CHAPTER THIRTY
When they drove up to the rental home the Richardson’s owned, and they saw Davey sitting on the right edge of the front porch carving down a bamboo rod with a knife, Ricki’s heart dropped for her brother.
He’d always been odd. He’d always been creepy and strange, let other people tell it.
But one thing she knew for sure was that he was harmless.
She didn’t care what they said about her brother, but Davey wouldn’t harm a flea.
“It’s not a flea he’s being accused of harming,” said Vince when she pointed that out to him. Then he looked at her. “And don’t you forget that.”
Ricki wasn’t trying to hear it. “I know my brother, Vince.”
But that attitude concerned Vince. “You haven’t seen any of your family in years.
You weren’t even close to Erica by your own account.
But yet in still they’re all as innocent as the driven snow in your eyes.
You don’t know these people anymore. You don’t know anything about them.
And people do change, Rasheda. All the time, people change. Don’t you forget that.”
Ricki didn’t argue with Vince because she knew she had no real argument to make. Because it wasn’t about empirical evidence. It was about her gut feeling and the belief she still had in her siblings. He could say what he wanted, but she was going with her own instincts, not his or anybody else’s.
“Be alert, Milo,” said George, “in case he tries something with that knife.”
“He better not shoot my brother,” Ricki said. “He always makes his own fishing poles since he was a kid. He’s not gonna harm anybody with that knife.”
Milo and George glanced at each other. Then they looked at Vince. Why was he putting up with this chick and her big mouth? It was still incomprehensible to them.
Vince looked at them as they all were getting out of the Bentley. “Has she been wrong yet?” he asked his two employees.
George exhaled. “Not yet. But there’s a first time for everything,” he said as the men in the detail car got out and walked up to the Bentley too.
“Stay here,” Milo ordered them as he and George followed Ricki and Vince toward the porch.
Ricki heard all of their naysaying about those allegations, but George nor Milo nor even Vince was her concern in that moment. Davey was. She walked briskly up to that porch. The men had to hustle to keep up with her.
Davey had already stopped carving as he looked at them approach. “What you doing here?” he asked his sister.
“We need to talk to you, Davey.”
“What about?”
“Erica.”
A strange look appeared in Davey’s wide eyes that everybody saw. Including Ricki. What was that about, she wondered.
“What about Erica?” he asked.
Ricki decided to just come out and say it. “The head guard at the jail said you paid him to kill Erica. That you had Erica killed.”
Unlike any other innocent man accused of what would amount to conspiracy to commit siblicide, Davey didn’t shout how crazy that was or how dare she accuse him of conspiring to have his own baby sister murdered.
He just stared at Ricki and didn’t say a word.
And then he looked past her, and his eyes stretched.
When they all looked where Davey was looking and saw a group of police cars driving onto the property, they all frowned. “What the fuck?” asked Vince. “How did they find out?”
But as the cops began getting out of their cars, Davey threw down that bamboo rod and took off running toward the backside of the property.
“Davey don’t!” Ricki cried out and started running after him.
Vince’s heart dropped when he saw those police officers running too. “Ricki, come here!” he yelled as he took off after her. He could only imagine those cops shooting to kill Davey, but hitting Ricki in the process. He had to get to her!
Milo and the security detail were attempting to run after their boss, to protect him, but a couple of the cops aimed their guns at them and ordered them to stay right where they were. As if they were criminals too.
But Vince was running as fast as he could run trying to catch Ricki. He was as angry as he was scared. She had no clue she was putting her life in mortal danger. All she could see was protecting Davey. She’d always been her siblings’ keeper!
But Vince never was anybody’s keeper. Not until he met Ricki. Now he found himself forced to be her protector because of her seeming inability to worry about herself. And he was desperately worried about her.
And when he heard gunfire from behind him, he took on track star speed and leaped toward Ricki, knocking her to the ground. And that was when a barrage of bullets were unleashed by the cops.
Although Vince was on top of Ricki, covering her with his own body, she lifted her head up at her big brother. And that was when she saw his knees bend as bullets caught him in the back, and then he fell. She saw him fall on his face as the police stopped shooting and ran to him.
She tried to get away from Vince, to go to her brother, but Vince wouldn’t let her move at all. He wasn’t letting her out of his grasp.
And all she could do was scream. She screamed for her brother. She screamed for her sister. She screamed even as her parents ran outside to see what on earth was happening on their own property. She couldn’t stop herself from screaming.