Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

fit enough to travel.” She let out a long, shaky breath as if struggling to maintain her determination. “Once I get her and Dad out of town, somewhere safe, I’ll sit down with you and your lawyer friend. You told Fatimah she would help me. I’ll give her that chance when my folks are gone. I’ll explain everything. Do whatever you both say.” The sound of her swallow came through the handset. “Now, can I talk to my mother? Please.”

I passed the phone to Mona, whose hand was up and waiting for it. Her low threshold for her daughter’s voice had already pushed tears out of her eyes and made her lower lip tremble. There was fear in her expression as if at last it was clear something external to her daughter was threatening them all. “Keisha? You okay, baby?” Her voice cracked into an almost whisper. “You coming home soon?”

Keisha’s voice was not as loud as it would have been coming through a cell phone but the receiver was far enough from Mona’s ear that I could still make out her answer: “Not yet, Mom. It’s not safe, but I’m okay.”

Not wishing to intrude further, I stepped into the corridor and pulled the door shut.

I waited until I could no longer hear the timbre of Mona’s voice. Then I went back inside to find her shoulders heaving and her cheeks wet but the sound of crying trapped in a throat still too irritated to permit full release. I moved to the bed and put my arms around her as best I could. She turned her face into the strip of pocket near the bottom of my hoodie and wept freely, her vocalizations reduced to measured hums against pain. Afraid I would dislodge the IV tube under her collarbone if I moved, I remained still, the fingers of my left hand lightly patting her shoulder. I kept my eyes on the vital signs monitor for changes that indicated a problem. Temperature, pulsox, and respiration were steady but her heart rate and her already high blood pressure notched up a bit as I stood there. After a few minutes, as her tears began to lessen, her heart rate went down and her blood pressure dropped back to 138/82. At last, with a long throat-clearing attempt, she pulled away from my hoodie. I let go of her and reached for the small tissue box on the nightstand.

“Hard to talk to her when she’s so scared,” Mona rasped, wiping her eyes with the tissue I gave her.

“Harder when you’re recovering from lung surgery and getting oxygen.” I pulled one of the chairs closer to the bed and sat. “Don’t try to talk if it’s hard.”

For a long moment, she looked at me, scowling without speaking. “Somebody forced that drug shit into her, and now they’re trying to kill her. That’s why she ran.” She coughed and pulled another tissue from the box. Then she took a couple steadying breaths before she wiped her lips. “But I guess you knew that already, being a detective and all.”

“I suspected it.” I put the tissue box back on the nightstand.

“But you didn’t tell us.”

“Didn’t know for sure but I thought she might be trying to lead them away from you.”

A swallowed laugh scraped the inside of her throat. She began to cough again, wincing repeatedly. When she finished she said, “They shot me anyway. To make her come out of hiding.”

“I’m here to make sure they don’t get a second chance.”

“She said she was here last night. Winslow never told me.” She gave me a sidelong glance and frowned. “You didn’t either. Maybe I was too out of it to remember anything but you’da thought somebody woulda wanted me to know my only child was alive and well.” Her breathing was more strained now, as if each inhalation had a difficult passage through a nose dried by oxygen and throat raw from coughing. “Sometimes it’s like you men don’t know how to talk at all.”

Winslow was already standing by the bus and didn’t need me to kick him under it by putting the choice of silence on him. Blame wasn’t the issue but Mona’s feeling that she had been left out.

“I’m sorry,” I said, leaning forward and resting my forearms on my knees. “Truly. But the way you’re breathing now...”

Nodding, she said, “I know you thought it was the right thing to do, to keep me from getting too worked up—this worked up—so I thank you.” Closing her eyes, she let out a long sigh and took a few more steadying breaths. “Hard to stay mad at a good man. Winslow is a good man. Your daddy said you’re good-hearted too.”

“I had a good role model.”

“Such a smart man. Knows so much about so many things. I could listen to him talk all day.”

One corner of my brain began formulating a way to tease Bobby for talking so much that she kept falling asleep. “He is a retired English professor, my godfather.”

“I think he told me that.” She smiled and her eyes brightened a bit, though her voice was weakening. “He married? I mean, I got a friend who—”

“He’s with somebody,” I said. “Happily.” I had to steer her back to the phone call before she couldn’t talk anymore. “Mona, I need to ask you about your conversation with Keisha. To help me protect her.”

“Okay.”

“She was staying at Fatimah’s and then they all left. Did she tell you why?”

“Somebody kept calling the house in the middle of the night and hanging up.”

“Did she tell you where she is now?”

“With Bianca. Did you know her wife’s a cop?”

“A good cop. She’ll be safe with them.” I leaned forward again. “Does she know the people who hurt her and killed Odell?”

Mona shook her head. “She’d never seen them before. Two big black men who cut them off and held guns on them and said she was too nosy.” Fresh tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “She