CHAPTER 17 #2
“They can move you whenever they want.”
Dymond glanced toward the bathroom.
“I brought clothes.”
“You planned this?”
“I met your mother.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It does if you know Karen.”
My mother.
I grabbed Dymond’s arm.
“When did you meet her?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Tasha said she’s at Jewish Hospital.”
“No. Karen left before sunrise.”
“Where did she go?”
Dymond looked toward the map.
“To find Nesha.”
“Alone?”
“Your father went with her.”
I reached for my phone again.
Neither answered.
The officers outside spoke to someone approaching the room.
We had run out of time.
Dymond locked the door.
“What’s the plan?” Tasha asked.
“Keyshia changes clothes. You create a distraction. I get her to the service elevator.”
“What kind of distraction?”
Dymond looked toward the fire alarm.
Tasha shook her head.
“This is a hospital. People could get hurt.”
“Then think of something quieter.”
Tasha looked at me.
I looked at the IV bag hanging beside the bed.
Five minutes later, Tasha opened the door screaming.
“She can’t breathe!”
The officers rushed inside.
One called for a nurse.
The other moved toward the bed.
Dymond stood behind the curtain wearing my hospital gown and lying beneath the blanket.
She began shaking violently.
A nurse ran in.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know!” Tasha cried. “She grabbed her chest!”
While everybody focused on the bed, I stepped from the bathroom wearing scrubs, a surgical mask, and Dymond’s coat.
I pushed an empty wheelchair into the hallway and kept my head down.
Nobody stopped me.
Tasha joined me near the elevator thirty seconds later.
“You enjoyed that,” I said.
“A little.”
“Where’s Dymond?”
The fire alarm sounded.
Tasha looked up.
“So much for quieter.”
Patients began spilling into the hallway.
Dymond appeared through the crowd.
“Move.”
We entered the service elevator.
As the doors closed, I saw one officer pull back the curtain.
Dymond had stuffed pillows beneath the blanket.
“Where did she go?” he shouted.
The doors shut.
We reached the parking garage.
Meech waited inside a black van.
He looked nothing like I expected. Thin, glasses, hoodie, laptop balanced across his knees.
“You must be Keyshia.”
“You must be the man who owes Dymond money.”
He looked at her.
“You told everybody?”
“Drive.”
We pulled out of the garage before police reached the lower level.
Meech handed me a laptop.
“I recovered more of Kendrick’s files.”
“Did you find who shot Nesha?”
“Not exactly.”
A video filled the screen.
The warehouse.
Nesha stood beside my mother.
The camera angle came from above.
My father was near the entrance.
Dymond was out of frame.
A muzzle flash appeared from the upper walkway.
Nesha stepped in front of Karen half a second before the bullet struck her.
“She saw the shooter,” I said.
Meech slowed the footage.
A figure moved through the shadows.
Black jacket.
Baseball cap.
The face remained hidden.
Then the shooter turned.
For one frame, the camera captured a tattoo on his neck.
A crown split down the middle.
Tasha inhaled sharply.
“You recognize it?”
“That’s Shay’s family mark.”
My cousin Shay.
The woman whose birthday started this nightmare.
The number on Dre’s phone.
The person I believed had betrayed me before I learned the truth was bigger than any one cousin.
“Shay shot Nesha?” I asked.
Dymond shook her head.
“Shay doesn’t have that tattoo.”
“Who does?”
Tasha stared at the screen.
“Her brother.”
I remembered a boy who used to follow Shay and me through the neighborhood.
Quiet.
Thin.
Always listening.
He joined the military after high school and disappeared from Louisville years ago.
“Deon,” I said.
Meech closed the laptop.
“Deon works private security now.”
“For Victor?”
“For the Circle.”
My phone rang.
Nesha’s name appeared.
I answered immediately.
“Nesha?”
Her breathing was weak.
“Key.”
“Where are you?”
“I messed up.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I thought Kendrick was helping us.”
“He was.”
“No. He used me to lead Victor to you.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“I took the picture of the kids.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
“There might not be a later.”
A man spoke in the background.
“Time.”
Victor.
He was alive.
Dymond heard him too.
Her face changed.
“Nesha, listen to me,” I said. “We’re coming.”
“No. Don’t.”
“What does Victor want?”
“The access code.”
“Give it to him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the archive doesn’t just have Circle records.”
“What else is inside?”
She began crying.
“Proof of who killed Dre.”
“We know the Circle did it.”
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“Nesha, what are you saying?”
“I saw the basketball court video.”
The line became quiet.
“When Dre ran, the car fired first. But the bullet that killed him didn’t come from the car.”
I remembered the chaos.
The black sedan.
Gunshots.
Dre falling face-first onto the pavement.
“Then where did it come from?”
“Your car.”
My blood ran cold.
Nesha had been inside my vehicle.
“You shot Dre?”
“No!”
“Who else was in there?”
“Nobody.”
“Then how could the bullet come from my car?”
“Because somebody planted a remote gun beneath the passenger seat.”
Dre had sent the message telling them I was coming.
But somebody else had made sure he never survived the meeting.
“Who activated it?”
Nesha’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“The same phone that called me after Dre hung up.”
The unknown number.
The calm male voice that gave us twenty minutes to reach the court.
“Victor?” I asked.
“No.”
“Lawson?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Nesha began to answer.
A loud sound came through the phone.
She screamed.
Victor took the line.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
“The ledger is gone.”
“I don’t want the ledger.”
“What do you want?”
“Dymond knows.”
I looked at her.
She shook her head.
“What does he mean?”
Victor laughed.
“Ask your sister what she took from the boat.”
The call ended.
Everyone stared at Dymond.
She slowly reached inside her coat.
When her hand came out, she held a small black device.
It looked like a phone.
But there was no screen.
Only a silver circle engraved on the back.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Victor dropped it when he went over the railing.”
Meech’s eyes widened.
“You brought it with you?”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“That’s the Circle command device.”
“What does it control?”
“Everything still connected to Victor’s private network.”
“Can it locate Nesha?”
Meech took it carefully.
“If it’s active.”
He connected it to the laptop.
A map appeared.
One red dot flashed beneath St. Augustine Church.
Nesha.
Another red dot moved along the river.
Victor.
“He isn’t at the church,” I said.
Dymond leaned closer.
“Then who has Nesha?”
A third signal activated.
It was directly behind us.
Meech looked into the mirror.
A black SUV sped toward the van.
“Hold on!”
The SUV slammed into us.
The van swerved across two lanes.
Tasha grabbed my shoulder to keep me upright.
Another impact shattered the rear window.
A man leaned from the passenger side of the SUV.
The split-crown tattoo covered his neck.
Deon.
He aimed his gun through the broken glass.
Dymond pulled me down.
Gunfire ripped through the van.
Meech lost control.
We struck the concrete barrier and spun toward oncoming traffic.
A semi-truck’s horn screamed.
The van stopped inches from its front bumper.
Smoke poured from the hood.
Deon’s SUV blocked the road behind us.
Three men stepped out.
Dymond raised her gun.
Tasha grabbed mine from the floor.
Meech held the Circle device.
The driver’s door of the SUV opened.
Shay stepped onto the highway.
She wore the same birthday dress she had purchased for the party that never happened.
Red.
Tight.
Perfect.
Like the last three days hadn’t touched her.
She looked through the broken windshield and smiled at me.
“Happy birthday to me.”
I raised my gun.
“Where is Nesha?”
“With Victor’s replacement.”
“Who?”
Shay glanced toward the Circle device in Meech’s hand.
“The person who gave Deon the order to kill Dre.”
“Say the name.”
Her smile widened.
“You still haven’t figured it out?”
She walked closer.
“The call came from somebody who knew Nesha would answer.”
Another step.
“Somebody who knew you would bring the folder.”
Another.
“Somebody who knew exactly where your children were.”
My finger tightened against the trigger.
“Who killed Dre?”
Shay stopped directly in front of the van.
“Your father.”