Ain't Your Bitch (Interracial Urban Erotica)(172)

The response came seconds later.

That's a damn shame. You want to catch something to eat?

Roy had woken beside her with all the shifting around she was doing, and  had promptly looked at the clock and slid out of bed and started to  pull on the clothes he'd worn there.

"You have time to get back to your room and change clothes?"

"I have plenty of time, sure."

"Good. I would hate to think you'd be uncomfortable on my account."

"No trouble. Who's that?"

"It's him."

"What's he saying?"

She typed in a response as she spoke. "Wants to meet."

Sure, but I need to catch a shower first.

"And you?"

"Of course I'm going, Roy. It's a risk, sure, but that doesn't mean I  can afford to stop doing any of this. At least now I know that he's  playing me. I can start to think about what I'm doing strategically,  too. I can start to figure out what the right decisions are, not based  on assuming that he's your run-of-the-mill scumbag, but assuming that  he's making moves. Smart ones, at that."

"Well, he's at least not making dumb calls, that's to be sure."

"Compared to little old me?"

"Compared to you, he's a genius." Roy gave her an expression of  sarcastic disgust. Jamelia responded with mock hurt. "You're doing fine.  Keep in touch, okay? I don't want you to get hurt out there, but I'm  not going to stop you. Just make sure that you don't do anything  drastic. We can't protect you if you go John McClane on the guy."

Her phone buzzed. "Of course. I'm not an idiot, you know."

"I know. But it bears repeating either way. Just don't get hurt, and don't go too far. That's all I'm asking from you."

He gave her an address. I'll be there in 30 minutes. See you.

She texted back her agreement.

"I'll do my best."

"That's all anyone can ask."

Roy opened the door and blew a kiss back at her. She felt the weight of  the words neither of them had said. She had to shower and get dressed,  now, or she was going to end up going to breakfast smelling like sex.

She stepped under the water and let the water run off her back. She  enjoyed the heat, but she hadn't taken long, luxurious showers since she  was a girl. The capacity had been bred out of her by a life of taking  quick showers. She let herself enjoy the heat by giving herself six  minutes instead of four. She stepped out after five.         

     



 

She was past the seduction with Craig. Three times in four days would  have been a good effort for anyone. But more than that, she didn't have  to worry about him dropping her like a hot potato. As far as he was  concerned, she was on the hook. She was the prey, and he the hunter.  He'd be as surprised as anyone when things turned out not to be that  way.

She decided on a sweater and jeans. She remembered dimly that these  clothes, specifically, were actually the first normal thing that Roy had  seen her in. The thought made her smile. What a strange pattern she was  working with.

One of the men making a mess of her emotions had seen her at her worst  and decided, it seemed, that she was worth spending a little time with.  The other, she'd forced herself on, only to discover that he was looking  for her the whole time. She was being played by him, instead, or so he  would have his fellow gang members believe.

Where one had only seen her blossom when she got back home, the other  would be seeing her shrivel just a bit. What sort of effect would that  have? She was interested in finding out, even if she wasn't remotely  sure yet.

She was out the door fifteen minutes after Craig's last text and at the  address with three minutes to spare. It wasn't a restaurant, which was  surprising. It was a laundromat. There was a Mexican place across the  street, though, that she'd driven past a few times. Would they even be  open this early in the morning? Or was this part of the play?

She waited a while to find out. Five minutes passed with nothing to discuss. A few people went in, but nothing that stuck out.

Almost half an hour to the minute after he sent the text, a truck pulled  up. The guy in the front seat had a Twins cap pulled low on his face.  She could see that he had sharp features and a long nose, but not much  beyond that with the tint in the windows.

It was a Chevy, light blue with a white stripe all around the sides.  Could have been any car, for certain. But the guy got out, and she got a  better look at him, right in time for her phone to buzz.

I gave you the wrong address, my bad.

She knew that wasn't the case. She'd been put there to see what she'd  just seen. She wasn't going to take the bait, not completely. But she  took a slow pass behind the back of the truck, long enough to write down  the license plate.

So where am I supposed to go?

He sent another address, a few miles away. She pulled out into the  street and started going. She had a text off to Roy with the license  plate number before she arrived. She wasn't going to pursue it, but that  didn't mean that nobody was going to.

He was certainly the guy that they'd heard described in the killing, and  that meant he had to come in. If Craig had his way, no doubt the guy  would be dead by morning. The fact that he could call the man's location  thirty minutes out meant that he knew something that they didn't.  Possibly even that the man, now in the laundromat., didn't know.

Someone was pulling his strings, telling him where to be and when, and  that meant that though it had certainly been his hand on the knife,  someone else was responsible for the murders of those girls. All those  women and, though it was embarrassing to admit-she should have been  objective, cared about all of them equally-most important of all, her  sister.





Twenty-Eight



"Sorry about the trouble."

She already had a cup of coffee waiting for her. Black, no sugar. She  wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about him being presumptuous  enough to order for her, but the idea fit him more than she wanted to  admit.

"What trouble?"

"I sent the wrong address."

"Oh, no problem. It happens."

"I hope you didn't drive all the way out there."

"I was running a few minutes behind," she lied. "So I was still driving when I got your text."

He smiled at the waitress, who brought two plates with pancakes stacked  higher than was absolutely prudent and set one down in front of her.

"You know you shouldn't text and drive, don't you? It's dangerous. You could get pulled over."

"Bad habit, I know. I've been working on it, though. Hopefully I can stop myself being so foolish in the future."

"Make sure you do," he joked. "Or else. You might be arrested."

He was teasing her with the fact that he knew something that he thought  she didn't. Too bad for him that she knew exactly what he was joking  about.

"I wouldn't want to have to go into a police station." She faked a  shiver, and then a real one took over an instant later. "They seem so  scary from the outside. You ever been in one?"

"Once or twice. I used to be a very aggressive jaywalker."

"Oh yeah? They arrest you for jaywalking?"

Craig made an exaggerated expression of uncertainty. "Well, there may have been other circumstances."

"So now the truth comes out, does it?"

"What? I'm shocked. I'd never try to hide anything from you, Jamelia."

"No, I don't imagine you would." She gave him a smile that could have flavored a milkshake.

"So someone broke in to your apartment? Sounds scary."

"When it's not you, you mean?"

"Well that goes without saying. When I do it, it's because you liked it."

"Ah. How obvious."

"I hope nobody was hurt."

"I'm alright," she answered. She would keep playing as close to the  truth as she could, as long as she could, until things looked like they  weren't going to keep working that way.

"The guy who broke in, did you see him?"

"No, I was asleep. I just woke up to find the chain on my door busted in and someone had gone through my stuff."

Craig let out a low whistle. "Scary. You could have gotten really badly hurt if the guy was looking to do some damage."

"I know. It just keeps going through my head, like-what if he'd brought a  gun? What if he'd decided to-" she blinked and let out a long breath.  "You know, like … "

"Oh Jesus, I hadn't even thought of that." Craig took another bite of  the slightly-too-high pancake stack and poured more syrup in to fill the  hole he'd made.

"I know. It didn't occur to me at first, either. I was just thankful,  you know, he didn't steal my computer, or my TV, or anything, and then I  just got to thinking about how bad it could have been."

"Yeah, I see why you wouldn't want to stay there any more. You could always stay at my place, though, if you want."

"I couldn't impose, though."

"It wouldn't be any sort of imposition."

She repeated herself a little more firmly. "I couldn't. I need my own space."

"The place isn't small, you know. There would be plenty of space for you."