Sister's Revenge: Action Adventure Assassin Pulp Thriller Book #1 (Michelle Angelique Avenging Angel Assassin) (14 page)

Michelle nodded. “I knew it was something.”

“We were all up in the balcony doing blow and the guys were telling stories. Lewis said Quincy had saved his ass when he was in this deal taking over the territory and got all shot up. Quincy was his driver and had dragged his shot-up ass off to the hospital, said it happened during that deal that went down three years ago.”

“Damn!”

“Lewis told everyone that the deal had moved him into the lieutenant spot. Now, it’s Quincy’s time to move up. Then Lewis said—and this made it for sure it was him: at least they don’t have to kill a couple of brothers to take over the territory, like he had to.”

“Muthafuckas,” Michelle spat.

“They were all laughing. Quincy said when Lewis come busting out the house, he was shot to shit—completely covered in blood, one arm hanging, the other holding his side; walking sideways and dragging one leg. He was jacked bad. All hero-like, he jumped out and helped get Lewis in the car. He wanted to go inside and make sure everybody was dead, he said, but Lewis was bleeding so bad he’d passed out in the passenger seat. Figured saving his cousin was more important than capping a couple guys probably already dead.”

Michelle took several deep breaths to calm herself, and then, exhaling slowly, she said, “He’s mine; they’re both mine.”

“I knew it was them who’d killed Michael, but I still hung out longer; I didn’t want to look like I was trying to get out too quick. They were still bragging about how Lewis bled all over the seat—blood everywhere, ruining the white leather, leaving stains they couldn’t get out, so they had to get rid of that Escalade. I acted impressed and asked Quincy about it, and he said it was real sweet. White, with spinners.”

“Anything else?” Michelle asked.

“Yeah, and it might be important. Tonight we would have needed to get a cab to his place. He’d brought Lewis and Monique to the party, so he had to leave his car for them. I saw him give Lewis the keys.”

“What kind of car does he drive?”

“A Chrysler 300C. He was bragging how it’s the top of the line, best one they make.”

“What color is it?”

“Black, with chrome wheels. It was right there, out in front. We saw it when we went into the club. Deja said it must have belonged to someone important since it was parked there by the door with those red VIP ropes around it.”

“Yeah, I remember it. Thanks.”

Michelle looked up and away, like she was focusing on something outside of the room, then turned back to Nikky a few minutes later and said, “All right, I’ve got it.”

“I could almost hear you thinking,” Nikky said. “What’s up?”

“If anybody asks, I’m in the bathroom. I never left the hospital. I was with you the whole night, sitting right here. You feel me on this, girl?”

“You know I do. Are you good by yourself? Don’t need any backup?”

“No, I have this. I’ll be back soon. Remember, I’ve only gone to pee, and only if someone asks.”

M
ICHELLE NEEDED ACTION.

She sped back to the club, hoping to get there before Lewis left, wanting to follow him home to take advantage of any opportunities. At the least, she could check his route, learn where both he and Quincy lived, because with what happened to Deja, she needed to do something that could possibly lead to taking them out.

Heading toward the parking lot, Michelle slowed down as she neared the club entrance.

Is that them? . . . Yes!

Quincy, Lewis, and Monique were all getting into Quincy’s 300C behind the VIP ropes. A few minutes later, Michelle followed them onto the freeway.

* * *

F
lashing blue-and-red lights lit up the inside of Quincy’s car.

“Fuck! The po-lice are pulling us over.”

“How fast you going?” Lewis asked from the backseat, where he and Monique were laid back, taking it easy. It’d been a good party with lots of celebrities kissing his ass, giving him respect. “Don’t worry ’bout no ticket, but here,” he said, “take this and put it up.” He handed over his gun. “We don’t need to get our asses hauled to jail for being strapped. Some rookie cop might recognize me and pull us out the car. Monique, give him that piece you got in yo’ purse.”

“I ain’t doing shit,” Monique said. “The po-po can kiss my ass.”

“Bitch, give Quincy yo’ muthafuckin’ gun like I said and remember who you’re talking to.”

“Sho, baby, you’re right. I’m sorry. Just that the po-po piss me off, that’s all.”

“Quincy, you strapped?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, put yo’ shit in the box. You’ll be the first one the police’ll pull out.”

“Yeah, okay.” Quincy pushed a button to open a hidden compartment in the dash, where he stowed away the three guns. Then he closed the compartment and pulled onto the shoulder of the freeway.

* * *

A
while back, Michelle had fitted blue-and-red police lights behind the grill of her Crossfire, counting on them to make anyone believe it was an undercover car. The ruse only worked in the dark, though, when the driver would be blinded by the car’s regular brights and flashing lights. During the day, they could see her car, and even the highway patrol didn’t drive convertibles.

After she hit them with the lights, it took a while before Quincy finally pulled over. Michelle smiled to herself, knowing that the extra time was used to hide their guns.

I love it when a plan comes together.

As she strode up to the driver’s side of the Chrysler, she smiled again. Already the window was down, and Quincy gripped the wheel with both hands.

“Officer, I don’t—”

Puhffiitt!

Quincy’s blood and brains splattered across the dash of the car, and he slumped over dead in the seat.

“Goddamn!” Monique shouted as she jumped.

Instantly, Michelle swung her silenced 9mm at Lewis’s face. He sat still and locked eyes with Michelle.

“Both of you sit up and lace your fingers behind your heads.”

Monique scoffed. “Fuck you, bitch, I ain’t doing shit you say.”

Lewis slowly reached up and clasped his hands behind his head. Monique looked over at him like he’d lost his mind. “What? I don’t believe this shit! You’re gonna do what this bitch says?”

Michelle kept her stare locked on Lewis.

“Fuck that. I ain’t no bitch gonna do what she says.” Monique slammed her hands into her lap, glaring at Michelle.

Puhffiitt!

Blood trickled down the middle of her forehead.

“Sorry you didn’t get a chance to say goodbye,” Michelle told Lewis. “I would’ve given you that, but . . .” She shrugged.

Lewis cut his gaze over to Monique, now dead next to him, and nodded once.

“Do you know who I am?” Michelle asked.

“You’re a dead bitch, that’s who.”

“Save that shit. We’re well past fronting for the homies.”

“Not no front. You’re dead. Even if you kill me, the people I work for will find you, and you’re dead.”

“Is that right? I thought you were the man in charge, not some house boy running errands.”

Hatred smoldered in Lewis’s eyes.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked again.

“Like I said, you’re a dead bitch.”

“My name is Michelle Angelique. Three years ago, you murdered my brother, Michael, and my cousin, Gabe Jr. Do you remember them? I sure do. In case you forgot, that was the day you were gut-shot and ran out of the house like a scared bitch.”

Recognition rose up in Lewis’s face.

“I was in the house that day,” she said. “I saw you and your dead cousin here drive off in your white Escalade.”

Lewis nodded once, like he’d made up his mind on something. “Didn’t want to kill Michael and Gabe Jr.,” he said. “They be okay. They worked for the wrong person, was all. It was time for a change in leadership in the hood. Their boss was being retired, and I had to take them out along with their boss. They got caught in the middle. It was just bidness.” He let his hands relax, dropping his right hand down and resting his left arm across the back of the seat. He turned and looked at Monique, then back to Michelle. “Now you do what you gotta do, or get gone. We’re done here.”

Michelle had trained and planned for this moment for three years. She’d expected something very different. Something slow, carefully planned, with time to anticipate each move. Not in a million years had she dreamed of a chance, spur of the moment opportunity.

Quincy was dead. Monique, an unfortunate but an intertwined complicit associate, was dead. Lewis, Michael’s murderer, was in her sights. He had apparently made his peace. So did she. Michelle took a couple of deep breaths, slowed her heart rate, reached absolute calm, and looked Lewis in the eye.

“It’s not business to me, muthafucka. This is real personal.”

Puhffiitt!

M
ICHELLE WALKED BY
the nurse’s station, full cups of coffee in each hand.

The nurse looked up. “Did you get those downstairs?”

“Yes.”

“You’re here with the woman in 403, right?”

“Yes. In the ER waiting room. I mean, yes, I’m with my friend in 403, and I got the coffee from the vending machine in the ER waiting room.”

“You don’t need to go all the way down to the ER. There are some machines in the waiting room just past the elevators in the hall.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that.”

With her butt, Michelle pushed open the heavy hospital door and backed into the room.

“How is she?” she asked.

“Sleeping,” Nikky said. “She’s been out the whole time. What happened with you?”

“Here’s some coffee. I’ve got to get cleaned up first, then I’ll fill you in.

When she left earlier, Michelle hadn’t expected to have the golden opportunity to kill her brother’s murderer, so her hands and arms had been bare when she’d fired her gun, and if the police showed up for any reason, her skin would be covered with gunshot residue. Michelle stepped into Deja’s private restroom to scrub her hands, face, and neck, then returned to her friends.

“What’s up?” Nikky asked.

“Hand me that coffee,” she said, and Nikky did. Michelle tested it with her finger. “That’ll work.” She stepped away from the foot of the bed . . . and poured the coffee down the front of her dress.

Nikky gaped. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Hang on a minute. I need to get some dry clothes.” Holding her dress away from her skin, Michelle marched back to the nurse’s station.

“Oh my God,” the nurse cried. “What happened to you?”

“Can you believe it? I spilled my coffee. Thank God it’d cooled down. Are there some scrubs or anything I can wear?”

A few minutes later, re-dressed in fresh hospital scrubs and with her thoroughly rinsed dress bundled into a small ball, Michelle sat next to a wide-eyed Nikky.

“Well?”

“Sorry I couldn’t talk,” Michelle whispered. “I had to take care of that first. I got them—I fucking got them! I had to do it on the spot. No planning, no cover, nothing. I had gunshot residue on everything.”

“Can you tell me? What the hell happened?”

“Let me get a fresh cup of coffee and I’ll fill you in.”

Through the rest of the night, Michelle and Nikky whispered about what had happened and what it meant for the future. Several hours later, still dressed in the borrowed scrubs and her party heels, Michelle stood in the cafeteria’s checkout line with two take-away breakfast plates, when a plainclothes police detective approached.

“Michelle Angelique?”

“Yeah?”

“You strapped?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?”

“Don’t give me any shit. You got a gun?”

“No.”

“Slowly, so I can see your hands, put the coffee down on the counter and drop your purse on the floor.”

Michelle knew the drill, so she did what he’d ordered.

“Now put your hands behind your head and turn around.”

The cop’s partner stood off to the side. Alert. Tense.

“Michelle Angelique,” the first officer said, cuffing her, “you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Jerome Johnson.”

“What happened to Jerome? I didn’t do anything to any Jerome.”

A rat bastard coward, and a snitch. Now he’s really gonna pay.

While the cashier stood wide-eyed and dumbfounded, mouth slightly open, Michelle turned to her and said, “My friend—she’s a short, pretty girl with skin color close to mine, wearing a fancy party dress. She’ll be down here looking for me. Do me a favor: please tell her what happened here. Can you do that for me?”

Eyes still as wide as saucers, the cashier nodded. “I’ll make sure she gets the message,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Enough of that,” the cop said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

M
ichelle spent over an hour alone in the interrogation room, when finally one of the arresting officers entered. She ran her hand over the scarred tabletop and made a show of sniffing. “Don’t you guys ever clean this place? It stinks like a third world restroom.”

“Get used to it. That’s the smell of incarceration. Something you’ll know all about very soon.”

“I doubt it. But,
do tell
, what the fuck makes you think so?”

“Do you admit to knowing Jerome Johnson?”

“Sure, if it’s the Jerome who’s hooking up with my friend Deja. Yeah, I’ve met him. Can’t say that I actually know him.”

“Yeah, him. He says you came in his house and shot him. Said you were cool and calm the whole time. Told us you shot him three times.”

The cops who’d arrested her were partners—one Black, the other White. The White cop did the interview.

“Jerome, the guy who’s over six feet tall? The one who’s lived in the hood all his life? Grew up here scrapping with the other guys? That Jerome?”

“Did you shoot him?”

“He’s a big, strong man. I’m an average-sized woman. Do I look like I could walk in his place and shoot him? That’s crazy.”

“He said you shot him over something between you and his woman. Are you a dyke and pissed that he’s doing your girl?”

“You’re a fucking moron. You know that, right?”

“Did you shoot him?”

“No, I didn’t shoot him. I want my attorney.”

“Are you sure about that? We might be able to make a deal before your attorney gets involved.”

Michelle nodded at the camera in the corner. “Your partner watching?”

“Are you ready to make a deal?”

“Here’s the deal: I have a medical condition that makes me prone to bladder infections, so I have to make frequent use of the restroom.”

“That bullshit won’t fly here,” the cop said. “Hold it.”

“Your partner gets a woman in here within the next three minutes to take me to the bathroom, or I’m dropping my pants and pissing on the floor. My attorney will charge you with anything that goes with denying me the medical necessity of relieving myself. And she’ll add charges for making me do it in front of you, and on camera. Now, give me my phone so I can call my attorney, and send in an escort to take me to the bathroom.”

At those words, a woman in a blazer stepped into the room. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “You’re not under arrest. You can go to the restroom on your own.”

“Thank you,” Michelle said. “I want to call my attorney immediately.”

“Of course.” The woman looked up at the camera. “Give her what she needs.”

Outside of the interrogation room, Michelle talked to her attorney for several minutes, then switched over to speaker, walked up to the detective’s desk, and held her phone out in front of her. “Can you hear me?” she asked.

“Very well,” a female voice came from the phone.

“Excuse me, detective. What was your name?” Michelle asked.

“Detective Gerard.”

“Detective, my attorney would like to speak to your lieutenant. I assume she was the woman who I spoke with earlier?”

Detective Gerard glowered. “Not gonna happen.”

“Detective Gerard,” said the voice on the phone, “do I need to come down there and make this personal, or will you do the smart thing and let me speak to your lieutenant?”

The lieutenant stood in her office door, listening to the conversation. “I’ll take that in here. Miss Angelique, please sit outside.” Then she pointed to Gerard and his partner. “Detectives, in here with me.”

* * *

“L
et her go,” the lieutenant said.

“Christ-a-mighty, Lou—she’s as guilty as sin! Our guy positively identified her as the one who shot him three times. Even told us how she did it. The doc says the wounds are consistent with his story, which, by the way, scared the shit out of me. That is one cold-blooded bitch.”

“Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but the DA won’t file. She has a rock-solid alibi. She was in New York on a work assignment, for Christ’s sake. Airline tickets, hotel receipts, signatures on official city government dockets—all legitimate. Her attorney says she can produce several credible witnesses—good people, like government workers who’ll remember her being in their offices every day for over a week. She can get librarians at NYU and taxi drivers, to name a few. Forget it. Hell, we don’t even have enough to hold her overnight on suspicion. The evidence says she’s innocent.”

“She had plenty of time to fly back and do it.”

“Do you have any record of her flying back? A gun? Any prints? Anything other than this jerk-off’s word?”

“Nothing we can find. She could have flown under a fake name.”

“Listen to yourself. This isn’t a Jason Bourne spy movie. The whole thing sounds made up, like it came out of an afternoon soap opera. Who shoots a guy, and then makes him drive to the hospital? We’re talking about a lowlife who probably got shot by somebody’s husband, and now he’s trying to put it on some woman he’s pissed at. Maybe she won’t sleep with him. Maybe she’s a dyke and she’s taking one of his girls away. I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do care about is that you’ve got nothing.”

“I’ve got a witness,” the cop protested.

“You’ve got shit,” the lieutenant said. “You’ve got the word of a no-count, unemployed punk. She’s an upstanding, hardworking woman with no record and a solid alibi. So far, you can’t prove anything else. Bring me some proof she flew back and shot his ass. Until then, we’re done. Cut her loose.”

“Okay, Lou, but I feel it in my bones. She did it.”

“Fine, take your bones and get some real proof,” the lieutenant said. “And you’d better make it good. I mean, air-friggin-tight, or it won’t fly. You’ve got an asswipe from the hood who lives off of women and he claims she shot him. The jury will hate him. Hell, I hate him. She’s everybody’s dream defendant: orphaned at sixteen, with a big brother who was a banger but took care of his little sister for a few years, until he was killed in a bad drug deal. Still, she gets out of the hood, has a good, respectable job, and stays clean. The D.A. already loves her. Any jury will love her.”

“I hear you, but I don’t like it.”

“Whatever. Cut her loose.”

* * *

A
t the lieutenant’s request, Michelle agreed to have the detectives return her to the hospital, but the Black detective, Glover, drove past the turn.

“Why aren’t I surprised?” Michelle said. “We’re not going back to the hospital, are we? Where are you taking me?”

“Shut up. Just sit back there and be quiet.”

What’s this about? Not Jerome, that’s for sure. What, then?

A few minutes later, they were in an isolated area deep inside Parkway Cemetery, where Gerard opened the cruiser’s back door and motioned to Michelle.

“Get out,” he said.

Michelle glanced around. As she expected, there was no one close enough to hear her if she shouted. “This is very interesting. A cemetery? Are you guys trying to make a statement or something?”

“We know you did Jerome,” Glover said, “but we don’t much care about him. More importantly, we think you’re involved with the triple homicide that happened last night on the 405, but we don’t know how. And that pisses us off. You want to know why?”

“No, I don’t care what pisses you off,” Michelle said, though she seriously
did
want to know what pissed off these cops. These two were operating on their own, outside of the official rules, and she needed to find out what they wanted. “Piss on you being pissed off. Doesn’t mean squat to me.”

“We’re pissed, because two of them were the nephews of a man named Jackson. He has juice in our city, and he’ll want us to deal with their killer. That means extra work. We don’t like extra work.”

Michelle stayed quiet. The longer she did, the more others would fill in the silence. Gerard didn’t disappoint.

“While we checked your alibi on Jerome, we also checked over at the hospital. Your friends swear you were with them all night, which means exactly shit. But, several of the staff remember you being there all night, so maybe you didn’t do it. But you’re involved somehow. We also heard about why you were at the hospital: apparently you and your friend with the busted nose were in a fight with one of the men who was killed. We just can’t figure out how you’re involved with the killings. Not yet. Give it a minute and we will.”