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Authors: Leslie Esdaile Banks

BOOK: Shattered Trust
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There was no need to run; a cup of coffee was in his future. It was a clean kill that would no doubt be attributed to a gang drive-by shooting that had gone wrong on an impoverished street. Doing jobs in neighborhoods like this was so easy that he almost felt guilty for taking payments for them ... almost.
But when he spotted his car, he froze. Pure rage hastened his steps. The trunk was popped open, the passenger's side window had a small hole in it, and the door was ajar. He bit down on his lip to keep from yelling in frustration. Now he'd have to take the bus or the subway in order not to risk a car theft as a getaway. The equipment could be replaced, but the information in his bag could not—at least not immediately, not without questions from his employer, not without the major inconvenience of ditching the old identity for a new one. Fucking junkies. He hated these animals. No morals.
 
 
Laura jumped up from the edge of the bed and grabbed her purse, desperately trying to get to her cell phone before it rolled over to voice mail.
She didn't recognize the number, but pressed her ear to the phone regardless.
“Hello.”
“You don't know me,” a strange male voice said. “But Brother Akhan gave me this number for emergencies. This qualifies, sis.”
“What's happened?” Laura breathed out.
“Write down this tag number,” the voice replied flatly.
She immediately snatched paper and a pen from her bag and waited.
“You good?” the young male voice asked.
“Yes. Go.”
She scribbled down the number she'd been given, along with the state licensure and rental car agency. “Is he all right?” she asked, nearly holding her breath.
“Yeah. He's cool. But he said you'd know what to do with the stash we got. Can't keep it on us.”
“What is it?”
“Not on the phone.”
Her fingers clutched the small credit-card-sized unit against her cheek. “You have to tell me something,” she said through her teeth, “because where I tell you to drop it will depend on what it is.”
A long sigh filled the receiver, and then information began to pour into it so fast and so furiously that her jaw went slack.
Laura squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “I know this is the last place you'd trust, but I need you to listen to me carefully. If Akhan trusted you to give you my number, I need you to trust me—then when you're done, clear my number out of your cell for your own safety. Got it?”
“Aw'ight. Lay it on me, sis.”
“Go down to the roundhouse and take this to Captain—”
“Po po! What are you, sick?”
“Give the contents to a same-day bicycle courier service in Philly. Use the name James Carter as the sender. Mark the contents ‘urgent,' and do as I say. That's all I can tell you right now. I'm going to give you the name of a police captain that we can trust. Just do it.”
There was a hesitation. “If this gets fucked up and the old man gets hurt, sis, I'll find your ass and come looking for you myself.”
“Thank you,” Laura said quietly.
“You better know I ain't playing, and don't thank me for doing this stupid bullshit until I make up my mind that I'ma go there. Hear?”
“I'm not thanking you for the delivery. I'm thanking you for coming after me if Akhan gets hurt. Now I know for sure that you're legit.” Laura sent her gaze toward the bedroom door when James came into view. “So, I'll say it again so you'll hear me,” she added with emphasis and then gave him the name. “
Thank you
.”
Another hard exhale filled the receiver. “Aw'ight. I hear you. I'm out.” Then the call went dead.
“Talk to me, Laura,” James said, eyeing her. “What was that all about?”
She stood and began pacing, telling him all that she'd heard as she made a slow, disoriented loop back and forth between the window and the bed.
“That was the thing to tell him, wasn't it?”
James nodded. “It was.”
“Fill in Steve and the rest of the crew,” she said, not looking at him as she gazed out the window. She waited for James to make the call and to verbally download all that she'd just explained.
“So now we know,” she whispered once he'd hung up. “We aren't just paranoid.”
“Correction,” he muttered. “We're paranoid, but with good reason.”
 
 
“I thought this was all over,” Donald Haines, Jr., said quietly as he sat in his mother's new waterfront condo.
Elizabeth Haines continued to hug her body as she stared out the large picture window. She couldn't even turn around to face him as he sat stunned on the sofa awaiting a response. Her son had aged; his handsome face now hosted lines from the strain. His once brilliant blue eyes now always held a haunted shadow within them, like hers did. She'd never wanted any of the horrors of her or her husband's political lives of intrigue to touch him, but it had. Her dead husband's business affairs and tangled web of political favors and back-scratching had shattered their lives. Donald had left her practically nothing, even the house that they'd built had been bargained out from under her as his last laugh in the will.
But none of the carnage that resulted made any sense. The Mafia had received their pound of flesh; their casino charters and construction contracts for the new gaming houses coming to the state of Pennsylvania had all been preserved. Her ex-lover, a once renowned doctor, was behind bars for a very long time for Donald's actual murder, and her son's ex-lover was also safely put away for his complicit role on the travesty.
A slight shudder passed through her as she remembered how narrowly she'd escaped the same fate. Who would be foolish enough to want to stir up that awful nightmare again? Even for vengeance?
“Mother ... are you all right?” Donny asked quietly, standing and going to her.
Who would kill the senator and his son? What purpose would that offer?
She embraced him slowly, filling his arms. “No,” she whispered, a hundred thoughts attacking her mind at once. “After all of this, how can you or I ever be all right?”
He hugged her tightly and nodded. “I know.”
She stroked his back, gleaning as much comfort from him as he gave, and laid her head on his slight shoulder. “Have you spoken to Alan?” she asked in a careful murmur, almost afraid to open the wound that made her dear son bleed.
She felt him tense, and then he drew away from her.
“No. That's finished,” Donny said through a thick swallow. “Why would I call or write him in prison after all he did to me ... to us ... to our family? That would be like me asking if you've been in contact with—”
“I know, I know,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Don't be cross. I only asked because I'm trying to fathom who we might know that would be ruthless enough to murder someone ... trying to understand and work it all out in my mind, who might have been in business with the senator and his son, and only those two are likely. That is the only reason I mentioned it, and will never breathe their names again.”
She watched her son rake his hair in agitation and then finally sit. “They can't reach us or anyone we know from where they are. I don't think.”
They both stared at each other.
“That's just the point, my beloved. And be honest, it ran through your mind like it has run through mine ... you've thought about it.”
He nodded after a moment. Her refined, blue blood stature was disorienting as he thought about the ruthlessness it concealed. Her fit, trim frame ensconced in a chartreuse designer cardigan, a strand of pearls gracing her throat, and her elegant crepe wool winter white slacks covering still shapely legs, made him wonder how she could have done all that she had. Her hair was pulled back in a neat, blond chignon, and yet her exterior beauty would always be marred for him by what he knew her capable of.
“And don't forget, mother dearest,” he said, his voice now brittle, “you also were involved in trying to do the same—murder my father. But the fact that you didn't is the only reason you and I are even having a conversation today.”
She turned slowly back to the window and stared out at the Delaware River. “I should have known that your visit wasn't to merely check on me, but to look into my eyes while asking if I was involved.”
“Then turn around and look me in the eyes and tell me. Were you?”
She glanced at him over her shoulder and set her jaw hard. “No.”
Again, they simply stared at each other for a moment.
“You and I are so much alike, and you are your father's spitting image. Donald used to handle me like this.” She turned away and continued to gaze out the window. “I suppose once trust is shattered, it's like fine bone china that can never be repaired. I never expected this from my son.”
He stood to leave, and picked up his London Fog raincoat, folding it over his arm. “But that I still love you as my mother is something. That is all I have left to give you.”
She nodded and fought the tears, but never turned as he walked away. “Right now, that I will cling to. Thank you.”
There was no answer, just the gentle close of the door.
Chapter 5
L
aura stood inside the small airport with her family waiting for her uncle, her mind whirring. The brightly dressed tourists and returning natives of that land provided stark contrasts within the clean, brightly lit two-story building. Everything around her seemed to be moving in slow motion. Instinctively she knew customs agents would be leisurely stamping documents to admit people to the country. Baggage handlers would take their time in the island heat to throw luggage up on the huge conveyor belts. Mini-vans would take their sweet time to herd tourists into hotel shuttles. Red caps and families would greet weary travelers and usher them to a rented or owned car. Where was Akhan?
When he finally emerged from a new throng of tourists, she hung back to allow Najira and Jamal to rush up to him first. Calmly, she entered the family reunion, so relieved to see the old man that it took her a moment to release James's arm to go to him, lest she keel over.
Wearing only a backpack as his luggage to complement his traditional uniform of African print garb, sandals and socks, a crocheted knit cap, and an exhausted expression, he greeted her warmly with a tired embrace.
“Thank you, Laura,” he said just above a whisper. “We should go.”
Making cursory acknowledgement of James and Steve, Akhan set his line of vision forward toward the exit, and kept his gaze sweeping as they walked to the parked vehicles. Only once he was safely tucked inside Laura and James's car like a diplomat, did he close his eyes, breathe a sigh of relief, and begin to temporarily relax.
“What happened?” Laura asked, turning to peer at her elderly uncle over the seat.
She glanced at James, who kept his eyes forward on the road, but had glimpsed Akhan in the rearview mirror, like a professional limo driver.
“They're coming for us,” Akhan stated flatly.
“Who?” Laura waited, and watched her uncle rub the stubble on his jaw.
“I don't know. There are so many possibilities. The question of ‘why,' is moot. We have ruffled a lot of feathers over the years, Laura.”
“Then, let's focus on the most likely candidates—namely those who have an unsettled debt and the resources to see that it's collected.”
Akhan chuckled. “Again, that would be many.”
Laura dragged her fingers through her hair, knowing just how right the old man was. “We follow the money, then.”
Akhan's smile broadened. “Again, Laura—”
“I know, I know,” she said, growing frustrated. “That's a lot of sources.”
“So, you two figured out how you're gonna break this to Pops?” Jamal said, clearly taking delight in Steve and Najira's case of nerves.
Najira spun in her seat, straining the seatbelt while Steve kept his eyes straight ahead on the road, his jaw tight.
“Nooooo, and don't start no signifying mess when we get to Laura's, okay? Dad has been through a lot of drama, he's elderly, exhausted, and ran out of his home to come here like a refugee—so don't start no shit, Jamal.”
Jamal raised both hands in front of his chest, laughing. “Yo, I was only asking, because sooner or later he's gonna figure out the deal. Thought it might be best if you hit him with it straight, instead of playing games. You know Pop.”
Najira turned around and slumped in her seat without responding.
“If it's gonna be a problem,” Steve said quietly, I can maybe go crash at Laura and James's place ... until this gets sorted out.”
“Yeah,” Jamal chimed in, uninvited. “Pop beat getting shot, dealt with a mad-crazy flight, and whoever knows what else. No sense in giving him a heart attack now that he's safe.”
“Oh, shut up, Jamal,” Najira practically yelled. “It's gonna be fine. Besides, there are much more important things to worry about than all of that. Just let it alone.”
Steve discreetly reached over and squeezed her hand. “First things first. Let your Dad settle in, get his bearings, calm down, we develop a strategy—then you two can talk ... only when the time is right. I'm cool with it.”
Najira nodded and stared out the passenger window as everyone fell silent for the rest of the ride home.
 
 
When both vehicles pulled up into Laura and James's driveway, by instinct James and Steve jumped out first and cased the house. No one had to be informed of the process, it went like clockwork. Each person knew their roles, who would stay, who would get out, and when to move once the coast was called clear.
A nod from James once the house had been swept made Laura climb out and assist her uncle, while Jamal took up his father's backpack. The fivesome trudged into the house like soldiers, and headed for the real meeting room—the kitchen. Akhan sat and the others slowly joined the table with him. Laura found water, fresh juice, and fruit to place before Akhan, already knowing he had to be hungry, tired, and, at his age, in need of immediate attention to his physical being. Once Akhan had begun to refuel his body, Laura turned on the teakettle and waited.
“I have a guest room all ready for you, some fresh towels, and in the nightstand you'll find something to make you feel safe.”
Laura glanced at James as Akhan searched her face.
“Glock nine-millimeter,” James said flatly. “Clip is in it, safety on. I'll do a quick run-through on how to use it, once you've showered.”
“Thank you,” Akhan said quietly, and then briefly closed his eyes.
It was in that moment that Laura realized just how shaken her uncle had been. Never a complainer, and always seeming to have a steely handle on all circumstances, her uncle had been terrified for the first time she'd ever witnessed in her life. Just his quiet expulsion of air, the way his shoulders dropped with relief to be in safe company, her house a haven, unnerved her, because what if it wasn't.
All eyes were on him, as though each person in the room had come to the same conclusion at the same moment. New tension filled their expressions, as though it had been silently transferred from Akhan to everyone else in a matter of telepathic seconds.
Najira glimpsed Steve from the corner of her eye, which brought her father's attention first to her, and then it settled on Steve.
“Welcome to the family,” Akhan said calmly, taking a slow sip of his juice.
Steve simply stared at him. No one spoke. Akhan didn't smile or avert his eyes, but set his glass down very precisely.
“At my age, one becomes very philosophical,” the elderly man said, his tone neutral. “One may be old, but do not assume blindness.”
“Dad, see—”
Akhan held up his hand, stopping Najira's words while everyone else held their breath. “No need to explain. I saw it at Laura's wedding.” He nodded toward Steve, who gave a quick, nervous nod back. Akhan's gaze slid to James. “He was your partner for years, watched your back, and stood as your best man. I take that as an endorsement from a man whom I respect.”
James nodded. “We go back a lotta years, and dude's always been righteous.”
Akhan nodded, sighed, and pushed back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. He then looked at Jamal. “My son hung with you, has been living with his sister for a year or so now.” He kept his penetrating gaze on Jamal. “My son, like me, has good discernment in character—a necessary thing for survival in the streets. There would have been a falling-out, if things were not as they should be. Jamal is still here, therefore I can only assume that things are correct.”
“Yeah, Pop,” Jamal said quickly, glancing at the others. “It's all good.”
Akhan again nodded, and then turned his attention on Laura. “With all that is at stake, and all the unspoken business that must be conducted, I know my dear niece would not have you as a part of her inner circle, if you could not be trusted. Of all those I know, Laura is the shrewdest most skilled strategist.”
He let his gaze linger on Laura. Warmth and pride filled her at the most profound compliment her uncle had given her. Yet it also sent a chill through her, as his small speech had the ring of a eulogy to it—someone unburdening his spirit so he could make his peace and go home to glory.
“He's been with us since it all started,” Laura said, resting her hand on Akhan's shoulder.
Akhan briefly covered the touch with a rough hewn palm and then both their hands fell away. He fixed his gaze on Najira, who was looking down, until her eyes met his.
“Daughter ... he makes your eyes smile and also become shy. He has the endorsement of those I most cherish and trust in the world. Why wouldn't you come to me and let me know? Haven't I always taught you that a house united will stand, a house divided will fall?”
She nodded, her eyes glistening with myriad emotions, and that's when Akhan finally smiled.
“Then, given what we have to face, I thought it best to go into the challenges united. We do not have time for old prejudices to divide what has become our house.” Akhan looked up at Steve's stricken expression. “Ashé?”
Steve nodded, still seeming unsure.
“You pass inspection,” Akhan said with a soft chuckle. “Laura, make some tea. We pour some libations to honor the ancestors and call it a day. I'm tired.”
“Just like that, Pop? You cool?” Jamal, incredulous, stood and walked to the stove to make tea, when Laura's legs couldn't push her to stand fast enough.
“At my age, you don't waste time. You observe, accept or decline, and then move on. I accept.”
Steve almost toppled Akhan's juice and water glasses, quickly reaching over the table to shake his hand. “I'm not playing games with her, sir, and will do right by her.”
Akhan shook Steve's hand and chuckled. “I know, because otherwise I'd have to kill you.”
James looked away and swallowed a smile, as his partner sat back very slowly and raked his hair. Laura was on her feet.
“Uhmmm, why don't I show you to the shower, and I'll make some broiled fish and something more substantial for you to eat—the fruit was just to take the edge off.”
Akhan stood slowly with a wry smile. “Yes ... and then James can show me the fine points of how to use his gun.”
No one said a word as Akhan and Laura left the room. They just simply stared after them, rendered mute.
 
 
“You all right, man?” James said, landing a heavy hand on Steve's shoulders.
Steve rubbed his palms down his face and blew out a long breath. “Oh ... shit ...”
“Yeah,” Jamal said, fixing a cup of tea to take into the next room. “Pop don't play. But once you're in, you're in, unless you do something to fuck that up.” Jamal glanced at Najira. “He means what he says. He will shoot your ass, if you yank my sister around.”
Najira grasped Steve's hand and squeezed it hard, glaring at Jamal. “He's not like that, and you know it.”
“I feel you. I'm just saying.”
“All right, y'all,” James said, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. “Crisis number two for the day averted. Let the old man sip his tea in his room, eat, get some shut-eye, and then we've gotta make some decisions on how to move forward.”
A vibration on James's hip made him open his eyes, sit forward, and bring his cell phone to his ear. All eyes were on him as he took the call.
“Yeah, Cap. Good to hear from you. What's up?”
“Got a delivery of some really interesting equipment, with ID that hit a brick wall when we tried to do a database search on it.”
“What kind of brick wall?” James said, cautiously.
“A
federal
brick wall,” Cap replied, lowering his voice. “A you-do-not-want-to-fuck-with-this brick wall.”
“Then you know that me and Laura ain't in it, right?”
A long silence filled the receiver.
“My hunch as a detective says you're clean,” Cap finally replied.
“You got anybody local that can do a hack, on the DL?”
“Maybe,” Cap said, not committing.
“You already did it, didn't you?”
Nervous laughter filled the receiver.
“Call me curious,” Cap muttered. “This guy has an international rap sheet, and did a lot of ‘special projects' for the feds. He's Russian. Names too many and too hard to spell to give you on the phone. Suffice to say, this ain't some local, regular vendetta shit. But with a senator dead and a trail leading to an old federal black ops pro, won't be long before I have to give up the evidence and turn this over to higher authorities—you know what I'm saying. It'll be outta my hands. You all just stay safe.”
“I hear you,” James muttered back. “Thanks for the heads-up, Cap. I owe you.”

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