Читать книгу The Deadline - KiKi Swinson - Страница 9

3

DOWN AND DIRTY

“A’ight, Khloé, you see that cop right there?” Kyle pointed through his windshield as we sat in his car hidden across from the Norfolk Second Patrol Division station house. My legs swung in and out nervously. Kyle had called me at home. He told me to hurry up and get dressed; he had to show me something related to my story.

“Which one? There are a few,” I replied, craning my neck to see whom he was talking about. “There’s one that’s not in uniform. You mean him?” I squinted to see.

“Yup, that one. He is a detective. He’s a dirty detective in every sense of the word. He works directly for your boy, Barker, the possible future mayor, and all of his clients, but he pretends he’s out here solving murders. More like out here committing them and then solving them like he’s the best,” Kyle told me.

“Are you serious?” I asked. I know Kyle was getting tired of me asking that, but some things were just so unbelievable.

“Man, I know of at least six murders commissioned by people associated with Barker and his clients and cleaned up by this cat in front of us. He plants evidence, he gets rid of evidence, and I’ve heard sometimes he carries out the murders himself too. The reason I said to follow him is, I think after a while, he will lead us right to Barker’s hideouts.”

I sat staring out of the windshield in astonishment at what Kyle was saying. How could someone who’d sworn an oath to protect and serve be doing what Kyle was saying. I guess I was being naïve, since that shit happens all over the United States every day.

“That is crazy. He looks so straightlaced and clean-cut,” I replied, my mouth still hanging open a little bit as I watched the smooth detective chop it up with a few uniform cops before heading to his car.

“Appearances can be deceiving, for sure. He’s the only person with his hands a little dirty that our friend will take visits from. He’s the insider/outsider, if that makes sense. Barker is smart. He tries to keep his hands clean, even though him and his clients run all this shit around here. Every single nickel and dime sold in Norfolk, Barker gets a cut. He’s like the Pablo Escobar of this city,” Kyle explained.

I was struck silent as I listened and watched the clean-cut and dapper detective get into a darkly tinted black car.

“So, how can I get something newsworthy if we can’t get next to Barker?” I asked, still a bit shocked at what Kyle was really telling me.

“We going to follow him right now, but we got to be careful. You know he’s police, so his countersurveillance skills is top-notch,” Kyle explained as he cranked up the car. As soon as the engine started, so did my nerves. I had to bite down hard to keep my teeth from chattering. Biting my nails was the next best thing, so that’s what I did.

“This is the time of day he makes some stops at the secret stash spots to pay for the re-ups and collect money sometimes. I heard from one of my street connections that they about to blow the lid on a dude they suspect of turning on one of Barker’s biggest clients’ spots. Which, in turn, means, it fucks with Barker’s cut and all the dudes on payroll cuts. My connect said he knows once the detective finds out dude was being a traitor, he is going to take care of the situation right then and there, since the possible future mayor and his clients only trust him to deal with it,” Kyle told me.

Kyle slowly and carefully pulled out behind the black car. My heart throttled up in my chest, because everything Kyle was saying sounded extremely dangerous. But that news-desk job was still calling my name. I imagined the shocked look on Christian’s face when I got this whole story solid, and that was enough to keep me moving closer toward danger. I told myself to sit back and go along for the ride, because everyone knew that in the journalism business, there was never any reward without a little risk.

* * *

It seemed like we had driven forever when Kyle finally stopped the car. I moved my head around, peering out of all of the car windows trying to figure out just where the hell we were at. No lie, it looked like we were transported in time and place. We were in some backwoods part of Virginia, and the property that sat in front of us looked like an old abandoned farm or plantation. There was a big, dilapidated, and haunted-looking plantation-style house to the left, and almost in the way back of the property was an old shack. It looked like if one bad wind came through, it would collapse.

“What the hell?” I said, mouth hanging open a little bit.

“I told you, these dudes are very careful with their shit. Barker actually purchased this old plantation so that he could have a place for his most dangerous clients to conduct their business. We are not dealing with dummies here, twin. Everything they all do is well planned and thought out,” Kyle said. As he spoke, I took in eyefuls of the area. We were so far from any civilization that if anyone screamed out, there was not a soul in the world that would hear him. That thought gave me a bit of pause too. If we needed help out here, not a soul in the world would hear us either.

We couldn’t pull the car right up to the secret property that the detective had driven to, so we stopped down a road, where Kyle parked between some trees. It had taken a little maneuvering to get the car situated where no one could see it. Just the thought of what we were doing made adrenaline pump through me.

“What now?” I asked. “We can’t see anything from way back here.”

“Relax,” Kyle replied, digging in his center console. He pulled out a damn blunt. I watched him like he was losing his mind as he prepared his lighter to spark up his blunt.

“I’ma smoke this, calm my nerves, and then we going to get out and sneak around back, once the outside coast is clear,” he told me.

“Really, Kyle!” I shouted a little too loudly. He fumbled with his blunt and lighter, and every little movement he made was on my nerves. I rolled my eyes at him in disgust. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to be getting high right now? Don’t you think doing something as dangerous as this takes a clear mind?” I asked, seriously disturbed. It always annoyed me to see him smoke weed or drink until he was drunk. At a time like this, when I felt like he needed to be fully sober just in case anything went left, I was especially upset.

“Listen, twin, if you want me to get you these exclusive pieces to build your story . . . you going to have to shut up and let me work. Go with the flow. There is always a method to my madness, and if anyone ain’t going to steer you wrong, it’s me,” Kyle chided, then lifted his blunt and took a long drag off of it. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke in my direction.

I fanned the air with my hand and crinkled up my face. Shit, maybe Kyle is right. I was feeling so wrecked in the nerves that for a second I felt like I needed to smoke some weed. That thought quickly faded, though. I had never taken a drug in my life. I hadn’t even experimented with any because of the devastation drugs had done to my family. My father had gotten killed over selling drugs; and after seeing my mother addicted to heroin and crack and battle her way back from the edge of death, I felt there was no way I would ever do drugs. I sometimes wondered why Kyle even smoked or sold drugs. Like, what in his consciousness could allow him to even want to be within an inch of any type of drug was beyond me. He had been right there when everything happened to us. Just like me, Kyle had lived through the worst of times due to drugs. I turned my head and stared out of the side window, waiting on him, and that was a mistake. The sight of my mother overdosing flooded back into my mind, fast and furious, like the rushing waters of the Louisiana levees breaking during Hurricane Katrina. There was no stopping that memory. I closed my eyes . . .

* * *

I’d been hiding by the wall in our new apartment and watched yet another dude that my mother had brought home coax her into taking something.

“Listen, I ain’t never sent you wrong before. Live a little. I don’t have to bend your arm to make you feel good. You know you want to get high like before. You been chasing this shit since the very first time . . . You know what it is,” the dude said to my mother, and then grabbed her arm and pulled her to our table.

I came around the wall a little bit so I could see better. My little heart was pumping hard, and I remember curling my hands into fists as I watched.

The man watched my mother. His eyes were wide, and he was breathing hard, like watching my mother readying herself to take the drugs had excited him. Who got that excited over drugs? For a quick moment I wondered if my mother would finally get some sense and refuse the man’s peer pressure.

“Linda, baby . . . go ahead. I promise, you going to feel good as hell after this hit,” the man had urged, grinning slyly. From where I stood, I could see sweat beads on his forehead; every time he moved, they made him look shiny and evil. My mother had crinkled her face as if she wasn’t sure. I had watched her try to be happy after my father’s murder and she’d had a lot of seedy friends come through our place at the time, but I could tell in that moment she wasn’t sure that being with this man was worth trying something that might get her addicted. As young as I was, I could see the strain of apprehension in my mother’s face.

“This is some new shit. Trust me, it’s the A-grade shit that you’ll love. I got it from my boy Drago. He always got that good shit. I’ll always be able to get my hands on this shit after today. Wait until you get a taste,” the man had said, urging my mother on and on.

I bit down into my jaw and swayed a bit on my little legs. I weighed my options in that moment: If I rushed out and screamed, my mother wouldn’t take the drugs, but she also might be very upset and beat my ass. She had become really unpredictable at the time. Some days she was our loving mother that we recognized, and other days not so much. My mother was getting into drugs heavy. It had gone beyond her just smoking a weed joint, like she had done when my father was alive and they’d party. My mother was walking the line into heavy stuff that she’d always preached against to Kyle and me.

“I don’t know about this. This is something different you talking now,” my mother had said, still not sure. “You know I like you, but I do this for fun. I can’t afford to get in too deep. Addiction is not what I need right now,” she said.

The man grunted and sighed loudly. When he moved around the room to face my mother, I looked at him really good in the light. He was gorilla ugly, and he already looked like a strung-out fiend to me. I squinted my eyes as he dumped a small mountain of the drug onto the back of his hand. The man stood over six feet tall and his arms bulged out of the sleeves of his T-shirt. I would’ve been no match for that monster. He towered over my mother, who was even slimmer than before from not eating a lot since the murder. My mother’s skin was still pretty, but her eyes were sad and sunken now. Before she’d had the deepest, darkest brown eyes, with thick black eyelashes, that always caught people’s attention. But as I watched, I noticed that her eyes were ringed with dark circles and sad, very sad. Her thick, long hair was always in a ratty ponytail and she hadn’t let it down to flow since before my father’s death.

I was eight, but I was smart beyond my years. Where other kids might’ve missed the stark contrast in their mother’s appearance and her overall deterioration in everything, I had definitely noticed. That night I felt my heart break a million times as I stood there and watched. It wasn’t that I hated my mother, but I was devastated that she’d let these outside forces interrupt her life, to reach this terrible point. She looked so weak to me. I had felt a flash of embarrassment and a stab of hurt. I kept watching her and thinking that if she continued using drugs, she wasn’t going to be so beautiful for long, nor was she going to be our mother for long.

“Stop being scared, Linda. I’m not going to ask you again. You ain’t going to get addicted, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the man had shot back. “Now either you down or not? I can go find someone else to have a good time with.” With that, he placed his nose on top of the mound of white powder on his hand and inhaled like a high-powered vacuum cleaner. When he was finished, there was absolutely nothing left on his hand. Then he dumped out another mound of the stuff and pushed it toward my mother. I was screaming “NO!” in my head, and to keep from screaming it out loud, I clamped both of my little hands over my mouth. I watched my mother finally give in and she held one side of her nose and inhaled with the open side. My stomach had cramped up as I watched.

“Ugh,” my mother had grunted as her legs buckled a little bit. I thought she would fall, but she just stumbled around, all the while keeping her balance. “Shit!” she had shouted, and then she started laughing, as though the man had told a joke. My mother started doing some crazy dance. She had jumped around like a fool. It was crazy to watch. After a few seconds, I guess, she remembered that the man was still there. She circled him like she was doing some mating dance. He laughed too.

“I told you this was that good shit. You ain’t want to believe me, right?” the man had said, laughing at my mother, but clearly satisfied he had her.

When he dumped out more drugs, the hairs on my skin stood up. I felt my entire body tense up; somewhere in my little brain I sensed danger. Call it our bond or instinct, but in that moment I knew something bad would happen. I had told myself I needed to run in and save her, but I froze. I couldn’t move, as if my feet had grown roots into the carpet. The man had a small pile of the drugs ready for my mother again.

“Don’t be scared, sexy. Just take it in and forget all of your troubles. This shit here works wonders,” the man had said, smiling wickedly at my mother. I had seen the Devil himself in that moment. My mother was laughing, but I knew better. It wasn’t happy laughter. I didn’t have a good gut feeling about it, but I couldn’t move. I watched in horror as my mother bent down and inhaled like she had no cares in the world.

“Yeah, baby!” The man grinned, urging my mother on. “This is what is going to take you away from all of your troubles. This is your new daddy. I’m telling you, sexy . . . you will never be the same after this shit. Just like my man Drago said, we can use half the amount and get doubly as high. This is that premium shit, baby. You going to love me forever for showing you this shit here,” the man was saying as my mother took yet another large inhale of the drug. She was giggling the whole time, like she was giddy as hell.

“Let’s go. You’re going to experience more happiness than you’ve ever known. Get your mind right and have a good time. You can’t walk around worrying about shit all of the time. Life is for living, and this shit here is for taking!” The man kept up his pep talk.

“Yes! Life is for living while you have it,” my mother sang.

I flared my nostrils and breathed in. I was holding my breath. My head felt swimmy and I wanted to scream. I felt buried alive in my own body, and, boy, this was a horrible feeling.

My mother sniffed again. This time she reacted like someone had slammed a hammer into her chest. I had watched in horror as she stumbled backward. She immediately threw her hand up over her nose, and tears leaked out of her eyes. She held on to the sides of her head as if she were trying to stop some kind of pain or slow her mind. The man was laughing hysterically at my mother’s reaction.

“Oh, shit. What the fuck?” my mother grumbled as she shook her head. Within seconds she was moving as if she were floating. Then, out of nowhere, she was back to happy and giddy. She stumbled around, trying to find a seat. Finally she slumped down into one of the kitchen chairs.

“I see light . . . a lot of light. All colors,” my mother had slurred, her head moving around slowly. Her lips curled into a smile, but it wasn’t a happy smile.

I was seeing that my mother had no control over her own body parts. One minute she would barely be able to stand, and the next she’d leap up for a few seconds, singing and dancing and jumping around. She’d flop back down into the chair and stop moving for a while. She looked like she couldn’t move, even if she wanted. My mother hung on to the chair for dear life, because every few seconds she looked like she thought she’d fall. Her mouth was moving, but she wasn’t saying anything.

Seeing her like that had truly broken my heart. My eyes had filled with tears and I contemplated going to wake up Kyle. I knew he’d probably rush in and save my mother. But again, for some reason I was stuck, unable to move. I blamed myself silently, yet I still couldn’t stop watching.

My mother waved her hand at the man as he dumped another small mound onto his hand. In my head I was screaming, “Mommy, don’t do it!” But my mouth wouldn’t move.

“I love it, I love it, I loooovve it,” my mother sang. I couldn’t believe her. But I watched as she deeply inhaled yet another little mountain of drugs through her nose. Her reaction was instantaneous.

“Agh!” my mother belted out. She bent over at the waist for a few seconds. That’s how powerful whatever she sniffed was. Then she stumbled around, took another small amount of the drugs, and placed it up against her nostrils again. She opened her arms wide, like she was about to try to fly. She started spinning around and around, looking like a child playing the get-dizzy game. My heart was pounding as though I had run miles and miles at top speed.

I watched as my mother spun around in front of me. Sweat poured down the sides of my mother’s face. Finally she had worn herself down until her body finally collapsed to the floor. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t scream. I suddenly felt like I was suspended in the air.

“Help me,” my mother gasped. “I can’t see. The light . . . the light is clouding my eyes,” she continued, squeezing her eyes shut. “Help me!” she screamed out.

The next thing I saw was some unknown force moving her body like she was being electrocuted. I suddenly felt a cold breeze whipping around me. I remember shivering, but I was unable to cover myself with my hands.

“Ay! C’mon, get up,” the man shouted at my mother, using his foot to kick at her body as it jerked violently.

I didn’t know if she was dying or what, but suddenly I was able to move and I rushed out of my hiding spot. I was plastered to her side, screaming, “Mama! Mama! What’s wrong?” I felt like throwing up, but nothing came up. She was not inside her body, which was painfully clear now. Now I knew what people meant when they said, when you die, the soul leaves.

From my view my mother was dead in that moment. She was sprawled haphazardly on the floor. Her beautiful legs were splayed in an awkward position that looked like it hurt really bad. “Mama! Wake up!” I hollered. When her body stopped jerking, she resembled one of my broken Barbie dolls. As for me, I felt the pee leaving my bladder from my nerves.

“Mama!” I screeched. She had gone still and was lying flat on her back. Her mouth hung open, her eyes were wide, staring straight up at nothing, and her hair lay around her like a death shroud.

“Get up, Mama! Get up!” I was screaming, but nothing happened. I was stuck on that floor, looking at my mother, but she lay on the floor stiff. I wouldn’t leave her side to go get Kyle. I was praying he would wake up from my screams. I couldn’t breathe, and that throbbing in my heart had already stopped. I couldn’t help my mother or myself. I was powerless and I couldn’t wake her. I looked around, and the bastard that got her like this was nowhere to be found. I wondered if he had a conscience and was regretting giving my mother the drugs.

It was useless to keep screaming. We no longer had a phone in our house. I didn’t know if I was going to be stuck there forever, or if someone would eventually find us. I definitely wasn’t leaving her. The feeling of powerlessness was one that I had never experienced before and the one that I couldn’t understand then and probably would never be able to speak about again.

“Mama, you can’t go. You can’t go,” I cried, placing my head on her chest. After that, I just remembered a flurry of activity and suddenly Kyle was there. The last thing I remember thinking was, if she lives, I will make her proud, and I will never, ever use drugs in my life.

* * *

Kyle suddenly blew out some more smoke and snapped me out of that nightmarish memory of watching my mother overdose. I shrugged off the thoughts about him and his drugs. I figured, to each his own. And if after what we went through, he still didn’t care about what drugs could do to his life, who was I to tell him? I’d done all of that when we were teenagers. The counselors we went to as kids and teens had said both of us would have our own coping mechanisms as we grew up. If nothing else they said was true, that statement definitely was. Kyle and I had chosen different ways to cope with all of the tragedy in our lives. My coping came through pouring myself into school and becoming utterly obsessed with being a successful journalist and on-air reporter. Kyle’s way of dealing was getting involved in any- and everything that was against what society said was right.

Kyle woke up daily to find ways to buck any system he perceived was holding him back. He often got high and went on for hours about government conspiracies and “the man,” as he called it. I never really knew who this “man” that was holding us all down was supposed to be, so most times I just nodded and agreed. It was common in the hood to hear dudes that refused to work or make their lives better through school say stuff like “the white man” or “the man” or “the government” was holding them back. Although, if I had to put a face on the so-called oppressive “man,” he would definitely look like my boss, Christian Aniston!

I still loved my brother more than anything, though. He was my everything. I would die for him, and I’m sure he would die for me too. Our bond was as strong as steel.

* * *

“A’ight, twin. I’m ready,” Kyle announced, stubbing out his blunt and breaking up my thoughts. “This shit is now or never. And just know the things I do for you, including this crazy-ass shit, it all out of love.”

I inhaled deeply and exhaled a shaky, nervous breath. “I’m ready too,” I said tentatively. “And I love you just the same, brother.”

“Make sure you have your phone on silent and no flash on your camera. I bet there will be a lot to take pictures of . . . Shit, you may get lucky and see the man himself,” Kyle told me.

“You mean Barker?” I asked.

Kyle chuckled a bit. “That’s a reach. That nigga is like a ghost in the game. Just fix your phone so you don’t get us killed. Not right now at least.” Kyle laughed again, but I didn’t find anything funny. My brain was on alert from that moment on.

I fumbled with my cell phone to make sure everything was the way Kyle said it should be. I cued up the phone camera to make sure the screen was there when I was ready for it. Sweat started pouring down my back and across my forehead. I could feel the nerve in my left eye jumping. That’s what always happened when I was nervous, in distress, or just plain scared out of my fucking mind. I didn’t know what we were about to walk into, but I said a silent prayer that we would make it back out. Kyle started out of the door, but I grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Wait . . . what’s the guy’s name? The detective,” I asked.

“In the streets we know him as Redds, but his real name is Marlon Keith . . . so I guess at the station they call him Detective Keith,” Kyle replied. He shook his head. “The dude really does live a double life. You’ll see. I can show you better than I can tell you. That clean-cut, dapper, happy cop you saw ain’t going to be what you see now . . . I’m sure about that.”

I shook my head in amazement. This was crazy. There was already an unbelievable story forming in my head. I could even see myself reporting on it from the live desk. My insides tingled from the thought.

“C’mon, we only have a small bit of time,” Kyle said with a bit of urgency.

“Okay,” I said, grabbing for my door handle too. I stopped for a second again.

“Kyle.”

He turned and looked at me with an awkward frown.

“Just know that I love you, no matter what. And thanks for always looking out,” I said sincerely.

He straightened up his face and smiled. “We don’t have time to waste today, twin. We need to be on our square,” he replied like a schoolteacher. He was a stickler for time and staying on our A-game. We needed to be on high alert.

Kyle and I exited the car in the bushes. I followed his lead as he ducked down and practically crawled toward the back of the little shack. We stayed low and my knees were burning. I was out of shape. That little bit of crab walking had done me in and I was huffing and puffing, trying to catch my breath by the time we both made it to our destination. I swallowed hard and fought to catch my breath. Kyle did a couple of hand motions that let me know we were at the place that Redds, or, better yet, Detective Keith, had gone into. Kyle signaled for me to crouch so I could look into the cracks in the wood. The slits seemed to have been made to perfectly fit my eyes. I looked through and watched and listened. I was amazed all over again. This was like some crime-movie shit playing out. I could hear so clearly, it scared me. If I could hear them, could they hear me creeping around outside? I thought. Still, I couldn’t stop watching and listening.

There was a bunch of men standing around. Some were black and some Hispanic. It was like two sides about to go to war or something. Each side flanked their apparent leader, and each side held their guns in plain sight.

“Let’s do this,” Detective Keith said, like he wanted to get to the business at hand. He had changed into a black leather jacket and black jeans. A far cry from his suit and tie. He didn’t look like he was there to make small talk. Also, a far cry from the smiling and chatting we saw him doing outside the police station. A guy dressed in a black hoodie and black jeans turned toward another guy dressed the same; the only thing distinguishing them apart was their different-colored footwear. In unison the clones walked a few paces and retrieved two black duffel bags from the spare tire well in the back of the vehicle they had come in. It wouldn’t have been believable except I was watching it go down.

Even through the little slits in the wood, I could see the strain on their faces as they lugged the bags over. A Hispanic man with a head full of dark, curly hair, and dressed similarly to Detective Keith, walked over, flanked by two of his men. His men weren’t wearing all black; in fact, I thought they were dressed pretty bright for this kind of transaction to be going down. I could tell these guys were on different sides because they held guns at their waists like they were on the ready for anything that might pop off. They all watched as Detective Keith’s workers unzipped the bags to reveal crisp new stacks of cash bound with thick red rubber bands. I moved my eyes from the cracks in the wood and looked over at Kyle, who was peeking through another crack. I made a gesture to him that said, Gotdamn, do you see that money? He widened his eyes and shook his head, as if to say, Hell yeah, I see that shit!

Voices coming from inside made me put my eye back to the hole. I listened closely, fully enthralled and nervous.

“The first bag is for what we received last night on the first shipment. The second is the first half of what is owed for the missing shipment,” Detective Keith said smoothly, like he was an old-school drug dealer and not actually a cop.

My heart fluttered under my rib cage like a moth trapped in a jar. So far, I’d seen enough to build the most scandalous story ever. I could feel the cogs and wheels of my mind turning with ideas on how to report on this.

“Check it,” the Hispanic man said, nodding and handing the bags off to his partners. The two men meticulously lifted each stack of cash, flicking through them as if they were decks of cards. As fast as they flipped, I could tell they were still being meticulous about the count.

“All here,” one of the Hispanic man’s henchmen said. When they were done counting the money and secured the bags in their vehicle, the Hispanic man stepped closer to the crooked detective.

Even from my position outside and looking in, I could feel the palpable tension inside. I hurried up and got my phone out. I put the camera up to another tiny slit and tried to record and watch what was happening at the same time. It was risky, I know, but I had to at least get a little bit of footage so that Christian would believe it. I mean, if I were in her shoes and a junior reporter came in with this story, I might not believe the shit either.

“There’s something else. I have one more point of business to discuss,” the Hispanic man said, looking around the room and then back at Detective Keith.

I raised my eyebrows in nervous anticipation of what was to come. A hot feeling came over me, which told me something was about to go down. When your gut tells you something, it is usually correct. Anything was possible in this type of business. At least that is what Kyle always told me.

“I know this will be hard to hear, but I have to do as I was instructed,” the Hispanic man said, sounding as if he was stalling.

I could see Detective Keith shift his weight from one foot to the next, listening intently.

“Get to it,” he grumbled, impatiently looking at his watch.

“My boss wanted me to let you know that there is a traitor in your midst,” the Hispanic man finally relayed, his words dropping like a grenade in an open field. It even made my breath catch in my throat. I moved my eye for a split second to compose myself before I blew my cover.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Detective Keith exploded, placing his left hand on his waistband. “Don’t come in here making accusations you’re not ready to defend. Me and my boss don’t take kindly to that shit,” he snarled.

The Hispanic man’s men moved in like ready soldiers. Detective Keith’s men followed his lead, with their hands on their weapons as well. It looked like a gang-turf war about to go down.

“Listen, I’m not here to fight,” the Hispanic man said, putting his hands up to ward his guys off. He addressed Detective Keith directly, agitation lacing his words as he bit down into his jaw. “My boss asked me to deliver this as proof to our claims. We don’t ever make allegations that we can’t support. You should know better than that. We are in the same business, and sometimes shit like this can’t be avoided.”

I sucked in my breath as I watched the Hispanic man reach inside his pocket and take out a package. It was a fairly large envelope. All of Detective Keith’s men shifted in the distance behind him, the metal of their weapons clicking and cocking. Detective Keith took a few steps back, not sure what the next move would be. The Hispanic man and his men did the same, holding their guns at the high ready. Detective Keith tore the envelope open; it was like what was inside was going to determine everyone’s fate. I could see that his hands were shaking. Everyone’s eyes were glued on him, including Kyle’s and mine. It was like time had stood still. The anticipation was buzzing in the air. I thought I could actually hear it. I didn’t even want to blink my eyes, for fear I’d miss something. Detective Keith finally got a look at what was inside. From where I stood and peeked, I could see what looked like pictures in his hand, but I wasn’t sure. Suddenly I could see the dirty detective’s shoulders slump and he inhaled deeply. The scene inside that remote shack was so intense; even I found myself swallowing the fear that had formed into a ball in my throat.

What the fuck is it they have? My mind raced. I needed answers. And I needed them quick.