The Safe House Read online

  Realizing that I was getting my ass wiped, Mike turned away from Rich. “Come on now, Monty!” Then he bear-hugged Monty and lifted him up in the air. This gave me only half of a second to hop off the couch and make a run for the front door. Unfortunately for me, Rich caught up with me before I could make it to the front door. He grabbed me by my hair and snatched me backward. “Bitch, you ain’t going nowhere!” he growled at me.

  I lost my balance and collapsed onto the floor. I started kicking Rich and screaming like my mind was going bad. “Get the fuck away from me! Leave me alone!”

  “Damn, Rich, man . . . ,” I heard Mike say, and then I heard a gunshot. Pop!

  Next came a loud thud. Boom! It seemed like everything from that point went in slow motion. Rich stood up and turned around to face Mike and Monty. I stopped kicking and screaming and looked in the same direction as Rich. I blinked my eyes so I could be clear about what had just happened. Then I looked and saw that Mike had collapsed on the floor, while Monty was standing over him with a revolver in his hand. My heart rate went from twenty miles per hour to 150; fear had engulfed my entire body. All I could do was sit there on the floor. My body felt paralyzed, while Rich rushed over to Mike’s side. “Yo, Monty, look what the fuck you just did!” Rich snapped.

  Monty continued to stand there with the gun in his hand. “I told him to get off me,” Monty said, trying to justify his actions.

  “Man, give me that fucking gun!” Rich said, and took Monty’s pistol from his hand.

  I watched Mike in disbelief as he covered his stomach, where Monty had shot him. “He’s gonna die if y’all don’t take him to the hospital,” I pleaded to them as Mike tried to speak. No one could understand him.

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch! This was all your fault!” Monty roared.

  “That shit wasn’t my fault!” I roared back at him.

  “Look, both of y’all shut the fuck up! We gotta get him to the emergency room before he dies! Help me get him off the floor,” Rich said.

  “Who’s taking him to the hospital?” Monty wanted to know.

  “Nigga, you’re taking him. You the one shot him,” Rich replied pointedly.

  “But I’m driving my girl’s car and she’s gonna know something happened if he leaves a lot of blood in her car,” Monty expressed.

  “Man, I ain’t trying to hear that shit! You’re taking him to the hospital. Let’s hurry up and get him out of the house and put him into the car,” Rich told Monty.

  Monty let out a long sigh; then he helped Rich pick Mike up from the floor. Mike whimpered like he was in a lot of pain. I felt so sorry for him. To see him in this situation made me feel so bad for him, especially since he was taking up for me. He tried to do everything in his power to prevent Monty and Rich from attacking me. And even though he couldn’t hold them back like he intended, I still appreciated his gesture, because he didn’t have to do it.

  I watched Monty and Rich as they carried Mike out of the house. As they struggled with his body, I noticed Mike’s cell phone had fallen out—I assumed from the back pocket of his pants. Getting my hands on that phone would give me an edge on them.

  22

  DANGER IS NEAR

  As soon as they walked outside, I scrambled over to where Mike’s cell phone was and snatched it up from the floor. I shoved it down into my pants pocket. It only took Rich and Monty a few minutes to put Mike into Monty’s girlfriend’s car, because Rich was back in the house with me less than a minute later.

  “Get yo ass up and clean that blood off the floor!” Rich demanded.

  “Why I gotta get it up?” I protested.

  “Because you started this shit!” Rich argued.

  On any other occasion, I would’ve cursed Rich out and told him to kiss my ass. But I couldn’t do it now. I mean, he and Monty just beat my ass for running my mouth a few minutes ago, while Mike tried to defend me. So, do you think that I am going to run my mouth while I am alone in this fucking house? Hell no!

  “What the fuck are you waiting for? Get up and wipe that blood up from the floor before I jump on your ass this time. Unlike Monty, I’ll make you suck my dick, with the barrel of my gun to your fucking head. I dare you to do anything other than put it in your mouth, because if you don’t, I’ll splatter your brains all over this motherfucker!” he roared while giving me the look of death. It was an expression of evilness and I wanted no part of it. Hearing this guy say out loud that he’d shoot me in my head sent a lightning bolt of horror through me. I was in a complete state of fear. The amount of torment I would endure could be unimaginable. What should I do?

  I stood up slowly while Rich changed out of his jacket and shirt. He grabbed a white T-shirt from a package of T-shirts he had in the closet by the front door and changed into it. After he pulled it down on himself, he looked at me and said, “Why the fuck you just standing there?”

  “I need some cleaning stuff and a rag or something,” I told him.

  “Go in the kitchen. There’s some dishwashing liquid in there. Use the dishrag hanging from the faucet,” he instructed.

  Taking Rich’s instructions, I headed into the kitchen and grabbed the dishwashing liquid from the counter and the cloth rag tied around the faucet nozzle. I also grabbed a gallon-sized pot from the stove and filled it halfway up with water. Thankfully, Mike bled out on the ceramic floor. If it had been a rug or carpet, then there’s no way I would’ve been able to clean it up.

  “You know, I thought you were a nice guy,” I said to Rich after I got down on my knees to clean up Mike’s blood.

  By this time, Rich had taken a seat on the couch across from me and had started counting money he had taken out of his pocket. “What makes you think I’m not one?” he replied without taking his eyes off his money.

  “You and Monty beat me up like I was wrong for what I did,” I began to explain. “Do you know how much my face hurts right now? And as bad as I want to look in a mirror, I know I’m going to cry, once I see all the bruises,” I continued talking while dampening the floor with the water from the pot.

  “You should’ve kept your mouth closed when I told you to.”

  “Rich, he pulled his dick out in my face and told me to suck it. And I was supposed to sit back and not say anything? Was I supposed to let him disrespect me like that?” I pressed the issue.

  “I’m gonna need you to shut up.”

  “Why won’t you just answer my question? I mean, don’t you think I deserve an answer? Do it for your dad and my mom, because we’re technically brother and sister,” I reminded him, hoping he would catch the bait.

  “You mentioning my father isn’t going to work with me. I’m gonna let you in on a secret,” he started off, looking straight at me. “I don’t like my father. He was a piece of shit when he was married to my mother. He cheated on her. When he was an alcoholic, he beat on her. He even beat up my brother. My brother forgave him, but I didn’t. So to hear you say do it for my father makes me wanna jump on you right now and beat the daylights out of you. So you’ll know how my dad used to do me when I was a kid. That motherfucker was a mean-ass dude. I remember when I was a child, I used to hope that he would get in a car accident and die so he wouldn’t come home and put his hands on me and my mama. He was a fucked-up nigga. So I hope that those Arab dudes kill him slow when they start chipping away at his life. See, I can’t say too much about your mama because I really don’t know her. But if she’s anything like my dad, I wish death on her ass too.”

  “So you don’t care if they kill my mother?” I questioned him.

  “Why should I? She ain’t my mama! My mama is dead! So stop with the questions before I spaz out on your ass again,” Rich said with finality. And to oblige his wishes, I closed my mouth and continued to clean up Mike’s blood.

  Who would’ve known that Rich felt this way about his father? I swear, I wished that I had known this before his brother introduced me. I wouldn’t have left the house with Rich, much less gotten into the car with him an
d Mike and come to this freaking trap house. I sure fucked up this time.

  Thankfully, it only took me a few minutes to clean up Mike’s blood; the sight of it gave me a queasy feeling in my stomach. Not to mention, there was a lot of it. I only hoped that Monty’s dumb ass got Mike to the hospital in time so an emergency physician could operate on Mike. Mike was a good guy and didn’t deserve getting shot. As much as Rich wanted to blame this whole incident on me, it wasn’t my fault that Monty shot Mike. Mike made the judgment call to come to my rescue because he saw how these barbaric-ass niggas tried to hurt me. My only hope for him was that he came out of this all right. It would break my heart if he died.

  After I cleaned up the rest of the blood, I took the pot and the rag back into the kitchen. I emptied the bloody water into the sink and then I set the pot on the stove with the nasty dishrag inside of it. I dreaded going back into the front room where Rich was, but I had no other choice, so I headed back in there and took a seat on the sofa.

  While I sat there and watched the television, another breaking-news segment popped on TV. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be about me. It was all bad timing. If they were going to broadcast my face up there again, then Rich would see it, and I didn’t want that to happen.

  “This just in, authorities were called to the Ghent area of Norfolk by a resident walking their dog. It has been told by homicide detectives that a man’s body was dumped alongside the curb on Twenty-first Street. It appears that he was shot in the head twice, execution style. No word if this was a mob hit. The identity of this victim will remain anonymous until the family has been notified. There has been speculation that this murder could be linked to the other murders we’ve been reporting on these last couple of days. Police said that if anyone knows what happened to this man or who murdered him, please contact your local Virginia Beach Police at once. My name is Tonya Spaulden, reporting for Ten on Your Side.”

  Before the camera was taken off the news reporter, Rich’s cell phone started ringing. I watched Rich as he answered the call. “Yo, what’s up?” he said to the caller. I couldn’t hear what the caller was saying, so I waited for Rich to speak again, giving me some indication as to who was talking to him.

  “I just saw it on TV,” he spoke again, and then fell silent. “Nah, I ain’t going. You go,” he continued. And when he uttered the words “I ain’t going. You go,” I knew he was talking to his brother. Surprisingly, he didn’t say anything else. He disconnected the call and then placed his cell phone alongside him, so he could continue to count his money.

  “Was that your brother?” I asked him.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “So that was your father that they found?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did he say anything about my mother?”

  “Nope.”

  “So, how do you feel?”

  “What’s with the fucking questions? You’re my therapist now?” he snapped, giving me the evil eye.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, so you know, since my dad is dead, I’m no longer doing a rescue mission. I’m just running up in the spot and robbing those cats.”

  Rich telling me that he was no longer doing a rescue mission was old news. I heard him mention it to Mike. So, why try to break the news to me now? Fucking loser!

  “So my mother is shit out of luck, huh?” I boldly asked.

  “Unless you go in there and rescue her yourself.”

  “You know what? That’s some bullshit! How am I gonna walk in the Arab’s spot and take my mama without a gun? Do you know what they’ll do to me and my mother?”

  “That’s not my concern.”

  “You’re a grimy-ass nigga! I don’t know why I let you and your brother talk me into coming here with you. Not only have I gotten my ass wiped by two niggas, now I gotta deal with the fact that you aren’t going to help me get my mama back.”

  “Call me grimy again and see what happens!” he dared me.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said. I could tell that he was getting agitated really quickly, so I left him alone and turned my attention back toward the television.

  * * *

  For the next hour or so, Rich and I didn’t say a word to each other. When the crackheads knocked on the front door to buy drugs from him, he served them, they gave him the money, and then the deal was done. He did this for the next ten times without incident. One of the crackheads gave him a hard time about the size of the drugs, so he cursed them out and told them to leave before he whipped their asses. Instead of leaving, they took the micro-sized drug, paid him the money, and then left. Rich couldn’t care less if they bought the drug or not. He knew he would sell it because the product was good. And that’s all he kept telling them.

  While he took care of his business, I told him I had to use the bathroom. When he gave me the green light to go, I went upstairs. When I got into the bathroom, I closed the door and locked it. Rich didn’t know that I had Mike’s cell phone. And I wasn’t going to tell him either. This cell phone was going to be my ticket out of here if I came up with a strategic plan to get out of here and rescue my mother in the process.

  Immediately after I entered the bathroom, I turned the bathroom sink water on so Rich wouldn’t hear me when I started talking on the phone. Before I got on the phone, I looked at my face in the mirror. When I saw the bruises on my face, I got filled up with tears. The purple and blue bruises around my eyes and around my mouth made me very sad. I didn’t deserve this beating. I didn’t do anything to warrant this treatment. So, why did they do this to me? To scare me into a submissive state of mind? If that’s what their intentions were, then they were sadly mistaken, because it would not happen. Whether they knew it or not, I was a very strong woman and I would show them just that when all of this shit was over.

  Standing there with the phone in my hand, I knew I had to call people that would help me execute my plan to help me get my mother. And I knew that I would only have one opportunity to do it. There can’t be any fuckups, because people’s lives were hanging in the balance. The most important life would be my mother’s, so timing was key and I planned on using it wisely.

  The first person I knew I had to call was Agent Sims. I knew his cell phone number by heart, so I knew I wanted to call him first. Whatever I needed to tell him could only be in a one-minute phone call. I figured calling him and telling him that I had nothing to do with Ms. Mabel’s death would be a good place to start. I could also tell him that I was with Rich, who was Carl Sr.’s son, and that he planned to rob and kill the Arabs to avenge his father’s murder. Most important, tell him that I’d call him back when I had more information.

  After taking a deep breath and then exhaling, I dialed Agent Sims’s number and pressed the Send button. “Agent Sims,” he said.

  “This is Misty and I only have thirty seconds to talk, so be quiet and listen to what I gotta say.”

  “Where are you? We thought that you were dead,” he said.

  “Well, I’m not, and just so you know, I’m calling from a burner phone, so you won’t be able to track it.”

  “Can you tell me where you are so I can come and get you?”

  “Shut up before I hang up the phone,” I threatened him.

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “Look, I had nothing to do with Mrs. Mabel’s death. Ahmad and another guy did it. I saw them when they shot her.”

  “We know that, and that’s why we want to bring you in.”

  “I am not gonna tell you where I am, so please shut the fuck up,” I hissed, letting him know that I meant business. “Now, I know that you guys found Carl’s body, and one of his sons wants to seek revenge. He’s preparing to go after them by robbing them and avenging his father’s death. So stay on guard and I will call you back with more information when I get it.” I then hurried and disconnected the call. My heart rate raced at an uncontrollable speed. I tried to calm my nerves, but my heart wouldn’t let me. So I just went with the flow
and kept the train moving.

  My next call was to Ahmad. I just hoped that he hadn’t changed his cell phone number, because if he had, then I was fucked. And my plan would only be a half-sided one, meaning I got Agent Sims on board, but Ahmad wouldn’t be. I crossed my fingers after I dialed the number and pressed the Send button.

  “Hello,” I heard Ahmad say. But I was too afraid to respond. Hearing his voice struck me like lightning. I could open my mouth, but no words would come out. “Hello,” he said again. I knew he was wondering who was calling him, and I wanted him to know that it was me, but I could not speak. What was wrong with me? I had it all planned in my head, what I was going to say to him, but nothing happened. “Who’s there?” he asked.

  “I saw what you did,” I finally said. But I kept my volume at a whisper.

  “Who is this?” he wondered aloud.

  “I saw you when you killed that lady, you fucking jerk-off! You’re a fucking coward,” I ranted, but I kept it in a whisper.

  “Where did you go?” he asked me. His voice sounded menacing. I could tell that if I had been in front of him, he’d probably break my neck with his bare hands.

  “Don’t worry about where I went. Just know that the man you killed, and left his body on the side of the road, his sons want to kill you. They want to make you pay for what you did to their father. And they say they’re going to rob you of every dime you have. And if you have drugs, they are going to take that too.”

  “Send them over.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, they’re coming for you. They will find you too,” I warned him.

  “You do know I still have your mother?” he told me.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You do want to see her again, right?”

  “Of course, I do. What kind of question is that?”

  “Well, you’re gonna have to make a trade.”