Boss Divas (16 page)

I
stare out of the door's peephole with my heart hammering in my chest until the police car pulls out of our driveway.

“Qiana, I know that you fuckin' hear me,” Tombstone barks behind my back. “You want to tell me why those fuckin' pigs were up in this bitch?”

The coast is clear.
I expel a long breath, giving relief to my burning lungs.

‘Qiana!”

“Fuck, Tombstone, get out of my ear with all of that hollering. I done told you to stay out of my business. The shit don't concern you.”

“Don't concern me? I know you like to play like you done lost your mind, but I know muthafuckin' better. I can't have the goddamn cops up in here—especially with the whole damn street seeing and buzzing about it. It just takes one muthafucka thinking our asses is snitching about some bullshit to set shit off and change all of our breathing habits. I sure as shit can't roll out of here not knowing what the fuck is going on.”

“Now who in the fuck is that?” Tombstone explodes.

I whip around to peek out of the peephole. “It's Li'l Bit.” I snatch open the door, grab her arm, and pull her inside. “Get in here.”

“Shit, girl. They went to my house, too. My grandma is pissed as shit. What did they say?”

I take her by the arm and attempt to drag her to my bedroom. But Tombstone blocks our path.

“Qiana, I swear to God. If you—”

“Tell me what happened over there at that tattoo shop,” I challenge him.

“Wh-what?”

“You know, that tattoo artist you and your secret dream girl chopped up a few days ago.”

He makes a threatening step forward. “You keep your mouth shut about that shit. It doesn't concern you.”

“How about you take your own fuckin' advice when it comes to my shit?” I shoulder my way past him, dragging Li'l Bit with me.

“Sorry,” she squeaks when she moves around him. We make it to my room and I quickly close my busted door and then collapse behind it. “Shit. Shit. Shit. I think I fucked up.”

Li'l Bit's eyes widen with alarm. “You didn't confess to anything, did you?”

“Don't you think that they would've hauled my ass to jail if I had?” Sometimes my girl isn't operating with a full deck.

“Oh.” Her body deflates with relief. “Then what did you do?”

“I fuckin' lost my temper—because they were snooping around here like they owned the damn place.”

“Oookay,” she says, not understanding.

“I didn't confess, but they
knew
that I was lying.” I toss up my hands. “Shit. I haven't lied that bad since finger-painting all over the walls when I was six years old.”

“Oh. Fuck. Me,” Li'l Bit whispers.

“Yeah. Exactly. They even asked me about the baby.”

“They did?” Eyes doubling in size, Li'l Bit drops onto the edge of my bed looking like she's about to hyperventilate. “What
did
you say—exactly?”

“Nothing.” I shrug. “I mean. I don't know. I just played dumb and thank God my pain-in-the-ass brother showed up when he did or that bitch cop would've pulled me all the way out of my character.”

Li'l Bit stares at me.

“Look. It's okay,” I reassure her. “Next time, I have to be on my p's and q's with them.”

“Next time? You think that they're coming back?”

I guarantee it.
“I don't know. Maybe I'm just freaking out for nothing. I wasn't expecting them to just pop up like they did.”

Li'l Bit looks like she's going from bad to worse.

“All I'm saying is
if
she comes back, I'll play it cooler. That's all.”

“But your temper,” she says, shaking her head.

“I'll be fine.
You
got to remember to play it cool, too.”

“Me?” If her eyes get any wider, they'll pop out of her head.

“You said they went by your house, too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well. Then, they are going to want to interview you, too.”

“Aw, shit. Aw, shit.” Li'l Bit bounces on the bed. “I don't know about this, Qiana. I'm not a good liar either. And if
you
couldn't handle her, then—”

“You'll be fine,” I tell her. “I was just taken off guard. Now that I know that they don't have shit, I can handle it better.”

“But why did they even show up here?”

“They're fishing because Tyneshia's parents got pissy and suspicious because we didn't go to her funeral yesterday.”

“That was yesterday?” She looks horrified. “I thought it was tomorrow.”

“Don't sweat it. The point is that they got nothing. As long as we keep our mouths shut, nothing is going to happen.”

“But what about Adaryl? Have they gone and talked to her yet?”

My heart drops. “I don't know—but I'm sure that Adaryl is gonna keep her mouth shut, too. The bitch doesn't want to go to jail any more than we do.”

“But she's been acting funny the last few days—real funny. She won't take any of my calls or respond to my texts.”

Damn.
I'm getting a bad feeling about this. “It's going to be okay,” I say, forcing on a smile. “Adaryl may be feeling some type of way, but she's not stupid. All right?”
And if she becomes a problem, I'll take care of her.

Li'l Bit looks like she wants to keep arguing, but she's run out of words.

“All right?” I press.

She nods, but her doubts are written all over her face. “By the way”—she glances around the room—“where
is
Jayson?”

J
aqorya Hampton has one hell of a right hook. That's abundantly clear after watching her spar with one bitch after another in Tony's Gym for a couple of hours.

“C'mon, baby. Keep your chin up. You got her on the run now,” Jaqorya's coach shouted from the sidelines.

The girls' boxing gloves pound against each other, coupled up with a few wild swings.

The third time Jaqorya's sparring partner misses her chin by a mile, Jaqorya leans in and goes to work on the girl's ribs.

The amateur backs away only to find her ass is trapped in a corner.

“Ooooh.” Everyone around the ring winces collectively as their faces twist with pity and fascination.

Jaqorya shows no mercy. By the time the sorry-ass referee steps forward to untangle the ladies, the woman's opponent pitches forward head first onto the mat.

Jaqorya throws up her hands in victory as her small team rushes to surround and pump her head with praise.

I'm no more impressed than I would be watching a pit bull maul a teacup Yorkie. Exiting the gym, I head straight to the ladies' locker room. As I go in, one chick is coming out. She is so absorbed with wrapping up her hand that she doesn't even notice me. I walk past the lockers and then two bathrooms stalls, and a double sink vanity with a wall-length mirror. Around the corner, there are three shower stalls separated by tiled walls.

The locker room door swishes open and I reflexively withdraw my Browning knife and slip behind one of the stalls.

“Fuck, girl. You're gonna be unstoppable at the fight Monday night,” an excited woman exclaims.

“We'll see,” Jaqorya replies, cryptically.

I can barely hear them.

“Damn, bitch. Why aren't you juiced up about this shit? We're talking about an easy fifty K to whoop on some knock-kneed bitch with a glass jaw. Yo! You know that shit beats slinging candy any damn day of the week.”

“Yeah. Well, there might not be a fight Monday.” Locker doors are being opened and slammed closed, and I have to lean my head out of the stall in order to hear them better.

“What do you mean, there might not be a fight? You know something that I don't know?”

“I might have to go out of town for a little while. Lay low.”

“Lay low? Are you shitting me? After all this training?”

“Look. It can't be helped. The girls got ourselves in a little situation and we might have to bounce. No big deal.”

“What kind of situation?”

“You don't want to know.”

There's a long silence before Jaqorya's friend goes in again. “Please tell me this isn't any of that gang bullshit. I told you not to go down that fuckin' road.”

“Nikki, don't start.”

“At least tell me that it doesn't have anything to do with what happened to Crunk.”

More silence.

I step from behind the tiled wall.

“That—and some other shit.”

“Damn, girl. You
were
a part of that? I heard Lynch and them found his ass chopped up like horsemeat.What the fuck happened?”

“Some bullshit.” Jaqorya sighs. “Shariffa got the girls into hitting Da Club a couple of weeks back.”

Nikki gasps. “That was y'all too? Have y'all lost your minds?”

“Look. Shit didn't go down the way we'd planned. We were supposed to be in and out. We were just going to jack a high-stakes poker game going on in the back room. Brika and Shariffa went around the back, murked the nigga guarding the door, while me and Shacardi closed in from the front. Shots were fired and we went in. Fuck. I can't even tell you who shot who. The shit went down so fast.”

While the locker room goes silent again, I picture Nikki with her mouth wide open.

Jaqorya's voice lowers with worry. “We didn't plan to kill that nigga Bishop. At least
I
didn't, but the shit happened and now we got his crazy-ass sister pissed the fuck off. What she did to Crunk . . . girl, I ain't never seen no shit like that. What kind of bitch beheads and dismembers muthafuckas? Shit. She even painted the walls with his blood.”

“
Fuuuuccckk
,” Nikki whispers. “What are y'all going to do?”

“I don't know about those bitches, but I'm bouncing.”

“To where?”

“I don't know. Maybe Cali or Vegas. They got a good women's boxing circuit. Maybe I can go and get something started out there.”

I shake my head at her pathetic dream. The bitch killed that shit the night she and her road dawgs murked my brother.

“Well . . . I'll hate to see you go,” Nikki says. “Have you told coach yet?”

“No. I have to do what I have to do. But, hey, don't say nothing. I haven't made up my mind yet when I'm leaving. I have to see where the other girls' heads are at.”

“My lips are sealed. Are you gonna be all right?”

“Yeah. I just hate I ever got involved with that fake bitch Shariffa.”

“Shit. If it's anybody's fault, it's Lynch's. His wife is bad news.”

“Well. Now she done started a war with the wrong bitch. Fuck. Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't say shit and just jet. Memphis is played out anyway.”

“All right. Keep your head up. I hope I see you Thursday, but if not, I'll understand.”

“Thanks, girl. I'm gonna knock off some of this funk and head out.”

“Cool. See ya.” The locker room door opens and closes. When I hear Jaqorya's rustling around, I move back behind one of the tiled walls and wait.

A minute later, a naked Jaqorya heads toward the showers.

I don't have much time to do this and it's incredibly risky since someone could walk in at any moment. Jaqorya selects the stall to my left. The shower cuts on while my knife twitches at my side.

Seconds later, she sings while she lathers up.

Quietly, I move from my stall and creep to the other side.

“THIS GIRL IS ON FIRE,” she belts at the top of her lungs—off key. “THIS GIRL—”

I round the corner and a startled Jaqorya jumps.

“Hi, champ.” My blade slices across her throat before she remembers to scream. Her hand clamps over her open throat as if that will be enough to keep her head attached.

It's not.

Blood shoots from her neck, mixing with the water, swirling down the drain. And I'm just getting started.

I
spent a night behind bars, getting to know the Flowers in lockup. They don't care about LeShelle's position with the Queen Gs. In fact, many of them claim to have members within their families split among different gangs.

“Honey, you can't help who your family is,” Mackenzie laughs and high-fives her girl Romil. “I got four brothers. Two Vice Lords, one Crip, and one Blood. Trust me. It makes the holidays a fuckin' trip.”

“All that matters now is that you're one of us,” Romil cosigns. “You put in work, prove your loyalty to the Flowers, and your ass is set. Fuck. You've already locked down the chief 's lil brother. In a lot of ways, you're already royalty, you feel me? You ain't got shit to worry about—especially
this
bullshit that punk-bitch Blalock is tryna lay on you.”

That catches my attention. “What do you mean?”

Mack laughs. “They keep coming back here for you every couple of hours tryna run some guilt trip on you, hoping you'll confess. That fat fuck thinks that because you're young and green to the game that all he has to do is put some pressure on you and your ass will sing like a bird. He ain't got shit. If anything, he's probably tryna impress the department's new captain. Your lawyer will pop you out of here in no time. Trust.”

“Lawyer? I don't have a lawyer,” I tell her.

Mack and Romil laugh.

“Yeah, you do. You just ain't met them yet,” Romil says.

Mack nods. “They'll be here before arraignment starts. You can bet on that shit.”

Hope flutters in my chest, but it dies when I remember the run of bad luck that I've been having. What's the point of praying or dreaming? No matter what happens, I can never show my face to the Douglases and Sullivans again. I've been completely humiliated.

Do they believe the charges? Will they sit in court and root for my incarceration—my death? My eyes burn with tears. This shit is not fair.

Mackenzie tugs on her cigarette like it's her third lung. “You know what? I like you,” she says. “When we get out of here, you should kick it with us. We'll get you up to speed and introduce you to all the right bitches. It'll be fun.”

“Yeah. That'll be cool.” Romil grins. “You do know how to party, don't you? I mean, you kind of look like a square.”

“Sure.” I shrug, not believing I'll be sprung any time soon. “That sounds cool.”

Friends. It's been a minute since I've made new friends—not since Essence. I miss my girl. I can only imagine what she'd say about this shit I got myself into—but I doubt her being here would've changed anything, other than her sitting right next to me. Then again, that would be enough.

Minutes later, three jailers appear at the cell door. We line up to be shackled. They bind my wrist to a chain wrapped around my waist, and then I'm off to see the judge.
So much for my lawyer riding to my rescue.

Another hour passes before my name comes up on the docket. Four burly officers lead me into court.

An assistant district attorney moves to a podium and starts rattling off my information. “Ta'Shara Murphy is charged with three counts of murder—two of which were her foster parents: Tracee and Reggie Douglas and a Markeisha Edwards. It is believed that Ms. Murphy and her boyfriend, Raymond Lewis, murdered the Douglases after an escalated argument that took place between them a couple weeks prior. At that time, gunshots had been reported by the neighbors.”

I roll my eyes.

The judge doesn't bother to look up from shuffling paperwork around her bench. “How do you plead?”

I open my mouth, but another voice booms from behind me.

“Not guilty, your honor!”

I turn around and see a curvy African American woman with thick, black-rimmed glasses rush into the courtroom. “I'm Hillary Owens of Owens & Owens Attorneys. I'll be representing Ms. Murphy in this case.”

Dumbfounded, I say, “You will?”

“I will.” She flashes a smile, while her dark eyes tell me to shut up and go with the flow.

The assistant district attorney interrupts our mental conversation to address the judge. “Your honor, the state requests that bail be denied, given the horrendous nature of this crime.”

Ms. Owens laughs. “Your honor, that is ridiculous. My client has no previous record—and up until a tragic incident that landed her in the hospital—”

“Where she had a violent outburst and tried to kill her sister,” the district attorney argues.

“No charges were filed—”

“That's because—”

“Save it for trial,” the judge interrupts, bored.

“As I was saying, Judge,” Owens continues, “Ta'Shara Murphy was a straight-A, honor-roll student. We fully intend to expose that this is a farce of a case in which the state has absolutely no evidence of my client's guilt.”

“Sounds fascinating.” The judge shuffles more paper before announcing, “Bail is set at five-hundred thousand.”

The judge flips some more paper. “Trial can begin on . . .” She flips more pages. “How's June eighteenth for everyone?”

Owens scrolls through her Google calendar on her smartphone. “That date works for me, even though I doubt that this case will come to that. Thank you, your honor,” Owens says confidently.

The assistant DA shakes his head but agrees to the date. My mind reels over the bail amount.
Where in the hell am I going to get my hands on that kind of money?

As if she heard my thoughts, Ms. Owens leans over and whispers, “Don't worry. Your bail has been handled. You'll be out of here in no time.”

“What?” My burly escorts latch onto my elbows and drag me back out of the courtroom before I get a chance to get her to clarify what she meant.

“How did it go?” Mackenzie asks once I'm back in holding.

“I have a lawyer,” I say, stunned.

“Court appointed?” Romil asks.

“No. I don't think so. Her name is Hillary Owens. Anyone ever heard of her?”

Mack and Romil laughs.

“Shit, girl. Don't you know nothing? Hillary Owens is a miracle worker around here. The big man got you covered like Allstate. I told you that you didn't have shit to worry about.”

Hope flutters again.

True to Hillary's word, forty-five minutes later, the jailers return.

“Ta'Shara Murphy, you got your walking papers!”

I jump off the bench, wanting to get out of here before they claim there's a mistake.

“Catch you later, girl!” Mack shouts

“Yeah. See you on the flip side,” Romil adds.

Happy for the connection, I smile and wave. However, my release process takes another thirty minutes before I'm given back my belongings.

“Do you know if Raymond Lewis has posted bail?” I ask an officer.

“Ta'Shara!”

I spin around at my man's voice.

“Profit!” I race across the precinct and then melt in his arms. “Thank God. Thank God.”

“Are you all right, baby?” he asks.

“Yes. Please. Get me out of here.”

“You got it. C'mon.” He turns and leads me toward the front door.

“Ta'Shara?” a woman calls.

“Ta'Shara Murphy?”

We stop and turn to meet the next wave of bad news.

A tall, skinny black woman with an unblended lace-front rushes toward us with a no-nonsense expression and her arms loaded down with files. “Hello. I'm Roz Wagner. I'm your new caseworker with Family Children Services.”

“You're a caseworker?”

“We've been trying to contact you since the death of your foster parents. My condolences,” she says, looking uneasy. “I've been assigned to get you placed and settled into a new residence.”

“What?” I step back. “I'm not going anywhere with you.”

Ms. Wagner takes a deep breath. “Look. You're seventeen. I know I can't force you to come with me, but I do have to inform you that if you don't, the state will cut off all financial assistance for your living expenses.”

“Whatever.” I wave her off and tug on Profit. “Let's go.”

“But, Ms. Murphy—”

We turn and rush out of the door as fast as we can. A shining black Escalade pulls up to the curb. My heart squeezes and my grip on Profit's hands tightens.