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  Although she felt like her entire soul had been ripped from her body, Ahli knew that they couldn’t stay there. She tried to pull away from her sister but Rhonnie had her in too tight of a bear hug, so instead she placed her lips by her ear.

  “R . . . Rhonnie,” she whispered tearfully. She clenched her eyes shut and tried to ignore the odor coming from her father’s dead body. “Rhonnie, we have to go. We have to get away from here. Go to the artillery room in Daddy’s bedroom and get all the weapons you can carry, okay?”

  Ahli felt her sister shudder in her arms and she wanted nothing more than to comfort her forever, but she couldn’t. She pried herself out of Rhonnie’s grip and placed her hands on her sister’s wet cheeks. Her watery eyes were red and Ahli knew hers probably looked the exact same.

  “Sister, I need you right now, okay? We can’t stay here.”

  “Okay,” Rhonnie said, standing.

  She turned away quickly so that she wouldn’t have to see Quinton’s body when she walked away. She willed herself to run up the stairs to the top level of the house. In the back of her mind she remembered hearing Brayland say that the house was clear; still, she was extra cautious with each step she took.

  When she passed each room she observed that not only were the doors wide open and the lights on, but they were completely torn apart. From what it looked like from the doorways, however, nothing was taken. She continued her journey until she reached her father’s bedroom, which, like the rest of the rooms, was completely ransacked. She sighed with relief when she saw that although some of the books had been knocked from the shelf most of them were still sitting upright. Particularly the one that she needed.

  Shards of glass crunched under her feet with every step and with one look at the ground she saw that it was from the screen of the computer that had been smashed. Eventually she made it to the bookshelf and reached her hand for the smallest book on the shelf. It was an old children’s rhyme book, so she understood why it had been left alone. Nobody would suspect that to be the lever to the secret room behind the shelf.

  When she pulled it she heard the computer woman’s voice speak through speakers on the sides of the shelf: “What is your favorite thing to do?”

  Rhonnie cleared her voice and said, “Watch Law & Order with my daughters.”

  After a few moments she heard a clanking sound followed by a small hum before the bookshelf revealed itself as a secret doorway. Once it moved back she used her left hand to push it open the rest of the way. She wiped her face before she stepped foot into her father’s war room. It was where they kept all of their weapons; he used to tell them that every thief should have a place like that. You never knew what kind of job you would have to do. The size of the room was about twelve feet by ten feet, and the lights shining down on her were brighter than she would have liked. In that room hanging from the walls there were automatic weapons all the way down to explosives.

  In and out, she told herself. In and out.

  She grabbed one of the army-print duffle bags hanging from the wall and started grabbing whatever she could fit in the bag: firearms, knives, and a boatload of ammunition. She didn’t know who they would be up against, so a little bit of everything wouldn’t hurt.

  Once the bag was filled she took another bag off of the wall and loaded it with more ammunition for all of the firearms. Tossing the heavy bags over her shoulders she made to leave the room and head back downstairs, but a blinking light caught her attention. She glanced over and saw that her father’s laptop was sitting under some papers. Something in Rhonnie couldn’t leave it behind. She picked it up, along with its charger, and left, leaving the doorway open behind her.

  Brayland and Ahli were waiting for her at the foot of the stairs when she finally bounded back down them. Ahli was holding a bag as well and when she saw Rhonnie staring she held it up and patted it.

  “I grabbed all the pictures and other important stuff,” she said. “I got Daddy’s gun, too. It was in the basement. He must have left it there when he and Brayland were having drinks.”

  Rhonnie nodded, happy that her sister had thought to grab all of their memories, but sad to think that their father had died unarmed. He never stood a chance against whoever had done this.

  “Here, let me take those,” Brayland said. “Y’all got your car keys? Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Rhonnie asked. “We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Yeah, we do,” Ahli said, grabbing her sister by the hand. “Come on.”

  Chapter 9

  “Daddy knew about your secret apartment?”

  Rhonnie lay with her head resting peacefully on Ahli’s stomach while Ahli stroked her hair. They both were still in the clothes that had Quinton’s blood stained on them. For some reason neither wanted to take them off yet. Seeing the blood was a bittersweet reminder that their father had lived, but also that he was dead. All three of them had arrived at Ahli’s apartment and had gathered in the guest bedroom. Rhonnie and Ahli occupied the bed while Brayland occupied a chair in the corner.

  “No,” Ahli answered her question.

  “Yes,” Brayland said from where he sat with his elbows on his knees and eyes on the floor. “He knew from the moment you signed your lease.”

  “What?” Ahli stopped her hand mid-stroke, genuinely surprised by this bit of information. She thought that the only reason Brayland found her that day was because he followed her.

  “He knew the moment your credit report was pulled and when you signed your lease. He also knew when you went to the storage that he kept all of your mother’s old things in.”

  “Why didn’t he ever say anything?” Ahli was sure that Quinton would have figured it out eventually, yet she never would have guessed that he knew right out the gate.

  “He wanted you to feel like you had something outside of all the chaos. He wanted you to feel like you had freedom.”

  Ahli smiled sadly to herself. She should have known that she wouldn’t have been able to get anything like that by Quinton. Knowing him he probably had an extra key to her place, too.

  “I feel so numb,” Rhonnie whispered, looking at the ceiling. “I’m going to kill whoever did this to him.”

  “We have to find them first,” Brayland’s deep voice said.

  “And when we do I’m going to cut their hearts out.”

  “Did Quinton have any enemies? And are you sure that nobody else knew where he lived?”

  “Positive,” Ahli responded. “And as far as enemies, no. Not that I know of, anyways. The only time his face has ever been out on a job was in Miami. When we made the exchange with Dot.”

  A look that Ahli couldn’t read came over Brayland’s face and he pulled his phone from his pocket. It was like he suddenly thought of something that he should have a long time ago. He shook his head in spite of himself and excused himself. “I’ll be right back,” he said and left the room.

  “I can’t believe we’re alone,” Rhonnie said. “He taught us everything except how to live without him.”

  “We aren’t alone; we have each other.”

  Ahli leaned down and kissed Rhonnie’s forehead. Even though the image of Quinton was embedded in her brain it just didn’t seem real. He just couldn’t be gone, not Quinton. Not everybody’s hero. She didn’t want Rhonnie to see her cry again, and that was exactly the reason why she had to leave the room before the tears were shed.

  “Where are you going?” Rhonnie asked when Ahli was almost out of the room.

  “I have to get out of these clothes,” Ahli said over her shoulder. “I’m going to my room to take a shower. You can too if you want. The bathroom to this room is right there, and you can come to my room and get some clothes. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

  “Okay.” Rhonnie swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn’t want to be left alone, but she understood that maybe her sister needed some time to herself. Or maybe she just wanted to be held by Brayland; either way, she wouldn’t beg her to stay.

>   Once Ahli was gone Rhonnie shut the bedroom door to get some privacy. She lay back in the bed for a few more minutes with her eyes glued to the ceiling. Up until then she’d been trying to spare her own feelings, but she couldn’t do that any longer. Her thoughts crept up on her as she reflected on one of the last conversations she had with her dad and the way she talked to him. If she had known that she wouldn’t be able to wake up to him cooking breakfast the next day she would have treated him a little differently. Although they had made amends over the phone and she was able to say good-bye, it wasn’t supposed to be for forever.

  She clenched her eyes shut, trying to urge the sob not to come from her mouth, but that was almost impossible. She put one of the pillows over her face and held her stomach with one of her hands. She took one big breath and let it all out.

  “Daddyyy,” she sobbed into the pillow. “Not my daddy!”

  She cried and rocked for about ten minutes until there was no more water available to leak from her eyes. She had so many emotions mixed up in her small body, but the rage was slowly but surely surfacing. Before it completely consumed her and she had the urge to do something stupid she figured that maybe taking Ahli’s suggestion wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Hopefully the hot water would wash away the images burned in her mind. Even better, maybe it would send her back in time.

  She left the room and walked down the hallway to where her sister’s bedroom was. She heard the shower running before she treaded onto the soft carpet of the room. In any other situation she would have smiled, as she had just noticed something. The bedrooms were fashioned just like their bedrooms were back at home. No wonder she felt so at home in the guest room. Because everything was the exact same. Rhonnie knew exactly where to find the articles of clothing she was looking for. Ahli, of course, had brand-new and never-worn underwear in her drawer, along with bras and nightclothes.

  She left as quietly as she came and headed back in the direction of her room. On the way she heard Brayland’s voice coming from the living room but she didn’t bother to stop and listen to his conversation. She closed her door again and went straight to the bathroom.

  Rhonnie thought that a shower was what she needed, but almost as soon as she stepped in she wanted to get out and crawl back in bed. She hurried to finish her shower, scrubbing her skin until she felt raw all over, and then she got back out. She wrapped the purple towel around her body and kicked the bloodstained clothes behind the bathroom door and walked back into the room, drying her body off the whole way. Her wet hair dripped over her shoulders, but she didn’t bother putting the towel to it. She just pulled the mock-jersey nightgown over her head after she put her underwear on.

  The saddest part about the whole night was that she knew her father was still inside of the house staring aimlessly into space. The room probably reeked by now and they would have to call someone in the morning to go get his body out of there. They didn’t call the police because the manner of his murder was so sadistic that an entire investigation would have to happen. Right then they could use anything but the white man prodding his nose into their lives. If that happened it was a sure thing that they would never be able to get him out. Making a mental note to call his PO in the morning, she knew she would have to make up a lie about his death. Money talked so she was sure she’d be able to get it documented that he died however she wanted with what she had saved up.

  “Who would do this to you, Daddy?” she asked the air around her.

  She prepared to lie in bed and trace the ceiling until she reluctantly fell asleep, if she ever did. She drew the covers back to climb under them, but once again the blinking of the laptop caught her attention. Once they all had gotten into the apartment she’d placed it on the dresser that was against the far wall.

  Before getting into the bed she grabbed the laptop, bringing it into the bed with her. Opening it up she knew that there would be a password to get into it, and after a few tries she was able to crack the code. The first thing that popped up was the background for his home screen. It was an old picture of the girls and their mother at the same park she was at earlier. That was what goaded her to click on his photo gallery and scroll through all of the pictures stored in the hard drive.

  As she scrolled she told herself that she would get a USB drive and back up all the pictures to it. There were a lot of pictures that weren’t framed in the bag that Ahli brought from the house; she couldn’t risk losing them. When she clicked out of the gallery something told her to check on their bank accounts. She had that gut feeling again and she knew she should have just left well enough alone. When she saw the balances in the accounts she almost swallowed her tongue but instead she clenched her teeth and tried to swallow the misery.

  “Fuck, man,” she said, shaking her head. “Fuck!”

  Just when she was about to close the laptop and throw it at a wall, her gaze fell on a folder labeled New Job. She clicked on it and realized that it contained the details from the last job Quinton was telling them about. She was staring smack dab at the blueprints all the way down to the digits for the safe that they were supposed to break into.

  “He backed up the plans,” Rhonnie said to herself, thinking back to the smashed-up computer in her dad’s room.

  Her father had always been a cautious and well-organized man. For that, she would always be thankful. She closed the laptop and leaped from the bed with it under her arm. Exiting the room she made her second trip down the hallway toward Ahli’s room; that time she was going to make her presence known.

  “LaLa!”

  She was prepared to burst open the door, but she didn’t have to since it was already open. Ahli was sitting up in her bed talking to Brayland. Once she heard Rhonnie’s voice she turned her attention there with worry in her eyes.

  “What, NaNa? Are you okay?” She got out of the bed and pushed past Brayland.

  “I’m okay,” Rhonnie told her. “What were you two talking about?”

  “Brayland thought he knew who might have kil . . . done this to Daddy.”

  “Who?” Rhonnie’s head whipped to Brayland. She was already mentally deciding which gun she would use to put a bullet in whoever’s head it was. “Who did this?”

  “I thought it was Dot,” Brayland told them. “I was in the living room making some phone calls to a couple of niggas I trust back home. I was trying to see if Dot made any moves toward the Midwest.”

  “And?”

  “It wasn’t him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Dot is dead,” he said. “They say his body was mailed to the front door of his house in a cardboard box.”

  Brayland’s words took both of them by surprise. Brayland shrugged his shoulders in defeat and shook his head. “I guess somebody finally got to that nigga,” he said in a faraway voice. “He had it coming if you ask me, but still even when I was calling around I knew it couldn’t have been him.”

  Ahli resumed her position in her bed and Rhonnie scooted up the soft mattress until she was beside her. “How could you have known that if you didn’t know he was dead? He was the last person that did bad business with my dad.”

  “I worked with Dot for a while,” Brayland said, taking a seat at the computer desk to the left of the bed. “He was a cruel person, but the way Quinton was in that chair, he wouldn’t do anything like that. He was the type of nigga who would put a bullet in your forehead and keep it pushing. I done seen a lot of dead bodies, and I can tell you that whoever did this to your old man wanted him to suffer. That comes from an emotional tie.”

  “Daddy didn’t have a girlfriend,” Ahli said. “He was always too busy.”

  “What about when you two were on jobs, you sure he wasn’t messing with anybody?”

  “Nah,” Rhonnie said. “The only person he was getting pussy from was his PO. That’s how he was able to come to Miami with us. He thought he was slick, but he wasn’t.”

  “Would she want to hurt him?”

  “No. She was marri
ed.”

  “Damn, I don’t know then, y’all. Quinton was a good man. He ain’t deserve to go out like this.”

  They sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Ahli took notice of the laptop in her bed and remembered that Rhonnie had something to say. “What did you want to talk about, NaNa?”

  “Look,” Rhonnie said, opening the laptop to show what she found.

  “Daddy backed up all the plans for the next job in his laptop?” Ahli asked after viewing the file that Rhonnie showed her. “Why are you showing me this, Rhonnie?”

  “Because of this,” Rhonnie said and pulled up another screen, and then another, and then another.

  When Ahli saw what she was being shown the gasp escaped her lips and she grabbed the laptop to get a closer look.

  “Daddy had access to all of our main bank accounts on his main computer.” Rhonnie crossed her legs and played with her thumbs. “Whoever murdered him wiped out all of our accounts. Transferred all of the money out. I have some money in another account, but not enough to live off of.”

  “What?” Ahli kept clicking back and forth between the screens. “No, this can’t be possible. This can’t be happening. All those jobs we went on. For nothing. Fuck!”

  Ahli pushed the laptop forcefully from her and put her face in her palms. She wanted to cry, but she’d exhausted her ability to while she was in the shower. In her whole life she couldn’t remember a time where she’d felt more defeated. She couldn’t understand how someone could catch them slipping in such an unforeseen way. It just didn’t make any sense.

  She pulled her hands from her face and looked to her sister. She didn’t know what to say and Rhonnie sighed, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Daddy is dead and we’re broke.” Rhonnie looked from Ahli and then to Brayland. “I don’t think we have a choice now.”

  “A choice about what?” Brayland asked.

  “We have to do the job.”