the house to pick up some company paperwork when he spotted the flames and the van parked by the front gate. Brandon claimed the driver was waiting for his partner when he crept up and got the drop on him. He was able to piece the play together after seeing Danielle and Tanisha zip-tied and blindfolded in the back. The former hit man snatched the driver out, painted the ground with his silenced .32 then went inside for Tuesday.
When the cry of sirens announced it was time to leave, they took the van simply because the girls were already there and it was closer to the street.
Tuesday tried to calm her daughters, convince them that they were safe and the danger was over. Her bruised fac
e only made Tanisha cry harder. Danielle was quiet, only responding to Tuesday’s concern with short one-word answers, as if annoyed.
Brandon swerved to go around a slow-moving truck on the highway. “Police and fire crews are on the scene by now, so cleanup is out of the question. The arson and the murders will get press, nothing we can do about that. The one inside the house will be easier to explain than the one by the gate. The home invasion allows us to play the self-defense card if need be, but without Sebastian’s influence we’ve lost a lot of our political leverage. Not gonna be so easy to just make this disappear.”
Tuesday only half-listened to him. She respected that he was thinking about damage control; the throbbing in her head made it impossible for her to think at all.
“I didn’t anticipate her trying something so bold. I assumed with the trust in place she wouldn’t make an attempt on your life.”
“I’m not sure she did.” Tuesday explained what Red Shirt had said which made her think that La Guapa hadn’t ordered him to kill her.
Brandon said, “I can deal with the investigation but first we have to get you and the girls somewhere safe. Lay low for a while until I can get things situated. You’ll have to leave Abel in my hands for now.”
Tuesday put Tanisha in Danielle’s arms, then joined Brandon at the front of the van. She took the passenger seat and spoke low so the kids wouldn’t overhear.
“She just burned down my house and tried to snatch my girls. It’s on now so I don’t wanna hear no more of that live-and-let-live shit. How do we kill this bitch?”
He ran a hand through his gray curly hair. It seemed to be a nervous habit. “I’ve been in this game for a minute, so I know a little something about going to war, and the main thing you need to understand is that there’s always collateral damage. Before you start this, defend what you love first.”