What Goes Around (18 page)

“And I said I was sorry,” Sydney responded nervously as she reflexively took a step back. “I know what I did was wrong, but it was only one time.”

“Do you know? Or are you just playing some type of game with me?” Jason growled.

Sydney's heart started pounding in her chest. She was not feeling Jason's tone or the sinister look in his eye. She snuck another look at the deserted parking lot and regretted her decision to meet him so far away from where anyone might hear them. “You know what, Jason?” Sydney said hesitantly as she nervously fingered the Cartier bracelet. “I don't think this is working for either of us right now. I think that we may have taken things a little too fast…”

Sydney didn't have a chance to finish her sentence before Jason grabbed her by the right arm and twisted it. “Oh, you think you can just make a fool of me and get away with it?”

Sydney whimpered as tears filled her eyes. “Jason, please. Please stop,” she begged. “I'm not trying—”

“You're not trying to what?” he demanded as he shook her forcefully. Sydney tried to yank her arm away but his grip only got tighter. “You're not leaving me.” Jason threw Sydney against the wall.

“Ouch, please, Jason,” Sydney sobbed from the sharp pain where her shoulder hit the concrete. Her bags and personal items were scattered around her. She cowered fearfully. “Please stop. I'm sorry. Please!”

“Oh, you ain't sorry yet, you selfish, conniving brat,” he threatened as he raised his hand. Sydney closed her eyes in anticipation of the impending blow.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Carmen suddenly shrieked from out of nowhere.

“Get the hell away from her, you asshole,” Rhea yelled as the two came hurtling around the corner.

Jason looked up at the two girls running at him and stepped back from Sydney. He shook his head and looked completely bewildered, almost as if he didn't know how he'd gotten there. “She started this…she made me,” he stuttered as Rhea's oversized lavender quilted Marc Jacobs bag connected with his right shoulder.

“Help! Somebody help us!” Carmen screamed at the top of her lungs as she raced to her friend's side. She helped Sydney scramble a few feet away.

“Omigod, you freak! Get the hell away from her!” Rhea screamed as she connected with the side of Jason's head. She knocked his Yankees cap to the ground.

“Rhea, it's enough,” Carmen called out. “He's not worth it!”

“You crazy bitches! You all deserve one another,” Jason hissed from between his arms as he blocked the blows. He stooped down to make a quick grab for his cap and turned to run away.

“I got your bitch,” Rhea yelled from behind him when she finally stopped brandishing her bag like a lethal weapon. She walked over to where Carmen was holding Sydney.

“Omigod, thank you so much,” Sydney sobbed. “How did you know?”

“Shh, it's okay, calm down,” Carmen soothed her. “It's okay, we're here. It's okay.”

“Girl, what in the world? Is that fool crazy?” Rhea exclaimed in disbelief as she looked at her friend sitting on the ground crying. She started picking up Sydney's scattered belongings.

“I don't even know what happened,” Sydney said, shaking her head. Tears continued to streak down her face. “I just told him that it wasn't working out, and the next thing I know he snapped.”

“Wow! You are so lucky we had a substitute teacher today! That's the only reason Carmen and I came out behind you. We wanted to tell you not to rush back to class,” Rhea explained as she walked over and held Sydney's hands tightly. Sydney just shook her head as her
sobs and tears finally started to subside. She slowly rubbed her bruised shoulder.

“Did he hurt you?” Carmen asked with concern when she saw Sydney wincing in pain. “Honestly, I think we should go to the principal's office right now.”

“Absolutely, Syd,” Rhea co-signed.

“But what will people say—it's his word against ours? Who's gonna believe us?” Sydney asked, suddenly uncertain as she thought about how crazy the incident might sound to anyone who hadn't witnessed the altercation.

“Damn what people say. You're Sydney Duke,” Carmen said vehemently.

“We got you, Sydney,” Rhea swore truthfully. “We got you.”

Sydney sat silently thinking about Carmen's words before finally standing up and straightening out her clothes. “You're right. I'm Sydney Duke and I'm better than this,” she said determinedly as she reached for her things. “And no one is going to hurt me and get away with it ever again.”

She'd seen the “Crime Stoppers” billboard hanging on the side of a hair-braiding salon at the end of a row of stores near Pride and actually considered that she might just have to use the number that time she went looking for Jermaine and, instead, got her first verbal smackdown from Brandi. On her train ride home that day, Lauren even gave a nervous giggle as she fingered the number on her cell and zoned out, imagining how the police cars, lights and sirens ablaze and the “Bad Boys” theme song blaring from giant speakers, would speed up to the tiny storefront with cops and K-9s swarming from every which way, looking to drag Brandi away to the pokey. But then she dismissed the billboard, the number, and the Brandi-goes-to-jail
fantasy as quickly as she'd conjured it, recognizing that once she stepped just one of her pretty pedicured toes back over the Buckhead line, there would be absolutely no need to call the snitch hotline. Wasn't nobody coming to the Duke estate.

But the West End was a whole 'nother story, and Lauren had come to recognize one true thing: As long as Smoke was running around the West End, no one—not Lauren, not Sydney, not Jermaine, not Uncle Larry, not Dice, not even Altimus and Keisha—was safe. This was on Lauren's mind when she tiptoed into Sydney's room, laptop in tow, looking for some help dropping dime on the guy who was threatening to single-handedly dig up all the Duke family secrets and ruin life as Lauren knew it. Sydney's light was on, but her eyes were closed.

“Syd, wake up,” Lauren whispered, shaking her sister's arm. It was a little after midnight. Altimus, keeping another late night holed up in his lawyer's office strategizing over his ominous tax situation, had come in only a few minutes earlier and already had eased into a closed-door nightcap in the library, while Keisha was about two hours into dreamland. “Syd! Come on, wake up—it's important. I need your help!” Lauren whisper-shouted.

“I'm not asleep,” Sydney said, turning over to face her sister. Her mascara and thick black eyeliner were making dried tracks all the way down her face; pink lipstick
smudged her cheek and pillow. Sydney swiped her hand under her eye; Lauren saw moisture.

“Um, what's going on, Syd? Why are you crying? Is everything okay?” Lauren asked, leaning in for a close-up view.

“Everything is fine. There was an eyelash in my eye, that's all,” Sydney insisted halfheartedly. Lauren looked at her twin with a knowing eye but held her tongue. Something was up.

“Look,” Sydney insisted, deciding to just tell the truth. “I'm okay, really. Some stuff with Jason went down and I'm a little upset, but I'll be over it by morning—no biggie,” she reassured, sitting up in her bed. “What's up?”

“Well, um, I think I may have found out what happened to Rodney,” Lauren said, skepticism rimming her voice. “Or at least I think I found a way to get the heat off everyone.”

“What?” Sydney asked. “What are you talking about, Lauren?”

“Don't you remember that text I sent you? Seriously, I think I might have figured out how to get everybody off the hook,” Lauren said.

“Wait, so that was for real? I mean, you don't get people 'off the hook' for murder,” Sydney said. “You find the person who actually did it so innocent people don't have to go down for something they didn't do.”

“Well, then, let me be the first to say to you that I don't think our dad has to go down for Rodney's murder,” Lauren said simply.

Sydney squinted, unsure whether she'd heard her sister correctly. “You're saying you don't think Dice did this? Or are you saying that you don't want him to go to jail over it? Because if you're suggesting either one of those, I would almost be forced to think you actually care what happens to my father,” Sydney said.

“I do care about
our
father, Sydney,” Lauren said, annoyed. “It's just that—”

“That's news to me,” Sydney interrupted sarcastically.

“Look, I didn't come in here to get into a debate over whether or not I love my father,” Lauren snapped. “And blog bulletin: Lauren has feelings, and she happens to be capable of caring about other people. But just because we're twins doesn't mean we have to think alike. You of all people should know—”

Sydney raised her hand, motioning that she didn't need to hear any more of her sister's soliloquy. “I get it, I get it,” Sydney said. “I don't want to argue about it.”

“I wasn't trying to argue. I came in here to tell you that Dice didn't kill Rodney, and Altimus and Mom probably didn't have anything to do with it, either. He didn't come right out and say it, but Uncle Larry thinks a drug dealer named Smoke killed Rodney over some girl.”

“A girl? What kind of girl do you kill somebody over?” Sydney asked, confused.

“Maybe she has some extra grease in her pork chops or pearls in her na na—how in the hell would I know that?” Lauren retorted. “Uncle Larry said something about how she had this guy's baby and Rodney was messing around with her and the drug dealer doesn't play that with his girl. It sounded like a lot of things, but none a reason to beat someone to death. But what do I know about all of that? What I do know is this means we're all off the hook over this.”

“And exactly how is that possible if everybody thinks one of our dads did it?” Sydney demanded.

“That's where this comes in,” Lauren said, turning her laptop so Sydney could see it.

“Crime Stoppers?” Sydney asked. “That's your big idea? You're going to call Crime Stoppers and do what? Tell them you found the real killer? Okay, O.J.,” Sydney said skeptically.

“Come on, Syd, it can't be that bad an idea. People really do get caught behind this Crime Stoppers thing.”

“Methinks you've been watching too many episodes of
Law & Order
,” Sydney laughed, shaking her head.

“Seriously, come on, Sydney, hear me out,” Lauren said. “I just Googled it, and there was a story I read that said that here in Atlanta they've used it to solve a bunch
of crimes, and you don't even have to testify in court or anything, you're just giving them a tip and the police follow up.”

Sydney rubbed her temples and winced. “I have a serious headache,” she said. “All of this is just too much.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to Dice when he goes down for a murder he didn't commit,” Lauren sighed.

“You know he really loves you, right?” Sydney said quietly.

Lauren cracked her neck and held on tighter to her laptop; she wanted to acknowledge what her sister said, but she wasn't really ready to deal with the implications.

“I'm just saying, it wouldn't be a bad thing if he knew that the one girl he loves as much as me acknowledged him,” Sydney said.

“First things first,” Lauren said. “He may be happy to hear those three words, but I'm thinking he'll be even happier to get the monitoring bracelet off his ankle. And that can't happen until I make the call.”

Sydney reached for her cell and handed it to Lauren. “Do your thing,” she said.

Lauren stared at the phone and slowly pulled it from Sydney's fingers. “Well, um, let me just see what else it says about making this anonymous. Do you think they'll trace it back to your phone?” she asked, staring at the numbers.

“You have a point,” Sydney said. “What does the Web site say?”

Lauren pushed the space bar on her MacBook, which had gone to screen-saver mode. When the Atlanta Crime Stoppers page popped back up, she focused on the dark blue line that read “Submit a tip online.” “Look, I don't have to call,” she said to Sydney. “All I have to do is fill out this page and send it in. It says you don't have to give your name or anything.”

Sydney sat up and peeked at the screen for herself. Satisfied her sister knew what she was talking about, she said, simply, “Well? Get to it.”

And Lauren did, typing in as much information as she could about the man she was certain was going to get her father and her boyfriend off the hook for a crime she was now sure neither had committed. “Now, how in the hell am I supposed to know how tall he is and how much he weighs?” Lauren questioned.

“Can you give a guess?”

“I mean, if I get it wrong, won't that keep them from finding him?” Lauren questioned.

“You can still estimate, though. Think about it: Is he as big and tall as Altimus?”

“No, he's smaller—much smaller. Like Marcus's height.”

“Marcus isn't that small,” Sydney said, frowning.

“Well, he ain't as big as Altimus, that much I know,” Lauren said.

“Whatev, Lauren,” Sydney snapped. “If he's Marcus's height, he's about five-nine.”

Lauren scrolled down and clicked on 5′9″. “He's about Marcus's weight, too. How much does Marcus weigh?”

“I don't know—I wasn't at his last physical.”

“Come on, Syd, work with me, not against me,” Lauren insisted, rolling her eyes for emphasis.

“Okay, okay—he's about one seventy-five, one eighty,” Sydney said.

Lauren scrolled down some more. “Dang, they want his cell phone, his addy, they want to know what scars and tats he has, what kind of dogs he has, his weapons. How in the hell am I supposed to know all of that?” Lauren asked, exasperated. “Like, maybe, I don't know as much as I think I know. Maybe,” she added, “this isn't a good idea.”

Sydney touched her sister's shoulder to calm her. “Come on, Lauren,” she said gently. “You can do this. I know you can. You can just put as much of the info in there as you can, and let the police sort out the rest. If you don't say anything, though, then you're leaving it up to the police to figure it out, and you see what that's got us.”

Lauren sighed and stared at the screen. Of course,
Sydney was right; she had to do what she had to do. She scrolled down the screen some more, until she got to an entry she could handle: Where did you last see this suspect, the form questioned.

Lauren typed in, Peeples Street, the West End, and then scrolled down some more, past the “vehicle information” and on to the “crime notes” section. Under “type of offense,” she slowly typed the word “murder,” her fingers trembling with each tap of the button. Then she hesitated, if only for a moment, struggling to find the words to describe what little details she knew. She looked at Sydney, who was busily twirling the earring in her right ear, and then poured out all she could.

This guy Smoke beat up Rodney Watson because Rodney was dating his baby's mother. The baby's mother's name is Chere, and I think she lives in the West End, too, and should know where Smoke lives. It happened in the West End, and Smoke left Rodney to die on his front lawn, on Hopewell Street. I know this because it's what I heard.

Lauren read her statement aloud so Sydney could hear it, and, after they went over it a few more times, Lauren scrolled down some more, entered a password so that she could, as the site stated, check back and add more details if she wished. Then she carefully read the privacy policy, said a quick silent prayer that what she was doing was the right
thing and most of all, that nobody would find out she was snitching, and then gave a final look to Sydney.

“Go ahead, do it, Lauren,” Sydney coaxed. “It's going to be all right. I promise.”

She wasn't really sure she believed it, but there was something in her sister's eyes that made her push those negative thoughts to the recesses of her mind.

And with Jermaine's face dancing in her head, Lauren did it: She clicked on the button that said
SUBMIT TIP
.

Lauren walked gingerly up the walkway and then the steps, each inch she took feeling like a mile in quicksand. She couldn't quite put her finger on why she was so nervous; it was him, after all, who had wanted this for so very long—she who had resisted with all her might this reunion, this coming home. In the car on the way over, she'd imagined him opening the door, taking one look at her, and slamming said door in her face—a pittance of the fitting retribution she deserved for all the drama and anguish she'd brought into his life. A face full of wood? She deserved at least that much.

But really, what Lauren was looking for was forgiveness.

She yanked at her jacket and pulled her purse up onto her shoulder, using her underarm to grip it a little tighter. And then she did it: She rang the bell.

The shuffling of feet in the room just beyond the door was audible and instantaneous, but it took an eternity for the door to open. His eyes immediately locked with hers, even as she shifted from one foot to the other.

“Hey, Ladybug—fancy seeing you here! I like the new hairdo,” Dice laughed, pulling her into his embrace. “Wait, I thought you had riding lessons today.”

“Um,” Lauren hesitated, awkwardly hugging her father back, “I don't take riding lessons. That's Sydney.”

Dice went still for a moment, even as his long arms remained wrapped around Lauren's shoulder. Slowly, he pushed her back so he could get a good look at his daughter. “Lauren?” he questioned.

“H-hi, Dice,” she said, looking into his eyes again. He looked just like he did in the pictures Sydney had showed her in the photo album, except with less hair on top of his head and more gray everywhere else. His arms were muscular, like she'd imagined; she wondered if they'd gotten that way from lifting in the prison yard, or if his arms always felt that way. Looking into his eyes was like looking into Sydney's and her own; all these years, she never realized they'd gotten those almond-shaped browns from their father—their birth father.

“Lauren?” he asked, slightly bewildered. “Baby, that's you, for real? Oh, my God, I can't believe you're here!” he said, pulling her back into his arms. “What? Why? How?”

“Hey,” Lauren said, patting him on the back. “It's me, live and in the flesh.”