Becoming Carter (The Carter Series) (Volume 2) (12 page)

“What are you gonna say?” I asked.

“I need to know where he is and what he’s doing. I just need more details.” Kelvin was clicking away on his phone as fast as he could. After he pressed
send
he went back to staring at the same spot on his comforter, barely blinking.

“Are you okay?” I asked again, hoping my questions weren’t making him more annoyed.

“I don’t know. I… I don’t know.”

Ten minutes passed without us saying another word. I could tell Kelvin was all in his head, worrying about his uncle. I was worried too, but I knew I couldn’t fully understand what he was feeling. I just wanted to be there for him, because I had the feeling that he might need someone. I wanted to tell him that I’d have his back, no matter what came of all this, but before I could build up the courage to say it, his phone went off again.

The second he finished reading the message, Kelvin jumped out of the bed and ran over to the closet, ripping the doors open and yanking out clothes at an alarming rate.

“Okay, Babe. You’re starting to scare me. What’s going on?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.

“He said he needs to meet with me right now. He said it has to be
right now
! Hurry and get dressed, we have to go now. I think he might be in some kind of danger.”

Kelvin snatched out a plain white t-shirt and some black sweatpants. As he reached to grab his jacket, I ran over to the closet and pulled out my own pair of sweatpants and a black sweater. By the time I finished putting on the sweater, Kelvin was already at the elevator waiting for me. I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand and ran over to him as he pressed the button to open the doors.

We stepped inside and Kelvin slammed his hand on the button to close the doors faster. He was in a state of sheer panic.

“We have to meet him at the corner of Forty-First and Gifford. He said he’d be waiting in his car there,” Kelvin said as the elevator carried us down to the basement. When the doors opened, he grabbed me by the hand and we ran out the doors all the way to his car. The headlights flashed and I heard the click of the door locks as Kelvin pressed the button on his key. We jumped in on our respective sides and Kelvin didn’t waste a second starting the engine and spinning the tires on his way towards the busy street.

We hit the road and quickly made our way around the corner, just barely making it through a yellow light as it turned red. Kelvin was oozing intensity as he drove past the slower cars, shifting through the gears with focused aggression, and weaving in and out of traffic. It must have been his lucky day, because there wasn’t a cop car in sight as we sped down the street.

It didn’t take us long to get to Forty-First and Gifford. When we came to a stop, I noticed that we were in front of a strip club, called Fantasies. It was only one-thirty in the afternoon on a weekday, so the place wasn’t exactly popping. Kelvin put the car in neutral and pulled up the parking brake, while he scanned the street for signs of his uncle.

“I thought he was gonna be here already. I didn’t expect to beat him here,” he said, furrowing his brow. His stress level was maxed out.

“I’m sure he’ll be here any second,” I replied, doing my best to calm him down. I could tell I wasn’t helping.

We waited in front of the club for about twenty minutes without any sign of Deshaun. Kelvin was more anxious than I’d ever seen him, jerking his head back and forth every time he thought he saw his uncle approaching. The more time passed by, the more we both realized that Deshaun wasn’t coming.

Kelvin reached up and punched the steering wheel. The sound of the impact made me jump.

“What the fuck!” he bellowed. “What the hell’s going on? This shit doesn’t make any sense. He told me to meet him here, and now we’ve been here over twenty minutes with no sign of him. I don’t understand.”

I didn’t know what to say that would help him to feel better, so I didn’t say anything. I just watched as he pulled out his cell phone and began scrolling through his contacts. I noticed him stop on Deshaun’s name and tap it with his finger. He placed the phone up to his ear and waited, but nothing ever happened. The only thing he heard was the sound of Deshaun’s voicemail kicking in. As he listened to his uncle’s voice, I could see the disappointment in his body language as he slouched down in the leather seat, waiting for the beep.

“Unc, it’s Kelvin Junior. You asked me to meet you, and I’m here at the spot. Where the hell are you? Call me back the second you get this message. You’ve got me worried, man. Call me back ASAP.”

Kelvin put the phone down and started rubbing his temples with his fingers. He looked exhausted and defeated at the same time. I racked my brain trying to think of what to say to him, but there really were no words. I couldn’t help him right now because I was just as confused as he was. It seemed like we were being bombarded with stress and worry from every direction, and it all just left us confused. Tony and the limo, my dream, the cop at Mariana’s, Senior, and now Deshaun. It was all entirely too much for a four day span, and I could feel it flowing through both of us—we were fed up and had had enough. Regardless, however, it was obvious that this was not the end of something—it was just the beginning.

Another twenty minutes went by with no text or phone call from Deshaun. Kelvin had texted him five times and called him three more times, never getting any sort of response. It was now two o’clock, and Kelvin seemed desperate. It didn’t matter if Deshaun ever showed up at this point, Kelvin just wanted to know that he was safe. He just wanted some sort of a response. So, he picked up his cell again, pressed his finger on a name, and brought the phone up to his ear.

“Uncle Mikey, it’s Kelvin,” he said. “Listen, I’ve been trying to get ahold of Uncle Deshaun for a while now, have you heard from him lately.”

I could hear the sound of Mikey’s voice, but I couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying, so I stared at Kelvin, gauging how the conversation was going based on his changing facial expressions. From the looks of it, this wasn’t going well… of course not.

“How the hell has she not seen him since last night? He texted me this morning,” Kelvin blared. After a second of listening, he spoke again. “Yes, he texted me this morning and told me to meet him. He said he needed to meet with me now, like he was in a hurry. This shit is getting fucking ridiculous. What the hell, Unc?” Kelvin paused again. “Fuck. Okay. I’m on my way.”

He placed the phone down and laid his head back against the headrest. I could see the tears starting to develop in his eyes as he squeezed them shut, trying to regain control of his emotions.

“Please talk to me, Kelvin,” I pleaded. “What’s going on? What happened?”

Kelvin opened his eyes, but he didn’t look at me. “Deshaun’s fiancé, Keisha, says that he never came home after the meeting at the Royal Flush last night. She hasn’t seen him all day, and she’s been calling all the Carter establishments trying to find him. She’s been texting him and calling him, and he hasn’t been responding. He texted
me
twice, but not her. That doesn’t make any sense. No one knows where he is. He’s missing… and I was the last person to hear from him.”

Silence.

The ten minute drive to Royal Flush was eerily silent the entire ride. When we pulled up to the front of the casino, the white lights flashed down on us, while people outside were loud and rambunctious, but inside the car was silent.

We walked through the immaculate lobby, surrounded by noisy, excited people, but we never said a word. Even as the elevator took us up to the conference room where we both knew the tension would be extremely high because of the way things went the last time we were here, we still never spoke. There was nothing but silence.

Kelvin’s face held a combination of anger, anxiety, and sadness all at once, and all I felt was the pain of knowing there was nothing I could do to make him feel better. All I could do was walk beside him in my own cloud of worry and confusion, and I felt my heart pounding in my chest as we pushed open the massive doors to the conference room.

There they all stood around the table—every member of the Carter Family except Deshaun. Senior and Mikey looked like they were wearing matching suits, decked out in all black with red pinstripes. Clarence was rocking a plain navy blue suit, while Ant was wearing a white button-up with black slacks. Tommy was sporting a gray button up, and the dark freckles on his face seemed to stand out more today. All of them eyed us with contempt as we sauntered in. Kelvin stopped right in front of the table and glared at his father, while I made my way over to the bar and sat on one of the wooden stools. I knew better than to be too close to the Carter Family when tensions were high. I guess I was learning.

The Kelvins stared at each other, waiting to see which one of them would speak first. I knew Kelvin wasn’t going to budge, but I also had the feeling that Senior wasn’t going to give in either, which is why I was glad that Mikey broke the ice.

“Alright, now that we’re all here, we need to put our heads together and find out what the hell happened with Deshaun,” Mikey said confidently. “Keisha says she hasn’t heard from him since he left to come here last night. That’s a long fucking time for him not to go back home. That also means that Junior was the last person to hear from him. So, let’s start there. What exactly did Deshaun say when he texted you this morning, Junior?”

Every person in the room turned and looked at Kelvin, who was now pulling out one of the leather chairs and taking a seat. He let out a loud sigh as he leaned back and rested his head on the comfortable cushion.

“The first text I got from him this morning said that he thought that someone was following him. I texted him back and asked him where he was, and what he was doing that made him think someone might be following him. When he responded, he said he wanted to meet with me
now
, as if something was wrong or something had happened. He told me to meet him at Fantasies as fast as I could. So, I jumped up, got dressed and fucking flew over there, but he never showed up. That’s it.”

Most of the brothers looked at each other with confusion, but Senior eyeballed Kelvin with obvious skepticism.

“He didn’t say what he wanted to talk to you about?” Senior questioned aggressively.

I involuntarily held my breath, waiting for Kelvin’s answer. I knew that Deshaun was planning on telling Kelvin something serious about his father—something that he wasn’t supposed to tell him. I also knew that Senior obviously wasn’t supposed to know about it. So, I waited tensely for Kelvin to answer, my eyes darting back and forth between him and his father.

“No,” Kelvin responded, glaring at his father with hostility in his eyes. “He didn’t say what it was about.”

“What about last night? He didn’t say anything to you last night when he walked you out?” Senior seemed to be asking rhetorically.

Kelvin took a moment to think of an answer, still scowling. “He just said that he needed to talk to me. Didn’t say what it was about.”

“He told you he needed to talk to you, but then
didn’t
tell you what about? Why wouldn’t he tell you?” Senior pried.

“Well I’m not a fucking psychic. I don’t know why he wouldn’t tell me. I can’t read minds. He just said he needed to talk to me. That’s it.”

“Why did he want you to meet him at Fantasies?”

“How the fuck should I know, Dad? He told me to meet him, so I sped over there. That’s it. What’s up with all this prosecution shit? I told you what he said when he texted me, and it really doesn’t give us much to work with here. We need to go out and look for him,” Kelvin barked, trying to deflect attention away from the topic of his uncle’s desired conversation.

All the men in The Family looked at each other in confusion. It was such a mystery that Deshaun would just vanish into thin air, yet he had the presence of mind to contact Kelvin this morning, but only after having chosen
not
to contact his own fiancé.

I sat on my little stool in complete silence, but I knew that nobody in this room would have a clue what was going on. So what was the next move?

Senior glanced around the room at his brothers and son, then he looked over at me like he’d forgotten that I was there. He stared at me longer than I would’ve liked, and I felt uncomfortable. I even tried to look away to see if he’d stop, but when I looked back over at him he was still staring at me. Finally, he broke eye contact and cleared his throat.

“Alright, this is what we’re gonna do,” he said, looking at Kelvin. “First, you and Lily need to go back to the Red Chip and stay there. Second, everybody else needs to go out and start looking for Deshaun. Check his house again, check every club or casino that you think he might like to visit. Check
everywhere
. We’re not coming back here until we find our brother.”

Kelvin held out his hand to get everyone’s attention. “What are you talking about? There’s no way in hell I’m going home to just sit around. Deshaun’s my uncle. I’m helping.”

“I don’t have time for this shit, Junior,” Senior snapped. “I don’t want to argue with you over this shit. Just do as I say, and go home. We’ll call you when we find him. And we
will
find him.”