by Shelly Ellis
No, he had to do it now. If it meant taking them all out, so be it.
You couldn’t shoot one when you had the chance, and now you think you’re going to kill all of them? Yeah, okay, the voice in his head mocked.
“Shut up,” he murmured aloud before reaching for the door handle and turning it. As expected, the handle didn’t budge. The door was locked. But he had come prepared. He pulled his lock-pick set from his back pocket, a keepsake from the old days before he had stopped doing odd jobs for Dolla Dolla and had gone full legit. He knelt down in the dim light from upstairs and began to work. It took twenty minutes—much longer than it would’ve taken in the old days—but he finally got the lock open. He turned the knob and slowly eased the door open. That’s when he heard the piercing beep.
“Shit,” he muttered.
So Simone hadn’t been that stupid, after all. She had an alarm system, even in this rusty glorified shack.
He dropped the door handle, shot to his feet, and turned to make a run for it. He’d made it only three steps when he felt something sharp and metallic jab into the center of his back, and he dropped his lock-picking kit to the grass.
“Don’t move. Don’t you take another fucking step, or I will fire and you won’t be able to walk again!” he heard Simone shout from behind him. “You hear me?”
Ricky followed her order, halting in his steps.
I fucked this up good.
“Now raise your hands into the air—slowly—and turn around to face me! And do it carefully . . . no sudden moves. Don’t try anything stupid, because you’re messing with the wrong bitch!”
Ricky squinted. Simone was using her “police-officer voice”; she didn’t sound like she knew it was him. Maybe she couldn’t see him that well on the dark porch.
Or maybe I’m nothing to her anymore. Out of sight, out of mind.
“What’s happening, SeeSee? What’s wrong?” Skylar shouted over the sound of the alarm, sounding frightened.
“Stay inside!” Simone yelled.
“What?”
“I said stay inside! Turn off the alarm and call the police, okay?” He heard what he surmised was the cocking of a shotgun. She then roughly jabbed him again in the back a second later. “Didn’t you hear me, asshole? I told you to raise your hands and turn the fuck around!”
He slowly raised his hands and turned around to face her. He watched as she reached out and flicked on a switch, lighting up the back porch. When she did, her eyes widened. Her mouth went slack. She dropped her shotgun to her side.
“Ricky?” she squeaked just as the sound of the house alarm finally died. “Oh, my God! What . . . what are you doing here?”
He couldn’t respond. His mouth fell open in shock too.
Ricky suddenly realized why Simone’s face had looked so much rounder and softer when he’d seen her walking to her truck earlier, why she had practically glowed. He hadn’t seen it while she was wearing the big poncho, but he could clearly see it now.
There Simone stood, barefoot, wearing a pale blue cotton tank dress that pulled tight over her full breasts and round stomach. She had to be about five to six months pregnant, based on her protruding belly.
“The fuck,” he whispered with furrowed brows, staring down at her.
“SeeSee, I turned off the alarm!” Skylar shouted as she ran to the back door. “I couldn’t hear what you were . . .” Her words drifted off and she skidded to a halt when she spotted Ricky standing on the back porch. “Who’s . . . who’s that?”
“It’s Ricky,” Simone said with a smile, glancing over her shoulder at her sister. “He’s the one I told you about . . . the one who helped get you out.”
Skylar frowned. “He is?”
They had met before but she’d been high as a kite each time they’d spoken. He wasn’t surprised she didn’t recognize him now.
“Ricky,” Simone said, setting her shotgun against the door frame and leaping at him, catching him off guard as she wrapped her arms around him. “Damn, I missed you,” she whispered against his shoulder, holding him close.
He didn’t even attempt to hug her back. He was too astounded to move.
* * *
“Have a seat,” Simone said, gesturing to one of the chairs at their kitchen table. She then grabbed a sweater off the back of one of the chairs and put it on as she strolled to the refrigerator.
Ricky’s eyes kept drifting to the elephant in the room—Simone’s swollen stomach that she rubbed absently as she walked. Ricky closed his eyes and slowly opened them again, like her pregnancy was some drug-induced delusion. It must have been, since no one seemed to be acknowledging it, like he was the only one seeing this thing. He watched her swing open the refrigerator door and peer inside.
“Did you want something to drink? Are you hungry?” Simone asked, turning to him.
“Why the hell are you offering him food when you caught him trying to break into our house?” Skylar yelled.
“He wasn’t trying to break in, Skylar.”
Actually, I was, Ricky thought but didn’t say the words aloud. He was still too muddled to speak. He felt like he’d just stumbled into some alternate universe.
How the hell was she pregnant, and why was he just finding out about this? Had she known about this before she moved out of the city? Had she ever planned to tell him? Was the baby even his?
“Yes, he was!” Skylar shouted, snapping his thoughts back to the present. “He’d even gotten the lock open. Why didn’t he just knock on the front door if he wasn’t trying to break in?”
“I did knock on the front door,” he lied, finally snapping out of his malaise, making both women turn toward him.
“I didn’t hear any damn door,” Skylar snapped.
He shrugged. “You two were asleep.”
“I wasn’t asleep,” Skylar argued. “I was awake, watching TV!”
“Then maybe the TV was too loud, but I did knock. That’s why I came to the back of the house to knock on that door. I thought you might hear me then.”
“You came to the back of the house . . . to knock?” Skylar asked, her face a billboard of incredulity.
He nodded, feeling the lies tumble from his mouth. He knew with a tale this ridiculous, he had to sell it well. “I knocked more than once. I even banged on the window. I tried the door handle and the door was open. I poked my head in and that’s when the alarm went off.”
“Oh, that’s some bullshit! I locked that door before I went to my room! I do every night,” Skylar insisted.
“The door was open,” he said firmly.
“He’s lying, SeeSee!”
Simone’s eyes shifted between the two of them. He could see the doubt growing in her. She slowly shut the refrigerator door. She rubbed her stomach again. He wondered how often she did that nowadays.
“It must be some . . . some kind of mistake, some misunderstanding,” Simone began. “Ricky tried more than once to save you. He wouldn’t—”
“Look, I get what he did back then, and I appreciate it. But—”
“You sure as hell aren’t acting like you appreciate it,” he grumbled.
“But,” Skylar repeated, speaking over him, “I don’t know why he’s here now, or what he planned to do. That’s the issue! We should call the police. Remember, there is too much at stake now! We promised each other that we would—”
“I came here to warn you,” he interjected. “That’s the reason I’m here! I came to warn you about Dolla. He’s looking for Skylar. He’s looking for all the girls. He’s already taken out a couple of them, and she’s next on his list.”
Both women fell silent.
“It took a lot for me to find y’all. It wasn’t like I could just look you up online. I drove two hundred miles to do this. I’m risking my life—again, and I could go to jail—again, if the cops find out I’m here. But I did it anyway.” He waited a beat, hoping he was putting on a master performance. “So excuse me for not knocking on the damn door loud enough to get you
r attention!”
Skylar lowered her eyes. Simone walked toward him.
“I’m sorry, Ricky. I know you’re risking a lot by coming here, and thank you for telling us.” She glanced back at Skylar. “We’d expected that Dolla would come looking for her. That’s why we left . . . why we moved out here to get some . . . some sense of security.”
“But he found us anyway,” Skylar snapped. “Doesn’t feel so secure anymore!”
Simone side-eyed her sister. “And excuse Skylar. She doesn’t mean to be hostile, but you can understand why she’s tense. Right? These have been a hard four months for us.”
“Yeah, well . . . it’s been a hard four months for me too.”
Simone pursed her lips and nodded. For the first time, she looked shamefaced. “I know. I know.” She reached out and rubbed his shoulder, touching him and catching him off guard yet again. “Look, it’s late. You’ve probably been on the road for a while and should get some rest. Why don’t I show you to one of the rooms?”
“What?” Skylar exclaimed. Her eyes snapped up. “He can’t sleep here, SeeSee! That’s just—”
“Yes, he can and he will,” Simone said, glaring at her little sister. “Mom’s not home. He can sleep in her room. That is, if . . . if he wants to.” She stared up at him.
Ricky considered her offer, marveling at how things had shifted so rapidly in the past half hour. He had come here to kill Simone. Not only had he not done that and probably wouldn’t likely do it now, knowing she was pregnant, she was now offering him a room to stay in overnight, like she was throwing a damn sleepover. The whole situation felt so insane that he wanted to turn on his heel and just walk out of this bizarre Twilight Zone episode he was obviously starring in. But instead, he shrugged.
“Sure. Whatever. I’ll stay,” he muttered, making Skylar silently grouse and Simone smile.
“Come on! I’ll show you to your room.”
Chapter 21
Ricky
Ricky trailed behind Simone down a darkened hallway and watched as she flicked on a light switch and opened up a narrow door, revealing a small closet filled with stacks of towels and blankets.
“We pulled all the sheets and did the laundry today, so I need to grab some fresh sheets for the bed,” she said, rifling through a pile, tugging out a few cotton sheets and gathering them in her arms. “I don’t think Mom put one on before she left to go visit her sister.”
She gave him an awkward smile. Ricky didn’t return it.
He was still feeling overwhelmed by a dozen emotions all at once. His brain’s synapses were firing a thousand messages and it was a struggle to even understand what she was saying. Meanwhile, she was acting like a damn hostess at a bed and breakfast, like she hadn’t been pointing a shotgun at him less than ten minutes ago.
Simone kept walking until she reached the end of the hall and pushed open yet another door, revealing a small bedroom with a cedar night table, single desk lamp, and a queen-size bed. A few cardboard boxes were stacked near the bay window.
Simone walked to the night table and turned on the lamp. She then grabbed the pillows on the bed, putting them into to pillowcases. He watched her as she worked, trying to reconcile the woman standing in front of him with the one he had been envisioning for the past few months. That one had been cold and cunning, strong and calculating. But this woman was none of those things; she was soft and vulnerable, from the wispy hair that curled around her ears to the powder blue, buttoned-up cashmere sweater pulled over her swollen belly. Seeing Simone like this robbed him of his self-righteous anger. It frustrated him all over again.
“You don’t have to do that,” he mumbled wearily. “I can make my own bed.”
“I don’t mind. Really,” she said as she loudly shook out the sheets, smiling again. “I can have it done in—”
“I said I can do it myself, damn it!” he shouted, stomping toward her and yanking the bedsheets out of her hands.
She stepped back, caught by surprise. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t. I can’t do this shit with you! I can’t stand back and let you act all sweet and nice like you’re some . . . some goddamn Claire Huxtable, after all the shit we’ve been through. After all you fuckin’ put me through!” He pounded his chest. “You disappeared, Simone. You just pulled up stakes and left town! You quit your job and moved away! You didn’t even tell me where the hell you went!”
She lowered her eyes. “I know, and I’m sorry. But I had to, Ricky. I had no choice.”
“You wrecked me. Do you know that? I never fell for anybody . . . anybody the way I fell for you, and you used me! You used me to get to your sister and turned me in to the cops! You left me holding the bag!”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I never . . . I never meant to hurt you or betray you. I didn’t—”
“No, sorry don’t cut it! It don’t fuckin’ cut it!” He banged the night table, making her jump. “I was arrested! They raided my club . . . my restaurant. I lost everything!”
She closed her eyes and shoved her fingers into her hair.
“I’m an informant now. The cops gave me a choice between turning against Dolla—or telling him how I helped you. So I’m a snitch now . . . a punk-ass snitch! But he’s gonna find out. He’s gonna find out eventually that I’m working for them, and when he does, I’m a dead man. It’s only a matter of time.”
She opened her eyes again. When she did, he could see there were tears in her eyes, but he wasn’t moved. He’d seen her tears before. She had used them against him in the old days. They used to win him over, but not anymore.
“You robbed me of a lot of shit, but it was my stupidity for trusting your shady ass to begin with! I just don’t get how you could rob me of this too,” he said, gesturing to her stomach.
She looked down and ran her hand over her bump.
“It’s mine. Right? Or were you fuckin’ some other dude the whole time we were together? Are you even worse than I thought?”
She raised her head to glare at him. “I know that I’m messed up, okay? I may even be shady—as you say—but what kinda question is that? How could you even ask me that, Ricky?”
“Oh, don’t act all innocent, like I’m accusing you of shit you would never do!” he yelled, tossing the sheet onto the bed. “You lied to me from day one. You lied to me about everything!”
“I didn’t lie to you about everything! I told you—”
“Yes, you did! Everything out your mouth was lie or a half lie . . . or a quarter lie! Why the fuck should I believe you now?”
She threw up her hands in surrender. “Fine. Fine, Ricky. If you want to believe I cheated on you, then okay . . . sure . . . I cheated on you. The baby’s not yours. Now you have another reason to hate me. That make you feel better?” She walked toward the open door, looking hurt. A tear finally spilled onto her cheek. “Now if you’re finished telling me about how horrible a person I am, and how much I’ve ruined your life, I’ll go back to—”
“Oh, fuck you! Fuck you, you selfish, shady bitch!” he shouted, charging toward her, making her instinctively take a step back. He felt like a pot that had finally bubbled over. “Fuck you and your lies and your fake-ass tears! Fuck you and your—”
“Stop yelling at her!” Skylar shouted, stepping into the doorway. “She didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to leave you, but she had to! The cops told her she had to do it, or she’d lose her badge and get thrown in jail, asshole! And she’s been crying over you for four goddamn months, so stay off her fuckin’ b—”
“Enough!” Simone yelled, sniffing and wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “Enough! It’s okay.”
Her sister fell silent, but she still looked pissed. Ricky was pissed too. His chest was heaving.
“Everybody’s tired,” Simone mumbled. “It’s late. We should all . . . you know . . . get some sleep. That’s enough shouting for one night. Don’t you think so,
Ricky?”
He didn’t respond. His nostrils flared. His fists were at his sides. He could feel the tendons standing up along his neck. All his rage and hurt had coalesced into something hot and stinging that ran over him like a fever. If he opened his mouth and spoke, he didn’t know what words would come out—or if they would be words at all.
He watched as Simone stepped into the hall with her sister. She then quietly shut the door behind them, leaving him alone in her mother’s bedroom. He sat on the bare mattress with the sheets balled up beside him, staring at the closed door. He sat for so long that he lost track of time.
Ricky had finally got to yell at her. He’d got to tell her how she had broken his heart, destroyed his life, and betrayed him. He’d told her what he really thought about her. So why didn’t he feel any better? Why did he feel worse?
He should’ve known that anything dealing with Simone would leave him feeling helpless and unsatisfied. That woman had had the power even in the beginning of their relationship to twist him into knots, to mess with his head so that he didn’t know right from left, or up from down. And it looked like not much had changed since then, but Ricky was going to end things on his terms this time around. He wasn’t going to wake up in the morning and leave this house, unsatisfied.
He glanced at the digital clock on the night table and saw that it was almost two a.m. He hopped off the bed, walked across the room, and opened the bedroom door. He strode down the hall. It didn’t take him long to find her. Ricky could see through the cracked open door that she was wide awake, despite the late hour and her protestations about being tired. She was sitting in the center of the bed, watching television and rubbing lotion onto her arms and legs. He eased the door open and she turned to look at him, surprised. Her hand hovered over one glossy, brown leg. His eyes drifted to her red-painted toenails.