Beware 2: The Comeback (28 page)

Walking to the front desk, I lean forward a bit and smile at the man behind the computer. “Help you?” he asks without looking up.

“Yes. I’m here to see Agent Wales. I have a hearing with him in ten minutes.”

The man looks up immediately, his chubby cheeks dropping, mouth parting. “You are the woman from Creole? London Stallone?”

“That’s me.” I force a smile.

He quickly stands, searching his desk for the visitor badge appointed to me as well as a clipboard. “Just sign here. I’ll page Wales, let him know you’ve arrived.” He points at a dotted line on the paper after handing me the badge, but his eyes don’t dare drift from mine. I sign it and turn right away, badly wanting to get out of his presence.

How does he know about me? Yes, it was mentioned on the news and it was unexplainable from anyone outside of it, but they knew nothing about me other than the fact that I was one of the few that were injured. No names were ever listed.

Lifting the badge, I slide it across the laser, and the door unlocks, allowing me access inside. To my surprise, Agent Wales is already standing a few feet away from the door, hands in his front pockets.

He’s a decent looking man to be in his late forties. Had I not been so distraught the last time I saw him, I probably would’ve admired his chiseled chin with the small dimple on the center, his nice green eyes and his cropped, peppery hair.

“Good morning, Miss Stallone,” he greets, extending a hand my way. I shake it. “It’s great to see you again. Feeling well?”

I glance down, feeling a slight pain on my right. The painkillers I took kind of numbed the wound, but it’s not easy to overlook. “Never better,” I respond. “And you?”

“I’m great.” He smiles. “Follow me.” I follow Agent Wales down the hallway, passing people who stare at me, baffled. My forehead creases, confused by all the stares and whispers. One woman, I literally have to stare down in order for her to look away. “Right in here.” He gestures to an open room on our left, and I walk ahead of him, glad to get away from the oglers. He shuts the door behind him and then walks around me, unbuttoning his suit jacket. I realize what that gesture means—we’re going to be here for quite a while. “Would you like some water, coffee, anything?” he offers.

I take the seat across from him, head shaking. “No thank you. I’ve already had a cup from Braxton’s around the block.” His lips press, forcing a smile as he opens a folder and lifts a stack of papers. “Do you mind me asking how long this will take, Agent Wales?”

“Hmm… not too long. As long as you cooperate, you’ll be out of here in no time.” Cooperate? He says that as if he already knows something—like I’m a criminal.

“Right.”

Pulling the microphone to the center, he turns it on and faces it in my direction. “You remember how this went last time, correct?”

I nod.

“You’ll have to speak, Miss Stallone.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Good.” He relaxes in his seat, folding one leg on top of the other and holding a sheet of paper in front of him. After scanning the paper several times, he asks, “So, why don’t you start off by telling me exactly what happened in Creole?”

My throat works up down. “Well, I moved there over a year ago. When I first got there, I found a home in Oasis Valley. It seemed safe. Serene. Good for my son.” I fold my fingers tight in my lap. “Then, after three months I meet Captain Greg Price—”

“Before you continue, would you consider Captain Price a dirty cop?”

I struggle with answering. “I… wouldn’t say that exactly. I think he was just going off of orders.”

“A bad cop,” Wales states. “He was on someone’s payroll.”

“I’m sorry, Agent Wales, can we just get to the point, please?” I realize how impatient I sound, so I back myself up. “My son has spent the last week without me. I’d like to go home as soon as possible and be with him.”

Wales sits forward, placing his sheet of paper down and folding his fingers on top of the table. “Of course, Miss Stallone. Since you’d like to get straight to the point, I got word that there was a witness. A neighbor of yours. A few other neighbors called in and reported gunshots but weren’t brave enough to go out and check. But there was one man that says he saw you outside with a young mixed woman, whom I assume is Bianca Crow, and a young boy, whom I assume is your son. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Well, here’s the funny thing…” He laughs a little, fingers unfolding and tapping on the table. “He also mentioned a man. The description he gave us was tall, mixed, and kind of uptight. Very protective of you.”

“He was probably mentioning Trent.”

“Trent?”

“Yes. Trenton Brookes. He came to check in on me that week.”

“Trenton Brookes used to work for Ace Crow, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Just like Bianca is his cousin and Aden is his son.”

“You have lots of ties with him, Miss Stallone. You two must have been really close.”

I narrow my eyes as he glares at me. “Is there a point here, Agent Wales?”

His gaze doesn’t leave mine, and he doesn’t speak right away. Instead, after staring each other down for nearly ten seconds, he pulls the microphone back, turns it off, and slides it aside. “Let’s not play dumb. That wasn’t Trent the man was describing. Trent is Caucasian. He’s not mixed.”

“Mr. Norris is a very old man. He has terrible eyesight. I’ve actually had to go help him find his glasses a few times. That day, Agent Wales, he wasn’t wearing his glasses.”

“He said this mysterious man was touching you… hugging you. Are you telling me that Trenton Brookes is having an affair with you? I’ve looked into all of Ace’s men, kept up with them, and Trenton has a family. They look happy. Why would he ruin that?”

“Trent and I are just friends.” I lean forward, sighing. “If you’re trying to get me to say that it was Ace Crow standing there, perhaps Mr. Norris was just seeing the angel he is now. If I’m remembering clearly, you confirmed to me that Ace Crow is dead. He died on May 17
th
, 2012.”

“Oh please, Miss Stallone,” Agent Wales spits, slamming his hands on the table. “You and I both know that was bullshit. We had to tell you that to get you to back off of the case. That wasn’t his DNA. It wasn’t his case. An employee lied on the autopsy, and for that, they were terminated and put in jail.”

My eyes expand. “Wow,” I say, pretending to be shocked. “H-how didn’t I know that? Why would they lie?”

“To protect someone, and I think you know exactly who they were protecting.” Nixon West, the man that brutalized the man I love, but I’ll never tell. “No,” my head shakes. “I don’t. How would I know?”

“Because,” Wales breathes, standing from his seat and walking behind me. “He came to you. He’s the one that fought for you. That bullshit report you and Bianca gave to Creole, I didn’t believe it for a second. Maurice wouldn’t just attack you after three years. Too random. It doesn’t make sense. He knew he’d never get anything out of you. You don’t know the details of how Ace ran Crow. You were on the outside. Clearly, Maurice had to have a motive.

“Maurice and Ace grew up together. It was clear there would be tension between them sooner or later. Working with your friends in that kind of business never turns out well. My theory is Maurice planned Ace’s death. He had him kidnapped, had someone pretend the body was his. That person planted DNA, hair… everything we needed in order for us to automatically assume it was Donovan Crow who died in that alley that day. Only,” he whispers, almost in awe, “it wasn’t.” He steps to my side, looking down at me. I hold his gaze. “Covering for a felon will lead to some serious jail time, Miss Stallone. You would be an accessory to over fifteen murders. I’m saying fifty years to life. Are you sure you want to defend this man and lose everything, including that precious son of yours?

The room stills. If a pin dropped, it would make my ears ring. I know what he’s trying to do. Ace warned me of this. “Agent Wales, Ace Crow is dead. I’m not sure who’s putting these theories in your head or why you’re so obsessed with his case, but Maurice Grimes attacked us because Bianca no longer wanted to be with him.”

“Why would he need eight men, nine including Price, just to kill two innocent women?” He leans down, getting closer to my face. “He had those men there because there was some kind of threat. That threat was Ace Crow. So where is he, London?”

“Dead,” I rumble through clamped teeth.

“Dead?”

“Yes. Dead.”

“You know just as well as I do that that’s not true. He’s out there somewhere. Protecting you. Watching over you. Wherever you are, he’s somewhere close. I can easily follow you from here, camp out, and wait. I don’t mind. My wife left me, my kids are in college,”—he lifts his hands in the air, dropping them dramatically—“ I have all the time in the world, London.”

“Go ahead. You won’t find him anywhere.” I stand from my seat, clearing my throat. “You’re trying to intimidate me, make me shake in my heels by threatening me with jail time, but we both know that if the word gets out that a forensics tech lied on Ace Crow’s autopsy, there will be an uproar. They will question the NYPD, the FBI, and every cop out there. They won’t trust you. They won’t feel safe. All because of one single fuck up. I would hate for so many people to lose their jobs because of budget cuts.”

Agent Wales’s eyes bore into mine, his jaw ticking. “Where. Is. He?”

“Dead,” I repeat. “Ace Crow, the one you’re supposedly after, is gone. You are chasing a ghost. And if you can’t come to terms with that, then I feel sorry for you. What a lonely, pathetic life you must have to still think a man that passed away three years ago is still alive. Those may not be his ashes, but what makes you think he isn’t still dead? Like you said, you think someone kidnapped him. That person has most likely killed him by now.”

Wales plants his hands on his waist, lowering his head and laughing. “I can’t believe this.”

“Believe it.” I pick up my clutch.

“So, Miss Baker. We find her murdered in her home, fingers cut off her right hand, throat sliced, cellphone missing. Soon, we find out through her emails that she and Maurice had been talking quite a lot. I find it odd that she just so happened to die while Maurice was in Creole. There’s only one person that knew her that could kill and not leave a single trace of himself.”

He taps his foot, and I fold my arms. “We all knew Baker had it coming. She defended criminals. She started losing cases after hearing Ace died because she was too busy pretending to care. Not having a clear conscious can really get to you after a while. Any one of her clients that was in prison because she lost a case could’ve hired a hit man to torture her and take her out.”

He smirks. “Right around the time that you and Bianca get attacked by Maurice?”

“Coincidences rarely happen in my world, but they happen, Agent Wales.”

“All bullshit,” he snuffs.

“That’s my story. The truth. You can take it or leave it.” I turn for the door, snatch it open and walk down the hallway, doing my best to maintain my composure.

“I’ll take it, Miss Stallone!” Agent Wales calls from the room. “But I won’t leave it. Not for a second.”

I don’t look back, even as confused eyes travel over to me. I feel like the star of a really bad show. Everyone is looking at me, but instead of admiring, they’re unsure. The man I’m involved with, it terrifies them to think that I used to be his. They don’t know what I’m capable of.

To them, a woman that falls in love with Ace Crow must be just as crazy and homicidal as he was. They’re wrong. A woman that loves Ace Crow is a strong woman. A woman that has been through hell and back and would still go through the worst just to be with him. A woman that loves Ace Crow isn’t perfect, but she’s worthy.

They don’t see that, and that’s okay because I know my worth. I know what he sees. My purity, although I’ve almost had to shed some blood. A nurturing spirit, one he can rely on to keep his head on straight. The mother of his first child, a love that never fades.

His Red.

His fiancée.

His everything.

That’s all that matters.

When I walk out of the station and hop into my car, I dig through my clutch and pull out the round diamond cut, $30,000 ring. I slide the platinum band on my ring finger. I can’t help but stare at it, holding it in the sunlight. I’ve been waiting years for this moment. I knew I would get married one day. I always assumed it would be to a good guy with a decent job. A really nice guy that has no criminal background or even a bad driving record.

Boy, was I was wrong.

When I checked out of the hospital, Ace took me to the hotel and after helping me with my pills, I dozed off. Several hours later, I awoke, drowsy, head foggy. I groaned as I turned on my side, feeling the urge to fall asleep again, but to my left was a folded red card, and in front of it, a jewelry box. I sat up on one elbow and scanned the room for him. He was nowhere in sight, so I picked up the card and read it.

Red,

My skies were dark without you, but you brought me the moon and an abundance of stars.

My heart was cold and hollow, but you filled it with warmth and humanity.