King Divas (6 page)

“W
hat do you mean that Dribbles has been shot?” My anger zaps out of me as Profit's face drains of color.

“I don't know. Get dressed,” he orders, and then spins around and races out of the bedroom. “I'll be out in the car. Please hurry.”

This morning has been crazy as I leapfrog from one emotion to another in a span of an hour. I'm still angry, but I can't forget how Profit was there for me when I lost my foster parents. It would be wrong to turn my back on him now.

When I finish getting dressed, I rush out to the car. Profit is reading something from his phone.

“Do you know what happened?” I ask.

“No. Lucifer only texted me an address.”

I wince at the mention of her name and my emotions make another leap. We ride from Ruby Cove in a coffin of silence. The awkwardness makes the whole scene more depressing.

Twenty minutes later, we arrive at a two-story, brick home in Tunica. I push back my confusion and questions and climb out of the car.

Profit rushes ahead of me and pounds on the door. Within seconds, it swings open. Once inside, I come face-to-face with the last person I want to see right now.
Lucifer.

“They're upstairs,” she tells us.

Profit nods and takes off, leaving my ass downstairs with
her.

Simmering, I close the door behind me. Despite her pregnancy, Lucifer still carries a dangerous aura. The large baby bump doesn't change a damn thing.

My admiration has turned to hatred. I glare at her, trying to see what attracted Profit. She's beautiful, powerful, confident,
and
dangerous. The Flowers look up to her and the soldiers fear her. How can I compete with that? She's everything I'm not and everything I wish I was. Being in the same room with her stirs up all my insecurities. Maybe at the end of the day, Profit is like the other Vice Lord soldiers. He wants a real boss bitch to ride and die in the streets with him, not some clingy, bougie bitch with a psycho sister who pumped a full clip into him. Keeping shit real, I'm only here because I got caught up. I didn't chose this life . . . it chose me.

Lucifer stops pacing. “Is there a problem, petal?”

Unlike the times before, I glare right back. “Yeah. There's a problem.”

“Oh?” She steps forward. “And what's that?”

I cock my head. “You.”

Alarm bells sound off in my head as she moves closer.

“Is that right?” Her dark eyes trap mine.

“Seeing how you like
kissing
other women's men,” I add, refusing to back down. If I can go toe-to-toe with LeShelle then I can do the same with the bitch who's a threat to my relationship with my man.

“What?”

“Cut the act. I saw you two this morning.
Kissing.
”

Her face hardens and goes cold.

The warning bell rings again.

“Look, petal. I can see that you're all in your feelings right now and you're two seconds away from letting your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash. So let me clue you in on what you really saw: your man kissing
me.
Apparently, what you didn't see was my ass shutting that shit down. If you want to keep him at home, maybe you should get a shorter leash.”

“Maybe Mason needs to put
you
on a leash,” I counter. “You do everything else like a man, do you
fuck
like them too?”

A muscle twitches along her temple. It's a miracle that my ass isn't laid out on the floor right now.

“Are you challenging me, petal?”

I lift my chin. “I'm not scared of you.”

“Then you're dumber than you look.”

“Fuck you,” I snap.

I don't even see her go for her knife, but I feel its sharp tip pressed against my throat. I don't have my razor blade, but I remain calm. “What? Are you going to kill me now?”

“The thought has crossed my mind,” she says coolly. “But Profit is about to lose one woman in his life; he
might
get a little salty if he lost another—but there's always tomorrow.”

I roll my eyes, tempting fate again.

“I'm going to say this shit one last time: I. Don't. Want. Your. Man. Understand?”

We engage in a stare-off.

“Is there a problem down here?” Mason's voice booms from the staircase.

Now what are you going to do?
I turn a smug smile up at Lucifer.

“Maybe. I don't know,” I tell Mason, but then direct a question to Lucifer. “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

Lucifer's eyes harden into black diamonds. “No. There's no problem,” she says in a voice that dares me to contradict her. “We're all good. Aren't we, petal?”

Instead of answering, I push away from her. Both her and Mason's eyes follow me as I stomp up the staircase to find Profit.

At the top of the stairs, I peek into different rooms until I find the one where Profit kneels by a bed.

I don't recognize Dribbles. She's pale and already has one foot in the grave. My emotions leap again. I walk up behind Profit and place a hand on his shoulder.

“Momma, you don't talk like this. You're going to get better,” he tells her.

“We both know that's not true,” she whispers. “But it's all right. I want you to know that I love you very much—and that I'm going to need you to be there for Mason. He's already blaming himself for this. It's not his fault. It's nobody's fault.”

I'm lost in the conversation. I don't understand what's happening.

Profit shakes his head, not wanting to accept what she's saying. “Nah. That slithering nigga got to pay for this shit. An eye for an eye. That's the rules of the street.”

Dribbles's pale face wrinkles with disappointment. “You sound like your brother. I was afraid that would happen when you moved back up here.”

“Mom—”

“No. Listen to me for a moment. Don't make the same mistakes that I made. Get out of the street game. It'll destroy whatever happiness you manage to find. Trust me. Get out while you still can. It's too late for Mason. I know that. The streets are in his blood. Both him and Willow. But you two . . . There's still hope for both of you. I can see it.”

Her words tug at me because they remind me of the warnings from Reggie.

“Promise me,” Dribbles says, her voice fading. “Promise me that you won't follow the same path as your brother. You're eighteen. You're still young. You can go back to school, and then make something of your life. Become
somebody.
Make me proud.”

The more she talks, the lower Profit's head hangs. In that moment we all know that he can't promise her that. It's a shame because seconds later, she stops breathing.

I
'm alive.

Even though every part of my body aches, I've survived. A miracle. Clouds of smoke billow through the car vents, choking me. I cover my nose and mouth with one hand and use the other to push on the door. It's stuck. Frustrated, I drag my five-foot-eight body out of the window.

A few cuts later, I escape the car and then rake my thick hair back from my eyes. In the distance, police sirens and news helicopters fill the sky.

“Captain! Captain! Are you all right?” An officer arrives at the top of the hill and glances down at me. He looks pretty shook up.

“Yeah. I'm fine,” I mumble, proceeding to climb up out of the ditch. “Did we get him?”

“They're still searching,” he says.

“Goddamn it,” I mutter.

The officer offers me a hand on the last leg of the climb. I ignore it to catch my breath. “It was fuckin' Terrell Carver,” I tell him. “I recognized his face.”

“Holy shit. For real?” he asks, shocked. “I thought he was dead.”

“You need a priest, holy water, and a crucifix to kill the devil,” I say, my head clearing. I look down at my fucked-up car. “I need a ride back to the department.”

“You got it, Captain.”

The whole department is abuzz about the wild police chase where the subject eluded the police. It comes as a major blow against the department at a time when we can't afford to look bad in the press.

 

Back at the department, I head straight to the break room for a much needed cup of coffee. When I'm sure that no one is looking, I reach for the hidden bottle of bourbon in the back of the cabinet and then top off my drink. I'll need the kick before Chief Brown rips me a new asshole. She'll order another press conference to calm the media; not like those are working too damn well. In an election year, the bigwigs need to appear to be doing something about the violence.

The street wars have accelerated in recent years. Day and night, bodies drop like flies. Only Chiraq and Detroit stack higher body counts than Memphis. The city is under siege. So far, no one has been able to figure out the genesis of the wars. My money is on the department's former superhero, Captain Johnson, and possibly his daughter, Detective Melanie Johnson.

During the investigation of his
and his daughter's
murder, Lieutenant Fowler and I discovered that Melvin Johnson was Terrell Carver's biological father. His daughter couldn't have known about this because she was engaged in an affair with the notorious gangster. They even had a child together, Christopher, who is currently a ward of the state.

We also uncovered a surveillance video of Detective Melanie Johnson murdering her partner, Detective Keegan O'Malley. Weeks later, Detective Johnson herself was murdered, and strong evidence pointed to her lover slash half brother. Then Christopher went missing. Johnson's murder and Christopher's kidnapping landed Terrell “Python” Carver on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

Christopher was rescued months later from an abandoned house out in West Memphis, but weeks after the child was returned to Captain Johnson and his wife, they were found slaughtered inside their home, by the child's
other
grandmother, Alice Carver. Now
she's
dead—killed by her older sister, my stepmother, Maybelline Carver, who she'd also kidnapped. Pretty soon I'll need a family tree diagrammed to keep up with this crazy-ass shit.

“Captain Hawkins, you're here,” Detective Hendrix shouts, rushing over.

“Where else would I be?” I ask her.

“Lieutenant Fowler is looking for you.”

“Why? What's up?” I gulp down my coffee.

“Another homicide. This one at the Power of Prayer Baptist Church.”

My head snaps up. “Isn't that off Florida and McLemore?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

Hendrix rattles on. “I would help, but my partner and I caught three bodies last night at Hemp's liquor store over off Orange Mound.”

“Okay. I'm on it.” I drain the rest of my coffee, and then jet off to find Fowler. I spot him coming out of my office.

“Hey! You're looking for me?”

My ex-partner, Lieutenant John Fowler, shoots me a grim look. “A little tardy to the party, aren't you?”

“If I'd known that you'd be helpless without me, I would've showed up earlier to hold your hand.”

“Cute.”

“Besides, I ran into a little problem of my own this morning.”

“Don't tell me that you were involved in the police car chase that's splattered all over the news.”

“Okay. I won't tell you, but I'll be riding with you until I can get another vehicle assigned to me. Mine is totaled.”

“Damn. Why does all the exciting shit always happen with you?” he jokes.

“Oh. That's not all. I got a look at the driver fleeing from that church you were called out to. Care to guess who it was?”

Fowler sighs. “Dale Earnhardt Junior?”

“Funny. No. Who's number one on our Most Wanted list?” His face loses its amused look. “No.”

“Yes.”

“So you were right. Terrell Carver is still alive,” he says, impressed.

“Don't sound so shocked. I'm
always
right. Now we have to figure how to find him and bring him in.”

Fowler laughs. “Piece of cake.”

I flash a smile as I walk with him in the direction of the interrogation rooms. “Who we got?”

“Have a look for yourself.” Fowler opens the door to the observation room, where a two-way mirror reveals a blood-splattered woman who looks familiar.

“Where do I know her from?” I ask.

“Her name is Cleo Blackmon,” Fowler says. “She's a member of the church.”

“What's her story?”

“She claims that she discovered our victim when she stopped by to pick up her new choir robe for an upcoming revival.”

“Choir . . . She's a singer.” I nod, placing the face. “I saw her performing last night at Club Diesel.”

“Ahh? You and the hubby finally getting some R & R time, huh?” Fowler grins. “I thought I detected a certain glow about you. Did you get you some?”

“None of your damn business,” I sass back, chuckling.

“One day, I'm going to get back into the game. Find a hot girl with freak tendencies.”

“What? You're already bored with the blow-up doll I got you last Christmas?”

“On the contrary. I plan to keep her as a chick on the side—or invite her in for a threesome.”

We laugh at our foolishness.

My attention returns to the woman on the other side of the mirror. She's struggling to remain calm. “Did she see anything or anyone?”
I hope for the name Python.

“Of course not,” Fowler says. “You know the drill. No one ever sees anything.”

Sighing, I ask, “Who's our victim?”

Fowler's deep breath warns me to prepare myself.

“Who?”

“Maybelline Carver.”