Anybody's Daughter (Angela Evans Series No. 2) (11 page)

D
re’s trip to Compton turned out to be a bust. The buddy he was looking for no longer lived at the same spot. He started up the car and was about to head over to his sister’s house when another idea came to him.

Five minutes later he was parking his car across the street from Maverick Middle School.

Dre figured that Brianna may have talked about this Jaden dude to some of her friends besides Sydney. He also wanted a chance to speak to Sydney without her father breathing down the girl’s neck. Maybe she knew more, but had been too afraid to say so in front of Winston.

As Dre crossed the street, he saw clusters of students heading for the entrance of the school. He pulled out his smartphone and walked up to three girls who were standing in a circle giggling.

“Excuse me,” he said, “Do any of you know this girl?” He held up a photo of Brianna on his smartphone.

One of the girls immediately stepped forward. The other two, seemed wary of him and actually took a few steps back.

“That’s Brianna Walker,” the girl said. Her short hair was reddish-purple and the backpack she was lugging was almost as big as she was. “Why are you asking us about her?”

“Brianna’s my niece. She didn’t come home from school yesterday and I’m trying to find her.”

One of the other girls put a hand to her mouth. Her eyes grew wide as she came closer. “Something must be really wrong then, because Brianna ain’t like that. She’s a good girl. She would never—”

“Excuse me, sir. What’s going on here?”

A skinny white woman charged up to him. “Do you girls know this man?” The woman surveyed Dre from head to toe, her eyes simmering with suspicion.

“He’s Brianna Walker’s uncle,” one of the girl’s volunteered. “They don’t know where she is.”

The woman’s eyes instantly softened. “You girls head on to class before you’re late.” She turned to Dre and extended her hand. “I’m Bonnie Flanagan. Brianna’s one of my students. What’s going on?”

Dre spent the next few minutes sharing what he learned from Sydney. A few minutes later, they were joined by a security guard and a lanky man dressed in a suit and tie. Bonnie introduced the man as Assistant Principal Richard Wainright. Dre repeated his story for their benefit.

The teacher pressed both palms to her cheeks. “I can’t believe this. Not Brianna.”

“She’s one of our best students,” Wainright said. “We’ll do whatever we can to help you find her. Have you called the police?”

Dre nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think they’re going to do much. Have they contacted the school yet?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Wainright said. “When they do, we’ll cooperate fully.”

“I came here hoping to talk to some of Brianna’s friends. I want to find out if she spoke to any of them about the boy she met on Facebook. I’m pretty sure it’s a scam and he doesn’t exist, but maybe Brianna told them something that might be helpful.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t allow you to speak to our students,” Wainright said. “Not without their parents’ consent. But we can certainly talk to them for you and let you, as well as the police, know if we find out anything.”

Dre’s face flushed with gratitude. “I’d really appreciate that.”

“I have Brianna for third period,” Bonnie said. “She’s a very popular girl. I’ll talk to my students.”

“I’ll talk to the kids too,” the security guard added.

Dre took out three business cards and a pen. “If you find out anything, please call me. I’ll also give you my sister’s number. But you should call me first. Brianna’s mother isn’t handling this too well.”

“I can only imagine,” Bonnie said.

Dre felt a tremendous emotional boost as he jogged back across the street to his car. The people he’d just talked to seemed to genuinely care about Brianna. He was certain they would do what they could to help him find her. And he could certainly use all the help he could get.

He had just put the key into the ignition when he heard a quick buzz that signaled a new text message. He glanced down at his smartphone and saw that the text was from Angela. He quickly read it.

Although her message was no surprise to him, the reality of it took the wind out of him.

Angela had heard back from her friend at L.A. Unified. None of the teachers at Crenshaw High School had a son named Jaden Johnson.

Foshay Middle School had never heard of him either.

T
he other Harmony House girls were already up and about, except for Carmen. Loretha marched up the stairs and gently knocked on the door of the Hope room for the second time that morning.

“Carmen, you have to get up now.”

Even if the girls didn’t have school, they had to be out of bed no later than eight-thirty. For Loretha, there was always the difficult balance of giving the girls their space, but ensuring that they respected the rules of the house.

She stepped into the room and found Carmen tangled up in the comforter. Loretha was about to wake her, when she noticed Carmen’s painting. The child really did have talent. Loretha planned to do everything she could to nurture it.

Carmen had scrawled
Big Daddy and C-Lo
across the top of the page in red. The awkwardly drawn images, one big, one small, depicted a man and a woman. Carmen had painted herself with breasts much larger than her own. Big Daddy was smiling. The girl was not. That said it all. Loretha swallowed the lump forming in her throat and turned the paper face down on the desk.

Stepping over to the bed, she gently nudged Carmen’s shoulder, then jumped back out the way.

Once again, Carmen shot awake, arms flailing. “Get offa me!” she screamed up at Loretha.

This time, it took her nearly a minute to collect herself.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you. I thought…” Her words trailed off. She snatched the comforter to her chin and fell back to the bed.

“Time to get up,” Loretha said. “We’re having breakfast downstairs. It’s after nine.”

“You gotta be kidding.” Carmen turned toward the wall, her back to Loretha. “It’s too early to get up. I never get outta bed before twelve.”

When you strolled the streets all night, nine o’clock probably felt like the crack of dawn.

Loretha ripped the covers off of Carmen.

“Hey!” The girl snatched them back. “I told you, I ain’t ready to get up yet.”

“The first thing you need to understand,” Loretha said in a firm voice, “is that we have rules around here. And if you’re going to live here, you’ll have to follow them. You have fifteen minutes to get dressed and downstairs for breakfast.”

“But we didn’t even get here until—”

“You’re wasting time. Now you only have fourteen minutes.”

Loretha walked out of the room.

Thirty minutes later, Carmen sulked into the kitchen. That was a good sign. There were times when it took three or four trips to get a girl down to breakfast on her first day.

Loretha walked over and put an arm around Carmen’s shoulders. “Everybody, this is Carmen.”

“Welcome, to Harmony House, Carmen.” The girls said in unison.

“Yeah, whatever. It’s too damn early to be up.”

“Our first rule is no foul language,” Loretha said. “We’ll go over the other rules later. You can grab a paper plate. The food is on the stove.”

Loretha was glad that the six girls who had gathered for breakfast were not newbies. Two were on their second run, having gone back to their pimps, after a couple of months at Harmony House. But those few months were long enough for them to start questioning whether the street was the kind of life they wanted. They had returned badly beaten for some minor infraction that sent their pimp into a psychotic fit.

The other four girls had only been with Loretha for a few weeks. While they weren’t physically with their pimp, they were still there psychologically. It would take time to reach them. To show them that they had options. Four other girls had already been picked up for school.

Carmen marched over to the stove and lifted the first pot.

“Uh, grits. I hate grits, but I cook ’em for Big Daddy all the time.” She scooped a tablespoonful of scrambled eggs onto her plate and picked up a single piece of bacon. It always amazed Loretha how little these girls ate.

“Everybody,” Loretha said, “please introduce yourself to Carmen.”

The girls went around the table and said their names. One of the most outspoken girls, Little Kim, asked Carmen a question.

“So how long you been on the streets?”

Carmen bristled. “I ain’t on the streets. My clients come to me.”

Little Kim harrumphed. “Don’t make no difference. You still spreading your legs for money. Don’t try to act like you better than us.”

“I didn’t say I—”

“Hey!” Loretha interrupted. “Cut it out. Let’s talk about something positive.” She turned to a quiet girl sitting next to her. “Abbie, tell everybody your good news.”

The girl smiled, her blue eyes flickering downward. “It ain’t nothing.”

“Oh, yes it is,” Loretha prodded her. “Tell them.”

“I got a job,” she said, her shoulders slumped. “I’ma be working at the dry cleaners on Washington Street.”

“You must be crazy,” Carmen said, turning up her nose. “You gon’ be stuck in a dry cleaners pressing clothes in all that heat. What they payin’ you, minimum wage? You can’t make no real money doin’ that.”

Abbie slid further down in her chair. One of the other girls rushed to her defense.

“I’m happy for you, girl,” Rhonda said. She pointed her fork at Carmen. “Ain’t like you making no money. Every dime you get turning tricks goes to your pimp. How much money you got in your purse right now?”

Carmen’s lip tightened, but she didn’t respond.

“Zero,” Rhonda said, forming the number with her thumb and index finger. “So don’t be dissin’ nobody else. We tryin’ to get out of the life and we don’t need no haters up in here.”

“I don’t even wanna be here.” Carmen pushed her chair back from the table with a loud screech.

Before Loretha could intervene, she was out of the kitchen and bounding up the stairs, two at a time.

D
re decided not to share the information he’d learned about Jaden’s nonexistence with Donna.

Using his key to enter his sister’s house, he was stunned at how uncomfortably dark and quiet it was. It had never been like this when Brianna was around.

Dre found Donna in the den, curled up on the couch, staring at a muted TV screen. He stood there for a few seconds staring down at her, feeling completely inept for not being able to take away her pain.

Donna must have sensed his presence because she suddenly shot to her feet. “Where’s my baby? Did you find her?”

Dre took her by the shoulders and pulled her into his arms. “No, sis, but I will.”

Donna started to sob into his chest, her body convulsing so hard he had to hold on tight to keep her from falling to the floor.

His mother rushed into the room, momentarily paralyzed by what she saw.

“What happened? Oh my Jesus!” she wailed. “Is Brianna dead? Please, Jesus, please! Don’t tell me Brianna’s dead!”

“Mama, mama!” Dre said, “you gotta calm down. No, Brianna is not dead.”

He spoke the words slowly and firmly as if he was trying to make himself believe them. Then he threw an arm around his mother and pulled both of them into a tight circle, hoping to quell their weeping.

Dre refused to let himself cry. He had work to do. He couldn’t afford to spare even an ounce of emotional energy for anything except finding Brianna.

* * *

Since Donna’s place was only a few minutes from Long Beach Boulevard, Dre headed over there hoping to luck up and spot Loretha Johnson. From what he’d heard, you could find girls walking the track day or night.

So far, his caffeine overdose was doing its job. Dre had to force his mind not to think about what could be happening to Brianna. Those images were much too painful. He loved that little girl and realized as he sat at a stoplight that he’d never once told her that.

He hit a speed dial button on his smartphone.

Sheila, his one-night stand who had turned into a lifetime migraine, answered the phone.

“Put Little Dre on the phone,” Dre said.

“You can’t say hi to nobody?”

“Hi, Sheila. Now give Little Dre the phone.”

“He can’t talk right now. He ’bout to be late for school.”

“He should already be at school. Put him on the phone!”

“Don’t be talking to me like that! I don’t know who you think you are. And he ain’t late. They have a half day today. You just better have my check on time.”

He could hear Sheila cussing him out in the background. His son picked up seconds later.

“Hey, little man, you doing okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You doing good in school?”

“Yeah.”

Dre paused as his words got caught in his throat. “You know I love you, right?”

“Dang, Dad. Why you being weird?”

Dre laughed. “I just wanted you to know that I love you, okay.”

“Yeah, okay. I gotta leave for school now.”

His son was ten years old and Dre had never told him that he loved him until today. Going forward, he would change that. He’d never told Brianna that he loved her either. When he got her back, he would change that too.

He’d just made a right onto Long Beach Boulevard when he noticed the first girl. She was dressed in shorts, a sports bra and stilettos. On the opposite side of the street, he spotted another girl, just as scantily dressed. For years, this short strip in Compton had a rep as the place to pick up black prostitutes. But these weren’t women. They weren’t even teenagers. These girls were babies.

He pulled over and parked in front of a laundromat. By that time, he spotted two other girls, just as young.

Where were the
police?

He watched as a black man in a silver-blue BMW slowed to a stop on the opposite side of the street. One of the girls Dre had been watching scampered up to the man’s car.

Just then, Dre heard a light tap on his own passenger window, which made him flinch.

The young girl in the shorts he’d seen seconds earlier was waving at him to roll down the window.

What the
fuck?

The girl looked even younger up close. She couldn’t be any older than eleven or twelve.

Dre hit a button rolling down the window.

“Hey, baby, you looking for a date?” The girl tried, but failed to make her high-pitched voice sound sexy.

Something inside him wanted to cry. All he could see in this girl was Brianna’s face.

Was this what Shep had her
doing?

“C’mon, baby. Don’t be afraid of me,” the girl purred. “I give good dates.” She wiggled her brows in a manner that she probably thought was seductive. She actually looked like a cartoon character.

“How old are you?” Dre shouted. “And where the hell are your parents?”

The girl jumped back, stumbling on her high heels.

“I ain’t got no parents,” she shouted back at him. “You must have a problem. I ain’t got time for this.”

He watched her strut away, then turned back to the man in the BMW across the street. The girl Dre had been watching a second ago was climbing into the man’s car.

As they pulled off, Dre started his engine. He did a U-turn in the middle of the street and followed them. He couldn’t understand how this could be going on in broad daylight. A sheriff’s substation was only a few blocks away.

Dre hung back and watched as the car parked behind Rite-Aid, next to a large trash dumpster. He parked in front of the store and hopped out.

As he approached the BMW, he could see the young girl’s head bobbing up and down in the man’s lap.

Dre banged on the window with his fist. “What the hell are you doin’?”

The man’s eyes flashed panic. He was dressed in a monogrammed shirt and purple tie. He grabbed the girl by her long braids and hurled her away. She banged her head against the passenger window and cursed.

“Uh…uh, Officer, I…I…Please don’t arrest me!” the man blubbered as he zipped up his fly. “My wife will kill me!”

The man apparently thought he was an undercover cop.

“You friggin’ pedophile!” Dre yelled. “That girl is a child.”

“She told me she was eighteen! Please don’t arrest me!”

The girl was already out of the car running as best she could on five-inch heels.

“Hey!” Dre called after her. “Hold up!”

He easily caught up with her as the BMW raced off.

“Why are you out here doing this?” he said, roughly grabbing her by the arm. “How old are you?”

“Get your hands offa me. You a cop?”

“No, I’m not. But I should take your ass to jail anyway.”

“Leave me alone,” she screeched, struggling to pull away. “My daddy’s gonna kick your ass.”

“Does your daddy know you’re out here?”

“My daddy’s the one who put me out here. You gon’ be in trouble when he come pick me up.”

It suddenly hit Dre that the child was referring to her pimp as her
daddy
.

“Let me go!”

He released her arm and she took off running. Dre, however, just stood there. Stunned and dizzy with anger.

He wasn’t sure how many times his smartphone had rang before he finally pulled it from his pocket and checked the caller ID. Angela had been calling him all morning. He couldn’t deal with her constant requests for updates right now. He shoved the smartphone back into his pocket and started walking toward his car.

A few seconds later, he heard a buzz that told him he had a text.

He checked the screen of his smartphone. It was Angela again. He read her text, then held the smartphone up closer to read it a second time because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Angela: i know where b is. call me!!!

What the hell?
Dre’s hand trembled as he hit the call back button.

The phone barely rang before he heard Angela’s voice.

“I know where Brianna is!”

“What? How?”

“I called a friend who’s an FBI agent. He pinged Brianna’s iPhone and gave me the location. She has to be with the phone!”

“Where is it?”

“At a house on Sixty-seventh Street,” Angela said. She gave him the address. “I just looked it up on Google Maps. It’s off Normandie, between Florence and Gage.”

That wasn’t far from where they’d looked before. Dre was already starting up the car. “I’m going straight there.”

“Do you want me to call the police?”

“Hell no.”

“You can’t go there by yourself.”

“I’m not going by myself. I’ll have my cousin meet me there.”

He zipped down Long Beach Boulevard toward the Freeway. The muscles along his neck constricted into knots.

“What do you need me to do?” Angela asked.

“Pray,” Dre said quietly. “I need you to pray that I find her.”