Chapter 19 #2
Women covered nearly every bench inside the tank.
Some slept sitting up against the walls while others argued, cried, paced the floor, or stared off into space as if they’d mentally checked out.
At least fifty of us were packed in here shoulder to shoulder beneath freezing air vents and flickering fluorescent lights.
Nobody paid me much attention. Everybody in there looked exhausted in the same defeated way.
I sat near the back with my arms wrapped around myself, trying to stop my teeth from chattering. The concrete beneath my bare feet felt like ice, and my toes were getting numb.
Somebody nearby snored loudly. Another woman paced in circles while talking to herself. Two chicks were bruised and bloody, glaring at one another from across the room. I assumed they’d fought.
Every few seconds, noise erupted from somewhere on the men’s side. They were so loud their voices carried through the walls and bars separating the tanks.
My eyes kept drifting toward the gate. Toward the men’s holdover.
Still no Booda.
Maybe they had him in another tank. Was he in interrogation? Maybe he’d gotten away before they made it inside.
That last thought was the only thing keeping me halfway together.
Hours had probably passed by now, but time felt strange in there. Every minute dragged across my skin like wet clothes.
I pushed myself up from the bench, my body aching from the raid as I made my way toward the phones mounted along the wall. The receiver felt sticky against my ear when I picked it up.
For a second, I just stared at the numbers. Who the fuck was I supposed to call? My mother was dead. I had no family. No real friends either. I didn’t even know Ms. Mary’s number by heart. Not one digit.
I closed my eyes.
Damn.
That was when it truly hit me. If I didn’t have Booda, I would be completely alone in this world. There wasn’t a single person waiting for my phone call. Nobody was coming to bail me out, stand beside me in court, or tell anyone I was still worth saving.
It was just me.
The realization hollowed me out so fast it made my chest ache. All this time, I had been so focused on surviving that I never stopped to think about how small my world had become. People disappeared one by one until somehow everything in my life started and ended with Booda.
Standing in that freezing holdover with a dead phone pressed against my ear, there wasn’t a single person on this earth whose number I knew by memory besides his mother’s, and she was gone.
Around me, women were talking, laughing, crying, and arguing with officers. The noise never stopped, but I was still alone.
I slowly lowered the receiver back into place.
“Konika Holiday.”
I heard my name called, and my head snapped up.
An officer stood outside the tank, staring directly at me. “Come on,” she ordered, and conversations around me quieted as women looked up from their benches and corners to watch.
I swallowed hard and walked toward the gate. Another officer stepped forward with cuffs already dangling from one hand. The metal door buzzed loudly before swinging open, and I was ordered to turn around.
I did.
Cuffs snapped around my wrists again, then they led me out of the holdover and down a long gray hallway. Doors slammed somewhere in the distance. A man yelled from another tank while officers laughed nearby because none of this meant shit to them at all.
I searched every hallway we passed anyway. Every doorway. Every holding cell.
Still no Booda.
By the time they stopped walking, my stomach was in knots.
One officer opened the door. “Go in,” she demanded, roughly pushing my shoulder.
I stepped into the interrogation room, and the door slammed shut behind me with finality.
The room was exactly what I expected. Dingy beige paint peeled from the concrete walls. A metal table was bolted to the floor. Two chairs were on opposite sides, and a mirror that wasn’t fooling anybody hung on the wall.
A man sat on the other side of the table. Detective, probably. He had tired eyes, a wrinkled shirt, and a coffee stain on his tie that had probably been there since yesterday.
He didn’t raise his head when I entered. His gaze was fixed on a folder sitting on the metal table. I was directed to sit in the chair across from him. The cuffs were removed, and an officer remained by the door while the other one exited the room.
That was when the detective finally looked up. He studied me for a second before leaning back in his chair.
“I’m Detective Vega,” he said before gesturing toward the man beside him. “This is Detective Mercer.”
Mercer looked me over with open irritation written across his face before snatching the lid off his coffee cup.
I said nothing.
Vega folded his hands together on top of the folder in front of him. “You wanna confirm your name for us?”
Silence.
“Well, since you won’t say anything. I’ll tell you what I know. Will that work?”
I still paid him dust.
With a grin, he started reading from a sheet of paper. “Konika Holiday. Thirty-six years old. Date of birth February seventeenth, nineteen ninety—”
I kept my mouth shut.
Mercer shifted in his seat with a frustrated exhale, his chair scraping the floor as he leaned forward.
“You’d make things a lot easier for yourself if you’d at least answer basic questions.”
I leaned back in the chair and stared at the wall behind him.
“What’s your current address?” Vega asked calmly.
Silence.
Mercer laughed under his breath, but there wasn’t anything funny in it.
“You executed a woman in broad daylight in front of witnesses, and now you’re mute?”
Still nothing.
The irritation on his face deepened.
“Open your mouth, bitch!” Detective Mercer banged his hand on the table.
“Mercer,” Vega warned, and he threw his hands up before leaning back again, jaw tight.
Vega never raised his voice. Never changed expressions either. That told me he was the dangerous one.
He opened the folder, and one by one, photographs slid across the table.
Rich. Or what was left of him.
Giani. Blood spread beneath her body while pieces of her face painted the concrete.
G5. Her cousin. His skin was filleted, chunks of muscle and flesh missing.
I almost smiled at that.
The girl from his car, hanging upside down as her blood soaked his vehicle. Her neck bent at an angle that made my own ache.
Several guards from Rich’s house.
The pictures spread across the table until death surrounded me from every direction.
Mercer watched my face carefully. Vega stared at my eyes.
I didn’t react. At least, I didn’t think I did.
Vega studied me quietly for another moment before tapping a finger against the photographs spread across the table.
“That’s a lot of bodies connected to one woman,” he said evenly.
I kept my eyes on him, but my lips were sealed.
Mercer scoffed as he shook his head. “You’re wasting your time, man. She ain’t gon’ say shit.”
Vega ignored him and continued. “What I’m trying to figure out is whether all this started before or after your accident.”
Something twisted inside me, but I stayed quiet.
“You spent a year in a coma, then when you wake up, bodies start dropping.” Mercer leaned forward again, his words an accusation, not a question. “Rich. Giani. G5. Guards from Rich’s house. You had something to do with those murders, didn’t you?”
I yawned.
“You think they had something to do with what happened to her that night?” Vega asked Mercer as if I wasn’t sitting there. “Is that what this is? Revenge?” He looked at me.
A gust of cold air drifted through the room from the vent above the detectives, carrying Vega’s cologne with it. The scent hit me out of nowhere. It was clean, masculine, and for a split second, all I smelled was Booda’s soap.
Suddenly, I was back in my apartment the day he showed up at my door.
“Niggas could’ve killed me, I would’ve been fine with that. But if anybody had touched you…” His words trailed off before he huffed a short laugh. “I was ready to wipe out whole families behind you.”
A beat passed.
“Then you came to me, talking about robbing the city like it was nothing.” He shook his head, a real smile breaking through. “That’s when I knew. I said, yeah… that’s my wife.”
He rubbed his jaw, thinking back.
“Man, we were different when we were broke. We paid attention to everything. Who had it, who didn’t, and nothing got past us.”
“I don’t know what you talking about,” I said, a half-smile creeping in as I let myself drift with him.
“Yeah, you do.” He grinned.
I shook my head and reached for my chips. “You need to let that go. That stuff’s behind us.”
“Is it?” He tilted his head, studying me. The humor disappeared.
“Yes.”
Booda shook his head slowly. “Nah. Look how you living. This ain’t you.” He gestured around the empty space. “Remember their faces.”
I froze for a second, then kept eating like I hadn’t heard him.
“Think about their faces,” he repeated.
“I said I don’t know what you talking about.”
He pushed off the wall and moved closer to me. “You do. I need you to remember for me, baby. I can’t get at those niggas for what they did to you if you can’t tell me who they are.”
“Why? What good will that do?”
“A lot. And it’ll also help you understand why I did what I did. Until then, anything I say will be just words,” he said. “Plus, that’s part of our history, our love story.”
“Booda—” I groaned, already feeling the pressure mounting.
“Don’t fight me on this,” he cut in. “I need every face. Niggas don’t get to fuck us over and live.”
A tear slipped from my eyes as the memory slipped away, and suddenly, I was back in the interrogation room.
“Where is Booda?” I asked, unable to hold back any longer.
The room went still, and Mercer frowned.
“Who?” he asked.
“Booda.”
Neither detective answered immediately. They just looked at each other instead.
“Where the fuck is he?” I asked again, louder this time.
Mercer pushed back from the table and said, “I’ll be back,” before walking out.
The door shut behind him, and silence fell over the room again.
Vega folded his arms. “We’ve been trying to talk to you for a long time, Ms. Holiday. Since the day you woke up from the coma, actually. We wanted a statement about what happened that night.”
“Where’s Booda?” I repeated.
Vega exhaled slowly through his nose. “We never got one,” he continued.
“Where is he?” I demanded, and this time, my voice cracked.
And I hated that he heard it.
Vega’s eyes stayed locked on mine for several long seconds before he finally leaned back in his chair.
“Ms. Holiday… when’s the last time you saw Davion Madison?”
The door opened again, but I didn’t look toward it. My eyes stayed locked on Vega.
Every nerve in my body suddenly felt too tight.
“Where is he?” I asked again as Mercer moved back toward the table.
“I saw y’all take him,” I snapped, my voice rising. “I saw officers dragging somebody out my apartment.”
Neither of them said anything.
My breathing grew ragged. Ice crawled through my chest, and my fist slammed against the metal so hard the photographs jumped.
“Where the fuck is Booda?”
The sound echoed through the interrogation room, and the officer near the door straightened immediately.
Vega still didn’t answer.
“I’m talking to you!” I shouted as I jumped out of my seat.
“Ms. Holiday,” Vega said carefully, “That’s impossible.”
Everything inside me stopped. Impossible?
“No.” The word came out instantly.
Mercer opened a folder, one that hadn’t been here before.
“No,” I repeated louder, shaking my head. “No, that’s bullshit.”
Photographs slid across the table, and my legs buckled.
Booda.
Blood covered his chest.
Another photo.
His body lying on a table.
His face. Blown off.
My ears started ringing.
“No,” I whispered again, the room blurring around me as I stared at the photographs.
That wasn’t possible.
I had talked to him.
Touched him.
Slept beside him.
“No,” I choked out again, tears finally spilling over. “No, he was with me. He was just with me.”
“No, Ms. Holiday. He wasn’t. Booda has been dead for over two years.”