Chapter 14
14
Then…
I had too much time on my hands, or at least that was the excuse I came up with. During my recovery from a successful surgery, I had too much time to reminisce and ponder and stew in a bitterness I couldn’t seem to shake. I also had new skills that I wanted—no— needed to utilize: research and elimination. However, I had no mentor, no company to work for, and no clients. I had no idea how to get in touch with The Agency or 11C22 himself. I tried calling the number he gave me, but he never answered, and the burner I kept charged and ready never rang. Were there other companies of the like that I could apply to? Did that even make sense?
I was frustrated and restless, and that was why I was sitting in my car after ten in the evening, using the high-tech binoculars I’d bought for my “job”, waiting to see Dr. Sherman Stone leave his office for the third night in a row. He usually made his departure around six or seven in the evening. Most days, he left the home he shared with his live-in girlfriend around 5:00AM and headed to the gym. Afterwards, he returned home and emerged an hour or so later to head to the hospital or his office.
I watched him leave the building, walk to his car, and open his car door, retrieving something before heading back into the mile-high structure in midtown Parkton. I’d watched the staff and the last patient leave earlier. He was alone, but for how long, I wasn’t sure. I also didn’t care. This was my best chance to get it done, so I took it.
I left my car, walking in the darkness through the three parking lots that separated me from the doctor, all the while thinking about how my mother described her symptoms and fear to him and how he dismissed her, saying she was being dramatic and that it was probably just a fluctuation in her hormones. She begged this man to help her to no avail. She trusted him to the point that my father had to damn near order her to seek a second opinion, and Kola King didn’t take orders from nobody, not even the love of her life.
I stepped into the St. Raphael Medical Tower wearing all black with padding on my body to make me appear bigger and lifts in my shoes to belie my height, as my mentor had taught me to do. Hell, I even did my best impression of a man’s gait and had used a binder on my breasts. Navigating my way through the building, I made the journey to my destination while avoiding the surveillance cameras I’d taken note of when I paid the building a visit shortly after I returned home from college.
Yeah, I’d been planning this for a long time.
A crazy long time.
The door to Stone Women’s Clinic was unlocked, but if it hadn’t been, I would’ve picked it. That was another skill I’d taught myself. With my gloved hand gripping my Glock, I stepped through the dark office toward the only light in the space. Jazz was playing, and when I finally reached the source of the sound, I found the doctor’s personal office empty. Bathroom break, maybe? A flushing sound coming from a door to my left told me I was correct. So, he had his own little restroom? Well, that was nice.
When he emerged from the lavatory wiping his hands on a brown paper towel, I smiled and lifted the gun. The movement made his eyes snap up to me, and I could see disgust quickly shadow his face. Dr. Stone was a handsome, older Black man with midnight skin who, according to his posts in a private online group for doctors I’d infiltrated, hated Black women. He was sick of them and wished he didn’t have to see them as patients, an attitude that most certainly influenced the level of care he provided to said women.
Misogynoir at its finest.
Not to mention that the nigga killed my mother, or at least that was how I saw it, and my opinion was the only one that mattered in this instance. So, before he could move a muscle, including his tongue, I shot him dead between his fucking eyes.
The following evening, I finally received a message to my burner phone that read: 2:00 PM tomorrow at Miss Katie’s Katfish Kitchen. Ask for Donnie.