Colorado 03 Lady Luck (73 page)

More people, more greetings, these with
Julius, Anana and her daughter with Julius, Ilori, who was nearly
eight and closing on the beauty of her mother. Anana joined the
women in the kitchen. Ilori went with her Dad to join the men.
Honey unveiled the Julius family offering. More beer. More wine. A
bottle of top shelf vodka. A bunch of flowers.

The doorbell rang again. Ty moved to it
again.

I was pouring pumpkin pie stuff in my crust
and didn’t hear anything but boots hitting tile then I felt a hand
at the small of my back. I stopped, turned my head and looked
slightly down.

“Angel,” I whispered.

“
Hola, mi
querida.
”

I smiled. Angel smiled back.

“How is Carnal Hotel?” I asked.

“The pool is heated,” Angel answered.

My smile got bigger. So did his.

“Though, thinkin’ I took a swim last night
with a big, black guy who boosts cars,” he added. “You won’t tell
my Cap, will you?”

He totally knew he’d taken a swim with a
big, black guy who boosts cars considering this wasn’t the first
time he’d been around Julius. This, too, had been an uneasy
alliance, at first. But Angel’s love for me and subsequent actions
for Ty and Julius’s love for Ty and subsequent actions for me meant
they moved beyond uneasy because they had common ground. I
suspected when they went their separate ways, they didn’t talk
about their association with their crews at home. That said, I knew
Julius sent Angel a premium bottle of tequila for his birthday this
year and I also knew Angel sent Julius a premium bottle of Hennessy
for his.

“Your secret is safe with me,” I whispered
and that got me a bigger smile.

Then he put slight pressure on my back
before his hand fell away.

I looked around him and smiled again at
Angel’s very pregnant wife, “Hey there, Rosalia.”

“
Hey, Lexie. Hey, y’all.” She dumped bags
on the counter. “Anything I can do?”

Ella, the oldest, the grandmother therefore
not being in her house but still being the boss, gave out
instructions.

Rosalia got busy.

Angel moved toward a couch.

Ty moved behind him.

Vivie caught sight of Angel and dissed
Julius to shriek, “
Unkul Anhay!
”
and throw herself bodily from Julius to Angel who was not prepared
but fortunately caught her after she launched herself off the arm
of a chair before Julius could stop her. Then Angel lifted her up,
threw her in the air, caught her then pulled her close and blew a
raspberry in her neck all the while my daughter emitted shrieking
giggles.

Rosalia emitted a quiet giggle beside
me.

My eyes slid to Lella and Irv and I saw
their heads bent to their hands. They were playing thumb war, my
daughter’s tiny fingers curled around her grandfather’s very not
tiny fingers. I watched him let her win. I listened to her soft
giggle. My eyes moved to my husband to see he was also watching,
his face in profile but I could still see was soft.

Then I went back to pouring pumpkin stuff in
the pie shell.

Lots of people, lots of mouths to feed.

I had to get my shit together so I could
feed my family.

* * * * *

Just to explain and update a few things…

* * * * *

That day five years ago, Irv knew how to
find me because Irv knew that hunting cabin. Every black man and
woman in the tri-county are did. And they did because Arnold Fuller
was what he was because his Daddy and Granddaddy taught him how to
be that way. And, back in the day when they could get away with it,
any black man who stepped outside of what the Fullers and their
brethren felt was their place, Fuller’s Daddy, Granddaddy and their
brethren took them to that cabin and taught them their place.

And Irv explained this to Ty and the police
after he explained that a buddy of his who had the pastime of
listening to police band radio called to let him know I was taken.
He remembered that cabin, he knew Arnold Fuller, he figured he’d
hold a nasty grudge and he knew, if Fuller did, he’d act on it.

Going to that cabin was a long shot but he
took it and it turned out he was right.

He should have called the police.

He didn’t because he had a son to win and a
score to settle.

It was a decision based solely on emotion
which made it not wrong but also not right.

What it was, was understandable.

Like father, like son.

And in the end, he saved my life.

* * * * *

Three months after Fuller kidnapped me, my
husband disappeared in the night and he didn’t come home until the
early hours and when he did, he took a shower before coming to
bed.

I didn’t ask.

He didn’t tell.

The next day at the salon, as it does, word
spread that someone torched that hunting cabin in the night.
Luckily, they doused all around with water so the flames didn’t
spread and it was so old, it went up like a light and burned
fast.

And then it was gone.

An ugly piece of history, up in smoke and
generations to come would never know it existed at all.

It would be a long time later, at his pace,
when Ty told me what he did and explained he wasn’t alone. Dewey,
Tate, Deke, Wood, Pop, Shambles, Ned, Irv and Jim-Billy went with
him.

So did Chace Keaton.

Yes, straight-arrow Chace Keaton.

Then again, Chace was a man in the business
of righting wrongs, he’d put his ass out there to do it before so I
guess it wasn’t surprising he’d do it again regardless of the
methods he needed to use.

I thought the building might be gone but the
ghosts probably remained.

I also thought those ghosts probably got a
kick out of watching those men burn that shithole to the
ground.

* * * * *

Ty talked to me, Tate talked to me, Chace
talked to me, even Officer Frank popped by the house one afternoon
to talk to me about shooting Arnold Fuller. They thought I’d freak
considering the fact that I did at the hospital. Delayed reaction
to Irv going down, me being kidnapped and me taking Arnie out.

I was fine.

Until one day, I wasn’t.

Driving home from the grocery store on my
Monday off, I got the shakes.

And my hands on the steering wheel guided
the Charger to Carnal Police Department. I walked on shaky legs
inside and asked to talk to Detective Keaton.

He came right out.

He held me while I lost it in an
interrogation room and when I say lost it, I mean
I
lost it.
Then, when he calmed me, he got
me Kleenex. Then he sent an officer out to get me a latte from
La-La Land.

Then he sat with me while I drank it.

Then he followed me home to make sure I got
there okay.

Then he went straight to the garage and told
Ty what happened. He also explained to Ty that I didn’t go to him
because I didn’t want him to see that, that last piece of me that
Fuller took since Fuller took so much from Ty already.

From the time Chace left me to the time Ty
got home, I was a nervous wreck. I thought he’d get pissed,
thinking I’d gone behind his back, not liking that I shared that
with another man. I was such a mess, I didn’t even phone him to
attempt and detect his mood because, if he was going to lose it, I
didn’t want it to come sooner rather than later.

But Ty didn’t get pissed.

He just came home from the gym as usual but
did a thorough scan the minute he saw me. I knew he saw I was
anxious and my anxiety had hit the red zone. But he just walked to
me, wrapped his hand around the back of my head, gave me a kiss,
touched my forehead with his and asked me to make him a shake. Then
he went up to take a shower.

I made his shake and I did it grateful that
he got it and didn’t get pissed.

He never spoke of it, neither did I.

But he watched me closely after that and he
did it for weeks. He didn’t hide it but I didn’t mention it. Our
daughter was growing inside of me, he was concerned and he kept his
finger on the pulse.

So did Tate. So did Chace. So did Officer
Frank. Jim-Billy. Deke. Wood. Pop. Krystal. Laurie, Maggie, Stella,
Dominic… everybody.

But I got rid of it that day. I gave it to
Chace and he took it from me.

He’d taken his own load from Fuller so I
knew it was selfish.

But I also was grateful and would be
eternally.

To let me show this, Chace allowed me to buy
his lunch one of the days we shared it at the diner instead of what
usually happened, him buying mine.

He allowed me to do this once.

It wasn’t much but at least it was
something.

* * * * *

Three and a half weeks after my kidnapping,
Rowdy Crabtree was detained in Arizona on the US side of the
US/Mexican border trying to cross. He was arrested and transported
back to Carnal.

He stood trail in Chantelle for Misty
Keaton’s murder. He was not offered bond because he was a flight
risk.

He was acquitted and instantly moved
out-of-state. I didn’t know where.

I also didn’t care.

Misty Keaton’s murder was never solved.

Chace Keaton may not have liked his wife but
he liked it less the way she died.

So her murder had not been solved but that
didn’t mean Chace still wasn’t looking for her killer.

* * * * *

Shift, being Shift, therefore stupid but not
knowing it, tried to cop a plea

Yes, he was a drug dealing pimp who ordered
the hit on his best friend and personally executed a drive-by that
killed one and wounded three and he tried to cop a plea.

The DA drove a hard bargain.

Shift’s currently enjoying his stay in a
Texas penitentiary and would until he died. Life with no chance of
parole.

It was up in the air whether it was a good
bargain or not that the DA didn’t push the death penalty.

* * * * *

And thus endeth the shadows.

Now it’s all sunshine.

* * * * *

And two hours after Angel and Rosalia
arrived, I sat at my dining room table which was stuffed full of
the people I loved, my hands slightly out to the sides, my wrists
resting on the edge of the table, my right fingers curled around
Angel’s, my left fingers curled around Irv’s as I listened with
bowed head to Ella saying our Thanksgiving prayer.

Then she was done but before I released the
hands I held, I squeezed them tight at the same time they squeezed
mine the same exact way.

Then I looked up and down the table and saw
my husband’s eyes on me and in them I read it all, everything, all
he needed to say, all I loved to hear.

Five Thanksgivings he’d lost to a
nightmare.

Five Thanksgivings I’d given him different
versions of this.

Looking in his eyes I could see, finally, I
was catching up.

* * * * *

Ty

“You sure?”

“Sam, I’m not sittin’ a game,” Ty said into
his phone, his body moving through his house, familiar movements,
the same every night, these movements to shut it down, lock his
girls in, make sure they were safe.

“I’ll cover your buy-in,” Samuel Sterling
said in his ear.

Ty turned out the lights under the cabinets
of Lexie’s kitchen and asked, “Someone you wanna teach a
lesson?”

“Three someones,” Sam answered.

“How bad do they need this lesson?” Ty
asked, moving out of the kitchen into the sunken family room to
turn off the lamp that was sitting on a side table there.

Lex had a shitload of furniture in that
area. Two full couches, four armchairs, two big footstools, four
side tables and a coffee table.

When she filled that space, he thought she’d
temporarily gone insane.

He’d been wrong.

Between her and her girls sucking back
wine while cackling over what he suspected was not the books they
were supposed to be reading (he thought this, primarily, because
Krystal was a member of Lexie’s book club and Krystal was not a
woman to belong to a book club but she
was
a woman to cackle over wine) and him having the
men over for beer and games, that furniture saw a lot of
use.

“Some might not think they need this lesson
badly,” Sam replied then said quietly, “A brother would
disagree.”

Ty straightened from the lamp and looked out
at the lights of Carnal.

He didn’t reply.

Sam kept talking.

“It’s in Hawaii. I’ll send the jet for you,
Lexie and the girls. I’ve got a house here, you can stay there.
They get a vacation, you do too except you take time out to sit the
game and take their money, give me back my buy-in, put the rest in
Lella and Vivie’s college fund.” He paused, “Though, it probably
wouldn’t hurt to use some to buy Lexie more diamonds.”

Suddenly, his eyes didn’t see Carnal. His
mind had a vision of his wife cooking, eating and being with their
family that day in her clingy wraparound dress, high-heeled boots
and the diamonds he gave her last Christmas in her ears and at her
neck.

Ty gave Lexie diamonds for her birthday,
Christmas and their anniversary, every year. He worked overtime to
do it. And he never fucked around. She didn’t get earrings or a
necklace or a bracelet. She got a set. Sometimes a couple of
pieces, sometimes three.

For their fifth wedding anniversary that
year, though, Bessie and Roland came up from Miami to watch the
girls for a long weekend while Ty took his wife back to Vegas where
they stayed in the same hotel but in a better room and he topped
her wedding rings with a wide band set all around with diamonds. It
cost a fucking whack and the stack of rings nearly covered her
finger to her knuckle.

She took them off to clean them every day
and she took them off to give her massages.