Nina's Got a Secret (18 page)

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, M
ARIA AND
B
ARBARA SAT
at the kitchen table and sipped from their coffee mugs. These two women were from totally different backgrounds, but they had seemed to connect from the moment they'd met.

Everything about them was different: their race, physical build, manner of speaking, and even their child-rearing styles. Barbara was more of an old-fashioned disciplinarian. She was like that black woman in the neighborhood that lived four houses down from yours, but yelled at you and chastised you like she was your mother. And then she'd go tell your mother what she told you. Maria was more patient and slow to anger. But despite their glaring differences they had three things in common: they loved Chrissy, they loved Larry, and they both disliked Nina.

The Sunday morning sit down whenever Barbara was in town had become a ritual for the two of them. They talked about the world, soap operas, and their favorite topic, Nina.

“Do we have everything for dinner tonight?” Barbara asked.

“Yes, but I want to go to the market one last time to pick up some fresh fruit,” Maria replied. “Will you come with me?”

“Yes, we can leave around noon.”

“That's fine. I'll be ready. I'm going to go and get that last load of clothes out of the dryer,” said Maria as she poured out her coffee and walked into the laundry room. She took a few steps and then said, “I want to talk to you about something that happened the night of Larry's party.”

“Okay,” Barbara replied. “Is everything all right?”

“To tell you the truth, I don't know,” Maria replied with a look of consternation on her face.

Barbara sat a few minutes longer and stared at her coffee as she wondered what Maria was talking about. She clutched the diamond cross that hung from her neck and rested at the beginning of the crease leading down to her cleavage. Images of Chrissy dominated her thoughts and sent chills down her spine. She could feel Chrissy's presence and smell her unmistakable scent.

She got up and poured her coffee into the sink. As she headed toward the hallway bathroom to wipe her tear-covered face, she peered in the living room and saw Nina moving around.

As the Sunday morning California sunshine invaded the living room, Nina's left eye opened as her right struggled to remain shut for a few moments longer.

Something in Nina's gut told her that she would be hearing from Tyrone soon. It had been two weeks since he'd threatened to extort money from her, and Nina grew more and more anxious as she wondered when he'd harass her again.

According to the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, it was almost eleven o'clock in the morning. Nina looked out of the window and saw Larry washing his car. The gleam from the Armor All on her tires indicated that he'd already washed her car.

Precious was drawing on the sidewalk with the colored chalk Larry had purchased for her. Nina hated the fact that he let her write all over the concrete with the chalk. She thought that time-old tradition was
ghetto
and inappropriate for kids living in upper-class communities.

Nina reached over and checked her BlackBerry to see if she had missed any phone calls. The check had less to do with a desire to speak to anyone; it actually served as an indication of her fear—fear that her extorter would try to reach her.

She carried her BlackBerry around like a pacemaker. It was a gift from her husband shortly after they were wed. Only a handful of people had the phone number, and half of them rarely called. Nina knew that when the phone rang, there was a strong possibility the call was coming from Tyrone.

Like a financially strapped single parent who constantly worried how the bills were going to get paid, Nina cringed every time her cell phone rang.

Her fear must have conjured up Tyrone because his call came as if on cue.

“Nina's got a seeecreeet, what would she do . . .”

“Tyrone, spare me, what do you want?” Nina replied as she relinquished her prone position and sat on the arm of the loveseat.

“Damn, you just gonna cut a nigga off? I thought you liked my singin'.”

“What I would like is for you to stop callin' me. I'm gonna change this damn number.”

“Nah, boo, I don't think you wanna do somethin' like that. That would just piss me off.”

“How much?”

“I'm glad you asked,” Tyrone replied with a chuckle. “Let's see . . . a nigga needs a new wardrobe. I need a couple pairs of Timbs
and some new jeans and shirts. So I guess about four or five thousand dollars will do.”

“How about I make it an even five thousand dollars, if you agree to not call me again?”

“Come on, boo, I ain't stupid. It's gonna take a lot more than that to make a nigga drop this hustle.”

“What is it gonna take, Tyrone? I'm tired of this.”

“Let's see. For starters, I gotta get a crack at that ass.”

“I'm not having sex with you, Tyrone, so you should think of something else,” Nina said in a tone that came dangerously close to a shout. She slammed her fist against the sofa to make up for her inability to scream out loud.

Although she tried hard to keep her tone low, Nina didn't realize that at that very moment she was being secretly watched. She was under surveillance, like a predator hiding in the shadows as it stalked its prey. In this case, the entity waiting to pounce on Nina was worse than any animal in the wild; it was her sister-in-law.

Barbara stood as still as a statue in the hallway next to the entrance as she eavesdropped on Nina's phone conversation. She walked up as Nina was pressuring Tyrone for a figure, and although she couldn't hear the entire conversation, she sensed something devious was going on. Barbara took great pride in her discernment. She felt that she could spot a sneak from a mile away. Unfortunately for Nina, Barbara had branded her the family's new number one sneak. The first time she'd met Val and Tyrone at Chrissy's funeral, she had instantly realized that they were bad news.

“For me to totally disappear, it's gonna cost you about ten grand. Since I'ma good dude, I won't require you to give me the whole amount right away. I'll take that five grand you offered and you can give me the remaining five grand within the next two months. I think that's fair.”

“You think that's fair, you bastard?!” Nina shouted.

“Yes, I do. I'll be in contact tomorrow to let you know where you can drop off the cash.”

“Are you here?”

“Nope. But I'll be there tomorrow. So you have a day to get my money.”

Realizing that her pitch had elevated, Nina turned around to see if anyone was within earshot. When she had last looked, Larry was outside waxing his Mercedes, so she wasn't that worried about him hearing. It was her sister-in-law and Maria that she was most concerned about.

If Nina had been a split second sooner, she would have seen Barbara peering into the room. Barbara pulled her head back just in time. She stood as still as possible as she wondered if Nina had seen her. She let out a quiet sigh once she heard Nina continue to talk to her antagonist on the phone.

“I'm going to go to the police, if you don't go away.”

“You can go to the police if you want, but then you'd be settin' yourself up to have to explain everything that happened. You need Larry to help your little girl get her little career goin'. You can't do that Hollywood shit out there by yourself because you don't know anybody.

“If you call the cops, not only will you make Larry want to kill you for letting his baby drown, but you'll also be fuckin' shit up for your little girl. Once that nigga finds out what you did, he's gonna pull the plug on your lifestyle and stop hookin' up your little, big-headed daughter.”

“You've made your point! I'll get the money.”

“Oh, trust me; I'm not worried about that. I'll call you tomorrow.”

“Where do you want me to bring the money?”

“I want you to bring it to my hotel room; that way we can kill two birds with one stone. Oh yeah, I want you to wear some lace panties and bring that vibrator you was tellin' Val about.”

“What?”

“Don't play dumb, Val tells me everything. I know you be rationin' the pussy so much that you had to go and buy a vibrator.”

“Val doesn't tell you everything,” Nina replied in a spiteful tone.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, you meant somethin'. What are you talkin' 'bout?”

“I'm not talking about anything. I'll go to the bank and get the money today. I'll call you later.”

“So you tryin' to fuck wit' a nigga's head, huh? I'll tell you what. Since you wanna get flip and shit and you've already threatened me with the police, I gotta show you that you ain't dealin with some punk-ass nigga.”

Nina sat motionless for a few seconds as she held the phone in her hand and tried to figure out a way out of the unenviable predicament. Short of killing both Val and Tyrone, she didn't see any solution on the horizon.

Murder wasn't merely a fleeting thought. On more than one occasion she'd given serious thought to trying to hire someone to deal with the two of them. She would have done it herself, but she'd watched enough episodes of her favorite television show,
CSI,
to know that there were no perfect crimes; the killer always left enough clues to get caught.

She'd watched her second favorite show,
Snapped,
enough times to know that contract killings never worked out; the evidence always led back to the person hiring the killer. Nina concluded that she would have to dance to their beat a little longer until she figured out a solution.

S
HE WENT INTO HER BEDROOM AND CHANGED CLOTHES
and then made her way to her closet. She moved the shoeboxes that gathered at the edge of the shelf in her closet. The boxes were empty but they served as the perfect fortress for “Ya Boy,” which was wrapped in a towel and hidden behind them.

Tucked away behind the boxes was a little .22-caliber revolver. She didn't carry it with her often, but she decided to pack it to protect her from Tyrone.

Her escape from the house was almost trouble-free until she heard Barbara call her name as she prepared to walk out the door.

“Nina, where are you heading? I was about to ask you if you wanted to go to the market with Maria and me.”

Why does she want to hang out with me all of a sudden?
Nina thought. “Ummm, I can't right now. Maybe later.”

“Is everything okay? You look a little troubled.”

“I'm okay. I have some errands to run. There are some things I forgot to take care of before Precious' audition on Monday.”

Nina didn't even wait for Barbara to respond. She scurried out of the front door and darted to her car. Larry stood a few feet away, finishing up his detailing project as he watched his wife speed out of the driveway. Seconds later, Barbara came out of the house walking at a rapid pace.

“Why is everyone in such a hurry?” Larry asked.

“Oh, I'm going to the mall. Do you want to come?” Barbara asked as she opened the car door to Larry's 2000 Lexus SUV that once belonged to his deceased wife.

Barbara opened the car door and climbed in. She was determined to follow Nina, and although she wasn't sure what Nina was up to, she wanted her brother to be with her when the truth was revealed.

“Nah, you go ahead. I'm tired. I'ma go inside and take a shower.”

F
ORTUNATELY FOR
N
INA, HER BANK HAD RECENTLY
hopped on the trend of opening for a few hours on Sundays. She went inside and withdrew five thousand dollars in cash from her savings. She could feel a lump form in her throat when she saw that she only had $565 left in the account. She would have to come up with a damn good excuse to get five thousand dollars from Larry in a few weeks.

Barbara sat in her car like a detective on a stakeout as she waited for Nina to come out of the bank. She revved the SUV's engine and tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as she waited anxiously to catch Nina with whomever she was talking to on the phone. She deduced from the conversation she'd overheard and Nina's trip to the bank that she was delivering money to someone.