CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #2
“Now we have Dre back, an assault, a phone belonging to somebody tied to the burner purchase, and evidence somebody manipulated company systems. This isn’t just missing company money anymore.”
“It wasn’t before.”
“You’re right.”
He said it without defensiveness.
Nola looked away.
The front door opened ten minutes later after Ray confirmed her parents.
Denise entered first.
She saw Dre and made a sound Nola had never heard from her.
Then she crossed the room and held him.
Dre winced but did not complain this time.
“Don’t you ever,” Denise whispered. “Don’t you ever make me bury you in my head like that again.”
Dre started crying.
That broke Curtis too.
He stood behind them for a few seconds, then wrapped his arms around both.
Nola watched from beside the stairs.
Her parents’ marriage was broken open.
Maybe temporarily.
Maybe forever.
But they were still Dre’s parents.
Both things existed at once.
Curtis eventually pulled back and smacked the back of Dre’s head.
“Ow! Why does everybody keep hitting me?”
“Because you ran!”
“I was scared!”
“So you call your family!”
“I thought I was protecting them!”
Nola laughed once, bitter and tired.
Everybody looked at her.
“What?”
Denise wiped her face.
Nola looked at Dre, then Curtis, then herself in the dark television screen.
“Nothing. Apparently protecting people without asking is hereditary.”
Kai looked down.
Curtis did not understand the reference.
Denise did enough to glance at Nola.
“We’ll talk about that later.”
“Yeah.”
Curtis saw Kai near the coffee table and his face hardened.
“Why is he here?”
Dre answered. “Because it’s his money, Dad.”
Curtis looked at his son. “I’m aware.”
Kai stood.
“I’m calling counsel and the detective liaison we use for theft cases. I’m not touching the phone beyond what we already did. Dre needs to give a statement while this is fresh.”
Curtis stepped forward. “My son ain’t talking to police without a lawyer.”
“Agreed.”
Curtis stopped.
“You got one?”
“Company counsel can represent the company, not Dre. I have a criminal-defense referral. You can call whoever you trust.”
Curtis looked suspicious of how reasonable Kai was being.
Nola almost understood.
Kai called his attorney first.
Then a detective sergeant named Yates who had worked several organized auto-theft cases involving the yard. Kai told him exactly what they had and exactly what they had already done with the phone.
No exaggeration.
No threats.
No trying to control police.
Yates told them not to manipulate the device further and said two detectives would come take a preliminary report. Dre could arrange a formal interview with counsel the next morning.
Curtis called an attorney his cousin used years ago. The lawyer answered, irritated but awake, and told Dre the same thing: identify himself, report the assault and theft-related facts, do not speculate, and schedule the longer statement with counsel present.
For the first time in two weeks, the adults around Dre were not improvising.
Nola felt some invisible muscle in her neck release.
While they waited, Mani went to the kitchen to make coffee.
Dez followed to get cups.
Nola stayed near enough to hear without trying to.
“You want help?” Dez asked.
“You know how to work a coffee maker?”
“I run logistics for a company with sixty-two employees.”
“That didn’t answer me.”
“Yes, Mani. I can make coffee.”
“Good. Filters in there.”
Cabinet opened.
Then Dez said, “Why this filter so small?”
Mani laughed.
Full laugh.
Her hand went over her mouth on reflex.
Dez looked at it.
Nola saw him pause.
Mani noticed too.
Her laughter died too quickly.
“What?”
Dez’s voice softened.
“Why you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Cover your mouth.”
Mani’s shoulders came up.
“I just do.”
“Okay.”
He went back to the coffee maker.
Mani looked confused.
Maybe she expected a follow-up.
Dez reached for the filter, failed to fit it, and muttered, “This little-ass machine got me looking stupid.”
Mani laughed again.
Hand up.
This time Dez reached over gently and moved her hand down by the wrist.
Not grabbing.
Not holding it there.
Just moving it.
Mani froze.
“What are you doing?”
Dez looked at her mouth.
Then her eyes.
“Trying to see you laugh.”
Mani blinked.
“You can hear it.”
“Didn’t say hear.”
Nola turned away before they saw her watching.
Her heart squeezed for her friend.
Not because Dez had fixed something.
He hadn’t.
But because he had looked directly at the thing Mani spent years hiding and his face had not changed in the way she feared.
Dez went back to fighting the coffee filter like nothing happened.
No speech.
No compliment designed to make her cry.
Mani stood there for a second, then said, “Turn it the other way, genius.”
“I knew that.”
“Clearly.”
Normal.
That was probably what made it land.
The detectives arrived at midnight.
They photographed Dre’s injuries, took the burner phone, recorded where and how he obtained it, and collected the names Kai had already identified. Kai handed over copies of system logs through his attorney instead of making the detectives beg for them.
One detective looked impressed.
“You preserved all this before calling us?”
Kai said, “I needed to know what I had first.”
The detective gave him a look that suggested he had opinions about that timeline.
Kai did not argue.
“We should’ve called earlier once threats started,” he said. “That’s on me.”
Nola looked at him.
Growth again.
Not perfect.
But there.
Dre’s preliminary statement lasted twenty minutes.
He stuck to what he knew.
When he started guessing the sender was Rome, Kai cut in once.
“Tell them what you saw, not what you think.”
The detective nodded.
“He’s right.”
Dre rolled his eyes but corrected himself.
At 1:15 a.m., everyone was exhausted.
Denise refused to let Dre stay alone.
Curtis said Dre was coming with them.
Nola opened her mouth to object automatically.
Then stopped.
Dre looked at his parents.
“Can I stay with Nola tonight?”
There it was.
His choice.
Not hers.
Denise looked hurt for a second, then nodded.
“Tonight. Tomorrow you’re coming to my house so I can see you in daylight.”
“Okay.”
Curtis started to argue.
Denise looked at him.
He shut up.
Their marriage might be in hell, but teamwork had not died completely.
At the door, Curtis looked at Nola.
“I was wrong to put keeping Dre straight on you.”
The sentence shocked her.
“Daddy—”
“No. I was mad. I said you promised, like his grown decisions belonged to you. They don’t.”
Nola’s throat tightened.
“I should’ve told y’all sooner.”
“Yeah. You should’ve.”
No fake absolution.
She appreciated that.
Curtis glanced at Kai standing near the kitchen.
“And I got other shit to answer for.”
“Yeah. You do.”
He nodded.
Denise was already halfway to the car.
Curtis hurried after her.
Nola watched him go.
“He staying at the hotel?” Mani asked quietly.
“I hope so.”
“Your mama looked like she might run him over if he gets in her passenger seat.”
“She won’t.”
“Probably.”
Dre fell asleep on the couch within ten minutes.
No climbing out windows this time.
Mani went upstairs.
Dez lingered by the door.
“You need anything?” he asked Nola.
“No. Thank you.”
He nodded toward the kitchen. “Your friend know the coffee machine disrespectful?”
Nola smiled. “You couldn’t work it?”
“It was built wrong.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Dez’s eyes moved toward the stairs for half a second.
Then away.
“Tell Mani goodnight.”
“I will.”
He left.
Kai stayed.
Nola looked at him.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know that.”
She folded her arms.
“Then why are you still standing here?”
“Because we need to talk and I don’t want to leave it rotten overnight if you don’t.”
Nola looked toward Dre asleep on the couch.
“Outside.”
They went to the small back patio.
Nola sat in one plastic chair. Kai took the other.
For a minute, neither spoke.
A neighbor’s air conditioner hummed over the fence. Somebody’s dog barked once and stopped.
Kai rubbed his palms together.
“I’m sorry.”
Nola waited.
“For?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me list it like you don’t know.”
“I want to hear what you think you’re sorry for.”
Kai nodded slowly.
Fair.
“I should’ve told you about Curtis once he missed the deadline. Really, I should’ve told you before that if I was gonna keep seeing you the way I was. I treated it like information I could hold because that’s what I do with everything.”
Nola looked at him.
No therapist voice.
No perfect speech.
He sounded irritated with himself.
More believable.
“You did.”
“Yeah.”
“And when I told you I trusted you, you still didn’t.”
Kai looked down.
“Yeah.”
“That part is what fucked me up.”
“I know.”
“Don’t say you know.”
He looked back at her.
“I understand that’s the part you said fucked you up. I don’t know how it felt.”
Nola’s mouth almost twitched.
“Better.”
“You gonna grade all my answers?”
“For a while.”
“Fair.”
She leaned back.
“You were right about Dre.”
Kai did not move.
“Don’t look happy.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“I kept information from my parents because I decided worry would be worse than not knowing. I told myself I was protecting them. Really I was protecting myself from having to manage their reaction on top of everything else.”
Kai listened.
“But that doesn’t make what you did okay.”
“I know.”
Nola gave him a look.
He corrected, “Agreed.”
“Thank you.”
The back door opened.
Dre stood there half asleep.
“Y’all arguing?”
Nola stared. “Why are you awake?”
“I gotta pee.”
“Then go pee.”
“I heard voices.”
Kai said, “Go to the bathroom, Dre.”
Dre looked at him. “You ain’t my daddy.”
Nola and Kai both said, “Go.”
Dre held up his hands. “Damn.”
The door closed.
Nola started laughing.
Kai did too.
It took the edge off without fixing anything.
When the laugh ended, Nola looked at him.
“I don’t want another rule where we promise to tell each other every thought and every secret anybody ever says. That’s unrealistic.”
“Agreed.”
“But if something directly affects me, my safety, my family, or our relationship, you don’t get to decide I can’t handle it.”
Kai nodded.
“Same for you.”
Nola almost objected.
Then stopped.
“Same for me.”