Ain't Your Bitch (Interracial Urban Erotica)(169)

Accidents happened, sure. But they didn't happen when you were careful  and smart about what you were doing. Now, though-she had been careful.  She might have been smarter, but with a .38, the odds of blowing  straight through and hurting a civilian were slim.

She'd decided to kill the guy, and there he was. Dead on the floor. Roy  was saying something to her, but she wasn't listening. The instant she'd  pulled the trigger kept playing through her head in slow motion. Maybe  she would have been fine. Maybe he was just there to talk. Did she have  the right to shoot a man for breaking in, not knowing what he would do?

If she had waited, and she hadn't been safe, wouldn't she have been able  to deal with that when the need arose? Maybe not. Jamelia knew the odds  of beating someone in a quick-draw weren't good. Even if you had the  gun already in your hands, you still had to worry about aiming in a  high-stress situation. It wasn't a situation she would have wanted to  put herself in.         

     



 

But that didn't mean she had the right to kill the guy, not even if he was a murdering son of a bitch.

More than that, though, the only play she'd made, the only information  she had outside of what Craig had chosen to give her, was gone now. Ryan  something-or-other, suspected in the murder of a young twenty-something  with dark hair from Maine under a false name, was the only link that  she'd been able to make on her own.

Well, now they weren't going to be able to question him, were they?

She heard the uniform asking her a question and asked him to repeat it. "Is this firearm registered?"

"Yes."

"Good." He ejected the magazine and counted off the ammunition. Five  shots left out of seven. She watched him with a detached interest. The  mechanical actions made sense to her. It was what she would have done.  If a detective were to show up, which they might not waste one on, then  the guy would tell him.

The detective probably would believe him, but it wouldn't stop him from  checking. The uniform slid the magazine back into the gun and put it  back where he'd found it close enough.

"You going to be okay, Detective Russo?"

She nodded absently. Too much was going on. Too many questions that she  didn't have answers to, too many things she didn't want to think or  worry about.

Roy crouched down in front of her, forced her to look him in the eyes.  "Russo. You're fine. We'll pull this guy's prints, and get them going in  a database. We'll be able to have his full name before long."

"Good," she said, but she didn't feel up to it. Why were they still  talking about this? What in the hell was she doing here? Shouldn't they  have taken her into the station?

"You'll need to stay in a hotel a few days."

"Okay."

The place exploded with activity as the EMTs arrived. They weren't in  any sort of hurry, knowing that the guy was dead and all, but it didn't  stop the place from being far too small for six people walking around  it.

"You're fine. I know this isn't going to count for much, Jamelia, but  you didn't do anything wrong, okay? If you need to talk to anyone, you  have my number. I'll follow you to your hotel, and then I have to get  back to work. Don't you hesitate to call if something happens. We still  on for tonight?"

She didn't know. She was too tired and too scared to make decisions like  that. Her head hurt and all she wanted was to sleep. But she was afraid  that going back to sleep would just show her images of what had just  happened. She didn't say any of that.

Instead, she nodded.

Roy gave her one last long, uncertain look before he put a hand on her knee and stood up.

"You're going to be alright, Jamelia. Trust me. You're going to be just  fine, okay? Don't worry about anything. We'll look into this guy, and  we'll find out who he works for. Who he works for, and any other  information we can get ahold of."

"Thank you," she said softly. She wasn't sure it was right to be  thanking him for any of this. Was he taking it easy on her because of  what had happened between them?

"Don't mention it."

She took a deep breath and let herself sit back a second before getting  up to follow him down to her Jeep. She didn't feel up to driving, right  now. But sometimes you had to do things you didn't want to do.

She'd learned that a long time ago, and had it hammered home almost  every morning for years. Now it was little more than automatic.





Twenty-Four



Dinner was a quiet affair. The hotel was quiet, too, but dinner was  quieter somehow. As if being along had produced its own sort of sound,  and now that Jamelia was together with someone else, unsure of what to  say or how to act now that she was a killer, it was gone. All that was  left was the feeling of uncertainty.

Was this how her sister had felt, in those final moments? Alone and  afraid and like there's nothing in the world that can really touch you  any more? Even as the knife went in, did she think that it didn't matter  that it hurt any more?

Jamelia could see the expressions on Roy's face. The uncertainty, the  questions that he didn't want to ask. He was worried about her, and she  had to admit that maybe he should be. Maybe something was wrong with  her. No, she thought. Not maybe. Something was certainly wrong with her.

But she didn't know how to make it go away. She was being used by Craig,  and now that had come back to ruin her. It all came back to her  sister's death.

What had her sister died for? To send a message? Or had she died for  real, and she had just played into Craig's hand? That was the reason she  was doing any of this. She needed to get revenge for Becca. But now  things were going to far, too fast, and Jamelia was fighting for any air  she could get.

Roy asked something that she didn't quite hear.

"What?"

"Is your food good?"

She looked down at a steak she hadn't realized she had already eaten  half of. The whole thing had been too mechanical, too mindless. She was  stuck inside her head, stuck with the thoughts and doubts that she  wanted nothing more than to be rid of.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Jamelia, are you okay?"

She thought for a moment about telling Roy all about what she had been  thinking, about what she was so upset about. But that wouldn't have  helped. She needed reassurance, but she needed it from the outside. From  someone who wasn't just telling her what she wanted to hear. More than  that, she needed something real that wasn't going to be over as soon as  the trail dried up or her sister's murderer was caught.

She dropped her fork unintentionally, her unsteady fingers just unable  to keep closed around the neck of it. She grabbed it again, too hard,  staring as if her vision could melt the steel in her hands if she wanted  it badly enough.

Craig's hand on hers came out of nowhere.

"Jamelia, I need you to talk to me."

"What's the point?"

"The point of what?"

"Of anything. This. Why are we at this dinner?"

"You have to eat some time, don't you?"

"Why me? There are girls in Virginia, aren't there?"

Roy shrugged. "Why anyone? I don't have a good reason. There are girls  in Virginia. Probably even cops, unless the other agents are all pulling  a big prank on me by stuffing their bras."

She looked at him flatly, ignoring the joke. "So why me? You're just  going to leave, and I'm going to be left here. With nothing. Just  another job. Only family left in the world is my father, and he-"

Jamelia stopped herself. It never helped to talk about Dad. It made  situations uglier. It made things worse. Made her worse. Talking about  him was the absolute last thing that she wanted to do, but there she'd  almost gone off and opened that can of worms.

"What happened, Jamelia?"

"It was a long time ago, and I don't want to talk about it."

"It seems like you're still pretty upset by it, though. Are you sure it wouldn't help to talk about it?"

"No. I don't want to talk about it and I'm not going to. Drop it, okay?"

Roy's look was almost disappointed, but he nodded. "Consider it dropped."

"Good."

Jamelia took another bite of the steak. It was good, now that she was  paying attention. It wasn't as hot as it had been when it came out of  the kitchen, but it still had plenty of warmth, so it didn't taste like  she was biting into day-old shoe leather.

"Do you want to do anything after dinner? Catch a movie? Anything like that?"

Jamelia didn't particularly want to do much of anything, but it wasn't  anywhere near time that she could go to sleep. She shrugged instead.

"Anything you wanted to see in particular?"

She didn't answer. He must have been noticing by now, the way she'd been  acting. But she couldn't stop herself. She was making a spectacle of  herself, acting like a child, but she couldn't stop herself in spite of  knowing what she was doing was absurd and wrong.

"Jamelia, hey. We don't have to if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine. I just-"

"If you don't want to talk about it here, I understand. We can talk about it in the car, if it would help."