Read Online Criminal by Terra Elan McVoy - Free Book Online Page A

to know—over and over—that the N stood for Nikki , and nothing else.
    â€œAre you seeing her, Dee? Is that why?”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œYou know who.”
    His jaw muscles tightened. “How the fuck do you think I could be seeing her right now, Nikki, huh? How do you think I’d be managing that? Hmmm? Genius? I’m not seeing nobody. Including you right now, you understand me? Now get out of here. Don’t call me, don’t send me any of your whiny texts. Just sit tight, keep quiet, do what you have to do to calm that friend of yours down, and don’t say anything else to the cops. I’ll tell you if there’s anything else to say, and I’ll call you when it’s cool.”
    â€œBut, Dee, I can’t—”
    â€œYou can, baby.” He put his arms around me, held me close. He murmured in my ear, breath swirling on my neck, fizzing everything inside me. “You can because we have to. Okay?”
    I clung to his back. He let go and stepped away.
    â€œI gotta get in the shower, all right? Go get cleaned up yourself. Take yourself to the movies or something. Forget about Bird. She’ll calm down too. There’s a lot of fuss right now, but I promise, those pigs can’t touch me. Us.”
    He was walking backward while he talked. I wanted him to tell me he loved me. He hadn’t said it in a while, but I knew he wouldn’t now. Not from this distance. He liked to say it to me close so that only I could hear.

THAT AFTERNOON, I SLEEPWALKED THROUGH MY SHIFT AT the salon. When I got home, Cherry told me to clean up because she was having friends over. “A welcome home party,” she said, sarcastic. I watched as she put out a sorry plate of cheese and grapes and heated up salsa with Velveeta in it. She dumped some tortilla chips into one of Grandma’s crystal bowls. I went into the bathroom and stood under the shower for as long as I could.
    When I was dressed, three people were already there. Men. They sat around the kitchen table with Cherry, drinking and smoking and talking. I moved around them to get myself a beer and then tried to leave, but they had other ideas.
    â€œAw, don’t go, honey,” one of them said. He had long grayhair and was wearing a puffy down vest and no shirt. “Sit down, tell us about yourself.”
    â€œShe does hair,” Cherry told them, voice dry and flat.
    â€œYou think you could do something about this mess?” the skinny, darker man said. I’d seen him before. I thought his name was Leroy. He was rubbing and rubbing the long-haired guy’s head, pressing it down all the way to the table. “Fuckin’ man’s got things living in there. You ain’t an exterminator too, are you?”
    Everyone laughed while Leroy and the guy in the vest fake wrestled a minute. I saw the third guy, much younger than all of them, watching me as I dunked a chip into the microwaved salsa-cheese mess just so I wouldn’t have to answer.
    Bo came in with Mary and Cecille, and the house got more lively. Cherry made me offer everybody drinks, like this was some kind of proper party. She cackled at nothing while I moved around, making me tell dumb stories she should be telling herself, like about the time I swallowed one of my own loose teeth when I was little. I hated talking, hated her asking me things she knew were embarrassing, hated all of them watching me. But after not very long, she lifted her eyebrows to Bo and stopped paying attention to me. They paraded back into her bedroom to snort. Her and Bo, at first, and then pairs of them every fifteen minutes, sometimes in larger groups. While Cherry was backthere, two other women showed up, one of them talking on her phone nonstop, her face scabby though she’d tried to cover it with makeup. I let them in but made them get their own drinks. I took two beers and went to my room.
    Not that there was much to do, except get away from all of