Never Keeping Secrets (26 page)

E
ach of the ladies held a plate at the repast for Latoya's funeral but none of them felt like eating. It had been a long draining day and they truly just wanted it to be over.

What had started to be a horrible day of secrets, lies, and betrayals revealed had been made all the more worse by the news of her passing. Latoya had been instantly killed in the car wreck that night. The combination of getting hit from behind and then having her car shoved forward into traffic to be violently sandwiched by two oncoming vehicles had sent her home to the Maker.

And now her children could only live with memories they had of their mother. They wouldn't even grow up in the same home any longer. Tiffany was going to live with her father Bones. He had immediately come to his daughter's side at the news of Latoya's passing. It had been Bones who comforted her throughout the emotional funeral.

Danielle could only hope that both Bones and Taquan, who were far from friends, would work together to make sure Tiffany and Taquan Jr. stayed close. She knew Latoya would want it no other way.

Danielle tucked her hair behind her ear as she looked at Mohammed. She gave him a smile but she hoped he didn't see the sadness she hid behind it. Although her soul literally ached for the tragedy, the funeral was a stark reminder of her limited mortality. One day people would come to mourn her and Mohammed would have to deal with her death just like Taquan was.

“Do you think he'll be okay?” Danielle asked, shifting her eyes to where he sat by the window in the living room of Latoya's parents' home.

“Hearing how that last phone call between them went,” Monica said, her eyes following Danielle's to rest on the minister who was so obviously dealing with the loss of his wife, “I don't know.”

“Take it from me, you don't want to hear or see someone die,” Keesha added softly, almost too softly, as she gripped and ungripped the cigarette lighter she held in her hand.

She furrowed her brows just as one lone tear raced down her cheek. That tear hardly represented her level of grief at losing Latoya, losing Corey, and losing her mind. She stared off into the distance at some spot as a vision of Corey's dead body flashed. Keesha winced as she felt a sharp pain that pierced her soul the way the shard of glass had pierced Corey's body.

Keesha felt a hand comfortingly squeeze her shoulder. She looked up. Surprise filled her eyes to see her daughter standing there suddenly. She forced a reassuring smile even as she felt a tidal wave of guilt wash over her that her daughter was so affected by her suicide attempt. Kimani was never very far from her and constantly stopped what she was doing to check on her. The daughter taking care of the parent.

Keesha squinted her eyes as she saw Danielle and Monica share a look that was filled with as much concern as she felt. The same concern she constantly saw in the eyes of her father, stepmother, her baby sister and even Diane. “I'm going back into therapy,” she said, answering a question she wasn't even sure they were going to ask. “They said I had a mental break. I fucking snapped. So, uhm, yeah.”

“I'm glad you got out of the hospital in time to make the funeral,” Monica said.

Keesha nodded. “I'm glad I got out the hospital at all,” she said. “My baby wasn't so lucky, you know?”

Monica and Danielle fell silent.

The pills had led to Keesha suffering a miscarriage and they just didn't know what to say to that.

“It's okay. Maybe it's for the best. I mean, I don't think I could have taken having Shawn's baby after he killed Corey, so God and those mysterious ways, I guess,” she said, her voice sad.

But none of her sadness or tears was for Shawn. Yet another death and the only bright spot in the darkness Keesha felt over her life. She hoped that crazy motherfucker rotted in hell. He shot himself that night as he sat in his car, overcome with grief for murdering the cousin he had already betrayed.
They
had betrayed.

She couldn't overlook her role in the tragedy and it was that truth that had her walking the fine line between sanity and insanity.

Feeling Kimani's steady presence behind her, Keesha reached up to smooth the back of her daughter's hand. “I'm okay,” she assured her.

But that was a bold motherfucking lie. She was far from okay. She didn't know if she would ever write again. They were all back living in Diane's apartment because the home she had once loved and was so proud of acquiring was now a bloody crime scene and a constant reminder of it all.

Latoya was dead. Corey was dead. Her baby was dead. And she had tried to join them all in death.

There wasn't shit okay about that.

Will we ever be okay?
Monica wondered as she leaned back against the wall of the crowded dining room and crossed her arms over her chest.

Taking a life was not an easy pill to swallow and Monica was choking on it.

She still had nightmares about the sight of the bullet she fired from her gun, piercing Rah's chest as the bullet he shot at her burnt a thin scar across her cheek before firing through the metal of his van. His injuries had been far more fatal than hers. As she climbed from the van and watched him bleed out onto the sidewalk his eyes had still held a crazy and demented rage for her. She had rushed to kick his gun away from him as he struggled for just enough strength to raise his arm and fire it at her again.

Monica covered her mouth with her hand as she felt the urge to vomit.

Not from the memory of the smell of his blood.

Not from the sight of his body convulsing during the last moments of his life.

Not even from the reality of coming so close to the end of her life.

None of those things made the bile of her stomach switch into reverse.

It was the truth—a truth she shared with no one—that her fear of him was so intense and palpable that she stood there and let him die.

Monica released an audible breath that was heavy.

She shook her head to clear the image of her not even attempting to call the police until she saw his chest rise and fall with his final breath.

In that moment, with her cheek still burning from his bullet and the threat of his words still haunting her, she felt she had no choice. It was survival of the fittest. Period point blank.

For years he sat in prison blaming her for actually being daring enough to press charges against him for breaking her leg. How dare
she
? She had no clue that Rah was even free and stalking her. Monica shook her head. She'd had two loons on her path and didn't even know it. It was Rah who sent the harassing text messages. She had always assumed it was the same person blowing up her e-mail box. She assumed wrong and it almost cost her life.

She brought her hands up to gingerly touch the small bandage still covering her cheek. She nudged her chin higher as she looked over at Cameron talking to Mohammed. In the last week since that horrible night they weren't back to a hundred percent but they were trying and that's all she could ask for.

The ashes from Rah's cremation were probaly spinning like a mini tornado at his ironic role in offering something for her and Cameron to lean on each other about. In some weird twisted way Rah had made their transition from her betrayal to Cameron's attempt at forgiveness easier. That night the phone call from the police had brought Cameron to her side at the hospital. The story of her kidnapping and shooting had shaken his stance. And the sight of her wounded face had softened his anger.

She looked up again just as Cameron removed his phone from the inner pocket of his tailored suit. His eyes shifted to hers momentarily before he took out a pen and picked up one of the memorial cards sitting on a table.

Monica frowned as he scribbled on it.

“We can't let another five years go by, y'all,” Keesha said, looking down at her hand as she made a fist. “We're like family and a family is stronger together than apart.”

Monica's heart raced as Cameron ended his call and walked towards her. She hated the panic she felt at a quick irrational thought that it was his ex-wife on the phone and he was coming to her to announce he was leaving her cheating ass behind.

“You're right. I'll be in Jamaica but we're just a phone call away,” Danielle was saying.

“Excuse me, ladies,” Cameron said, stopping in their midst to hand the folded card to Monica.

She took it as he turned and walked back over to Mohammed. Glancing down she looked at his dark slashing handwriting and her gut clenched so tightly that it felt like a stab. She looked up to meet Cameron's stare with a question in her eyes. He nodded his affirmation sharply.

“Come with me,” Monica said, turning to head through the dining room and up the stairs to Latoya's old bedroom.

“What's going on?” Danielle asked as she closed the bedroom door.

“We made mistakes but it's time to let one motherfucker know he made the biggest one of them all,” Monica said, pulling her cell phone from her Celine tote as she dialed the number Cameron had scribbled on the card.

Keesha and Danielle's faces filled with understanding.

Monica turned on the cell's speakerphone and held it out in the middle of their semi-circle as they stood in the old bedroom of their deceased friend. Her death and the shattering of their lives brought on by one man's quest for revenge.

It was time to give as good—or as badly—as they got.

It went to voice mail.

Danielle reached for Monica's free hand and then for Keesha's as she felt so many emotions flood her.

Keesha's eyes brimmed with enough angry fire to burn a house down with one glare.

Monica looked at a childhood picture of Latoya on the bedside table. A tear fell easily. And then another. And another. “Xavier Lofton, you have no idea of the check your worthless ass just wrote and we are coming for you to cash that motherfucker.”

“Unlike you, we got plenty of enough balls to let you
know
to watch your back,” Danielle added with ferocity, leaning forward to speak into the phone.

Keesha used her free hand to swipe at tears as anger nearly choked her. “Sooner or later, your ass is ours. Trust and believe that, motherfucker.”

Monica ended the call.

From a plush seat on his private jet, Xavier leaned forward to press a strong finger to his iPad to exit his voice mail. He chuckled as he recalled the idle threats of his classmates. Their words were nothing but jokes to him. They were nothing but amusement to him.

What they had thought of as a silly school prank had completely shattered what little confidence he had. What little life he had as a teenaged nerd already feeling isolated and bullied. School had been unpleasant at times before “the incident” but after it had been a daily battle not to cry as he was called every inane nickname in the book. People laughed in his face and continued to play pranks on him to further humiliate and bully him.

Life at UHS had been pure hell.

And because students at nearby Malcolm X. Shabazz High used the same line of public transportation and had spread his story like wildfire, even the bus ride home was more of the same. Many times he made the forty-five minute walk home to try and avoid the embarassment.

He took it for a full year, thinking the focus would shift off of him, but it never did. When he found himself even comtemplating taking his life for a millisecond, he knew he had to leave his dream school behind.

Xavier dropped out of school and for him he had never recovered. Everything beyond then had taken him twice as much work and drive. Twice as much fight and determination.

But he succeeded . . . eventually.

He shifted his dark slanted eyes out the window at the beautiful landscape beneath him as his jet headed toward Paris. “Alright bitches, let the games begin,” he said, lifting his snifter of brandy in a mocking toast to them.

Thank you to God for my blessings. Thank you to the readers, bookstores, bookclubs, and vendors for your support as we continue on this journey together. Thank you to the hardworking staff at Kensington/Dafina for being in the Niobia Bryant business. Thank you to my agent, Claudia, for teaching me so much about this industry and always having my back. Lastly, thank you to the usual suspects for all that you do, whether personal or professional, to keep my mind right so that the words can continue to flow.

 

Love and blessings, y'all. Love and bountiful blessings.