“I don’t know,” Travis said and turned to Jackie. “Do we, Jackie?”
“Like I said, I’m cool.”
“Good, ’cause we got a job to do in a couple days, and both of y’all need to have your minds right.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
A teary-eyed Me’shelle picked up the telephone once again and dialed Travis’s number. The last day and a half hadn’t been easy for her, but she got through it. With help and support from her aunts, she went to the morgue to identify Bruce and Natalie’s bodies and made arrangements for their funeral. Natalie’s family hadn’t had anything to do with her in years, so when Me’shelle called them, her father’s only response was, “Let me know where you bury her.”
After taking care of that painful business, Me’shelle stopped by the hospital and sat with Brandy. While she was there, Detective Richards came to question Brandy, but she was still in shock. She acknowledged their presence in the room with her eyes, but never spoke. When he asked Brandy if she understood that her parents were dead, she just stared at Me’shelle and tears flowed from her eyes.
After the police left, Me’shelle told Brandy about her day and the arrangements she’d made for her parents. Then she read an article from Vibe out loud for Brandy before visiting hours ended and she had to leave.
Through it all, Me’shelle had been calling Travis both at his house and his cell phone. His cell was off, so the calls went straight to voicemail. He hadn’t answered the house phone. She had left several messages and Travis hadn’t chosen, up to this point, to call her back.
Travis sat next to the phone, as he had been for the past day and a half. He would see her name come up on caller ID each time, and let it go to voicemail. Then he would sit and listen to her message. He could hear the longing in her voice and could feel the pain. He felt tortured, caught between his loyalty to Ronnie and Jackie and what he felt for me Me’shelle. Travis felt like he was doing the right thing, but why did it feel so wrong?
“Please call me, Travis. I really need to talk to you, to hear your voice. I love you, Travis, and I miss you so much,” Me’shelle said and hung up the phone.
“I miss talking to you, Me’shelle. But I can’t,” he said out loud.
She had never said she loved him before, and hearing it now had an effect on him. A single tear rolled down his cheek. “I love you so much, Me’shelle, but I can’t.”
Travis sat and wondered why he was putting himself through this. It was bad enough that he couldn’t or at most wasn’t going to talk to her, but why did he have to sit there and listen to her tear-filled messages? He could have just as easily left the house, left town, gone to Connecticut. At the very least, he could have turned off the answering machine.
He wanted to feel this pain, but he was growing weary of it.
Twenty minutes later, the phone rang again. Once again, it was Me’shelle. No longer willing to deliver or endure any more pain, he answered. “Hello, Me’shelle,” Travis said softly.
“I’m so glad you answered. Where have you been? I’ve been calling you. Didn’t you get any of my messages?”
For a fraction of a second, Travis thought about telling her that he wasn’t going to see her again and why. “I had to go out of town for a minute. I just got back and listened to all of your messages. I miss talking to you, Me’shelle.”
“I’ve missed talking to you so much these last couple of days. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you. How are you holding up?”
“Not good, but I’m still standing.”
“How’s Brandy?”
“I just came home from seeing her. She looked at me when I came in the room and she squeezed my hand a couple of times while I read to her, but she’s still not talking. But the hardest thing about this is my brother. I never mentioned this to you, but my brother came to me and asked me for money and I told him no.” Me’shelle started to cry. “He said they were going to kill him. If I had only got the money for him, none of this would have happened.”
“Me’shelle, you can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
“I know that I shouldn’t, Travis, but it’s one of the last things he said to me that’s really fuckin’ with me.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He said, ‘How you gonna live with yourself when I’m dead?’ ”
“Damn. That’s some fucked up shit to say to somebody.”
“Ain’t it, though?”
“I’m sayin’, but he probably wasn’t expecting to get popped when he said it. Even though they know it’s a possibility that it could happen, nobody expects to die. He just said that so you would feel sorry for him and give him the money.”
“I know that, but it still bothers me.”
“Do you know who he owed the money to?”
“Not really. He used to deal with some guy who calls himself Chilly. And the only reason I say that is because it’s the only name I ever heard him say. It might be him, it might not. To be honest with you, I have no idea. I’d been giving him money to support his habit and get people off his back for years. But the one time that I tell him no, he gets killed.”
“You can’t do this to yourself, Me’shelle. You don’t even know if that’s what he got killed over. And even if it was, that’s how he chose to live his life. You are not responsible for anybody’s choices but your own.”
“I know, I know. We’ve had this conversation before, but I still feel the way I feel, and I can only hope that over time I get to the point where I can deal with it a little better.”
“I hope so.”
“The funeral is the day after tomorrow. Will you come? I need you to be there for me.”
Travis wanted to make some excuse for why he couldn’t be there. He knew the best thing for him to do was stay away from her as long as it took for the investigation into her brother’s murder to play itself out. “I’ll be there for you, Me’shelle.”
“I want to see you.”
“I wanna see you.”
“I love you, Travis.”
“Yeah, I know. I got your message. I gotta say it felt so good to hear you say it, since I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you. But still, I gotta ask. Are you sayin’ it because of what’s going on with you?”
“No, it’s not that. And I’m sorry that it took all this to get me to say it out loud. But do I love you, Travis. I love everything about you. I love the way you talk to me. I love the way you make me feel. I am so into the way we are together. I feel like you are so much a part of me now. These last couple of days without you have been so hard for me. I love you, Travis. So please, don’t think it’s only because of this.”
“Okay.”
“And besides, you never told me that you loved me.”
“Not in words, Me’shelle. But you know everything about me screams I love you.”
“I know, so stop all this talk. I need you now.”
“I’m on my way.”
“No. This place reminds me too much of Bruce and that night. I’m coming over there.”
“I’ll see you when you get here.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Funeral services for Bruce and Natalie Lawrence were a small family affair. Nobody from Natalie’s family bothered to show up. Her parents, a deeply religious couple, had disowned her years ago because of the life of drugs and prostitution she had chosen for herself. They were, however, very concerned about Brandy. The doctor thought that in her still very unstable condition, attending her parents’ funeral might be too much for her. So, the attendees were Me’shelle and Travis, along with her aunts, Miranda and Juanita.
There were two other guests who came late to the funeraclass="underline" Detectives Kirkland and Richards. The sight of them made Travis’s blood run cold. They sat in the back of the church and waited until Pastor Franks completed his eulogy, then waited outside for Me’shelle.