Hold Me in Contempt (34 page)

Strickland leaned forward and tapped his nails on the wooden desktop. I knew this was to mash at my nerves. I tried to breathe to ease the pain in my back, but it was only tightening with each tap. “See, I'm a detective and I'm naturally curious. Want to know things. Understand. And what I came up with is that you didn't tell my team about your involvement with McDonnell when you were in Brooklyn because you and that snake you call a district attorney were trying to ruin our investigation so you can have McDonnell for yourself. Or, you had no clue who McDonnell was and you were too afraid to tell us anything because you wanted to protect your little career. I hear you have your eyes on being the next DA?”

“You don't know anything about me,” I said, trying not to leave any traces of alliance with Strickland's words. I knew what he was looking for in me, a lean-in to admit to his theories.

He sat and stared, waiting for a move.

“Yeah,” he said after a while. “I guessed those were both wrong. Then I came to my next hypothesis. Want to know what it is?”

“What is it, Strickland? Humor me.”

“Well, maybe you know everything and you're playing the game for McDonnell. That's where your interest is. Isn't it? Protecting him? Hiding his secrets? You're just playing us. Been siding with McDonnell the whole time.”

I looked down at my purse on the desk where the memory stick with King's audio file was.

Strickland caught the glance and looked there too.

He said, “Who knows where your filthy hands have been. What evidence you've hidden. Information you've stalled. I know your kind.”

“I haven't been hiding anything for anyone,” I stated adamantly.

“Oh . . .  ​not you . . .  ​right?” he said. “Please. Drop the good-girl routine. I looked into your past. I know about your parents, that alcoholic father of yours, who stumbles down your old street every day crying about his lost wife.” Strickland smirked. “And that mother? A straight crackhead. A rock-smoking homeless prostitute.”

“My mother is not a prostitute!” I said, getting up with tears in my eyes.

“Oh, did I pluck a nerve!”

“Get out of my office!” I said.

“You don't want to hear the truth about your mother? How I found her sucking dick on the side of the road for five dollars?”

“No! That's not my mother!” I screamed. “You don't know anything about my mother. Now get the fuck out of my office!”

Strickland stood, but his face was unaffected by my orders.

“Oh, I do know the truth about you, Counselor Kind. And soon everyone else will, too. That you can take the girl out of the projects but you can't take the projects out the girl. You'll be subpoenaed. That face will be on all the newspapers. You'll be ruined. The only place you'll be able to work is on that show
Mob Wives
,” he said. “Now, you do have a choice.”

“What do you want from me?” I asked, fighting to keep back my tears. I refused to let him see me breaking down.

“You tell me all about McDonnell's operation. What he's doing. And I'll keep your little Clocktower dick ride a secret.”

“I can't do that. I don't know anything,” I pleaded.

“Kind, you don't expect me to believe that. I know about pillow talk. I know he's told you his story about the Irish mob. About his father living in Belize.”

“I told you I don't know anything,” I said. “Now, would you just leave!”

“Fine, Kind,” Strickland said, walking toward the door. “I'll go now, but I'll be waiting for you,” he added, opening the door. He nodded and tipped an invisible hat before walking out.

I let out my breath like I'd been underwater. And the pain in my back was ornery. I was standing, but I had to look at my hands to make sure I hadn't fainted. The tears I'd held back now dripped to my palms, and I screamed so loudly I saw red streaks in my eyes. “Shit!” I walked back to my seat and tried to think of what to do. If there was anything I could do. I thought to call King, but if Strickland was on to me, he'd probably had my phone tapped.

“What is it?” Carol said, rushing into my office. She quickly closed the door on the prying eyes of people who'd heard my scream.

“I can't do this!” I said to myself, standing in the middle of the floor afraid to move.

Carol came to my side. “What did he say? I knew that Strickland was bad news. Was it about Paul?”

I heard her but I wasn't listening. I was being pulled right back down that mountain with the weight around my waist.

“You need me to call someone? An ambulance?” Carol asked. “I don't think you're well. I think you need an ambulance.”

“I'm fine,” I said. “I need to get out of here. To get home.”

“But you're not well,” Carol said. And then she looked at the little slip of paper on my desk with Dr. Davis's name and number on it. “Maybe we should call your doctor—Dr. Davis,” she said, handing me the paper.

“No! I don't need him!” I snapped at Carol. “I'm just going home.”

“Yes! That's fine,” she agreed.

I picked up my purse, and through tears, I looked around the office as if I'd never be back there again. I remembered King asking me to run away with him. To go away and leave this place.

I walked out of my office past assistants and other ADAs lined up along the walls with closed mouths and perked ears.

“I'll call you later,” Carol said, walking out behind me and trying to make it sound like everything was okay. “Feel better. Just a migraine. You'll be fine.”

I walked along the line keeping my eyes ahead.

I could hardly see Easter, but I knew she was the last person I was passing before I got to the elevator.

“Feel better,” she said, touching my shoulder. “I really mean that.”

I pulled away, rushed into the elevator crying. I felt like everyone was chasing me, following me like a mob with pitchforks, threatening to burn me alive. I started sweating and feeling clammy. The elevator was vibrating in and out with the beats of my heart. On the loudspeaker there was Strickland repeating what he'd seen my mother doing. I fell to the back corner and covered my ears. “No!” I said. “She wouldn't do that!”

Once the elevator doors opened again, I ran out of my corner, through the lobby, and into the street, where I stopped a cab with my body and an outstretched arm like I knew where I was rushing to. But when I got into the back of a cab, I couldn't remember where I was going. I couldn't hear the cabdriver. I just watched his lips moving so fast. He kept saying the same thing again and again, but I couldn't hear him. I couldn't answer him either. He reached back to me. I was handing him a slip of paper. The world around him started closing in, black all around. And then he was gone. Everything was gone.

Chapter 13

I
was swimming in the ocean. It was so big and blue and deep all around me. Water as far as I could see. Up above there was more blue in the sky. No sun. Just clouds that looked like the waves. There was no sound. No people. Just me feeling the salt water carry my body in its expanse.

Up near my breasts
,
the water was chilly and choppy, but at my feet the undercurrent was warm and so calm. I stopped kicking and pushing myself through the waves and sank down deep to feel more of the warmth. I wanted to stay there. To never leave or find land again.

Underwater
,
I looked up at the sky. That was it. I was going away. I closed my eyes
,
drew the salt water into my lungs, and let myself slip down
,
down
,
down.

“
Kim!” I heard through the water. “Kim!”

I felt an arm belted around my waist.

“
Kim! Don't give up! You can't! Wake up
,
baby! I need you to wake up!”

I opened my eyes again and the blue water was gone. I was lying on a couch with a sketch of a shark on the wall behind it, flanked by seashells in frames. I could hear the recorded sounds of the ocean through the sound spa port.

I looked over and saw Dr. Davis standing beside a man with his back to me.

I couldn't speak, but I reached out to them.

“She's awake!” Dr. Davis said, looking at me and then rushing toward me.

“Kim!” The man turned around.

“Kent!” was my first word.

My brother ran to my side.

“You okay, Kim?” Kent said, getting on his knees beside me. I could see so much worry in his eyes.

“I'm fine,” I answered. “I was just dreaming.” I looked at Dr. Davis. “Why am I here? How did I get here?”

“You gave a cabdriver my number. Told him to bring you here,” Dr. Davis explained.

“Do you remember anything? What happened to you?” Kent asked.

“I don't know. I was at work. I just wanted to get away. I was having a bad day. A really bad day,” I said. “I must've fainted.”

“I think you just had a little panic attack,” Dr. Davis declared, stepping in front of Kent and checking my heartbeat with a cold stethoscope. “You were barely awake when you got here. You were saying something about your mother. And then you passed out. That's when I called your brother. You had him listed as your emergency contact.”

“Oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!”

“There's nothing to be sorry about.” Dr. Davis placed his fingers on the glands on my neck and then gave me a thumbs-up to let me know I was okay. “I'm glad you thought to call me.” He grinned. “You weren't answering any of my calls. I was starting to feel a little hurt.” He stood up straight and looked at Kent. “She'll be fine. I'll leave the two of you alone. Let me know if you need anything.”

My brother sat down on the floor at my side and stroked my hair like I was his child. “What happened to you, Kiki Mimi?” he asked.

“I was at work, and there was . . . ” Though my thoughts were still blurry, I could hear Strickland in my ear like he was standing beside me.

“There was what? What happened?”

“Just this guy. We're working on this case together, and he said some things to me. I was just—it was a bad day.”

“What's his name?” Kent asked with his jaw tightening.

“Name? I'm not telling you that. I'm not crazy.” Even with my head spinning in the waves from Dr. Davis's ocean soundscape, I still managed to chuckle at Kent's request. “You'll go over there and act a fool—and don't show up at my job. He doesn't even work at that office.”

“You know I'll fuck him up, right?”

“It was just work stuff. The boys play rough,” I said. Strickland's language was vile and his approach was just out of line, but it was nothing compared with what I'd seen and heard from men there. On any other day I could've taken his insults, fought back, and probably would have won, but in the bottom of the bag of everything else it was like the perfect right hook on the cheek to just knock me out—literally. “I've been having a hard time,” I admitted softly to my brother. “A really hard time. And I don't know what to do. I feel like I need to get away to just leave everything. Start over.”

“Why don't you just do it, then?”

“Leave? You think I should leave?”

“Why not?”

“What about you? Daddy?” I asked. “Mommy?”

“We'll be fine. Ain't none of us going nowhere. You know that,” Kent answered. “Kiki, I know I'm supposed to tell you to stand up—right? Give you that ‘Harlem stand up!' pep talk. But the truth is, you've been standing up strong all along. All this time. Standing stronger than all of us. And if you want to sit down for a little while and let us pick up the slack, go on and do it. Maybe you keep thinking that you want to get away because you need a break. Take it. Stay away as long as you like. Like I said, the fam ain't going nowhere. And you know I always got your back.”

When I am asked to provide an emergency contact, I usually give the first name that comes to mind—Kenton Kind—and scribble down his cell phone number in a rush as if the question is a nuisance, an unnecessary aspect of whatever form I'm filling out. That's because I'd never been in a situation where an emergency contact was needed and I couldn't imagine one.

With Kenton Kind sitting there stroking my hair with his big heavy hands that could've used a little shea butter at the knuckles, I was so grateful for him being my twin, the other side of me, and for being the one whose name I'd put down without even thinking. He was right: He always had my back.

Dr. Davis wouldn't let us leave without me signing up for physical therapy for my back and agreeing to make an appointment to be evaluated by a drug abuse counselor for possible dependency on prescription pills. While I initially fought him about his idea that I was abusing painkillers, when I pulled out the Baggie King had given me as evidence of my lack of desire to take the pills, I realized that I was nearly through the stash. I didn't even remember taking the pills.