Wrongful Accusations - Chapter 16
Meet up
We passed stores like J. Crew, and Ann Taylor before we got to the water ice stand. Cole Slaw and I stood around looking at everything and at each other.
“Where is she?” Cole asked.
“You mean me,” answered a heavy-set woman wearing a hooded jacket that covered her face.
She walked over to us with her hands in her pockets. I was sure that one of the pockets housed a gun. Since neither Kadijah nor Peaches were over 150 pounds, that had to be Shannon standing in front of us.
“Shannon, what the heck is going on?”
“They kidnapped me and Carl. I’m so sorry about Carl. Peaches found out that Carl was trying to get custody of her boys and she snapped.”
“Where are they now?”
“Over near the Starbucks watching our every move, you have to come with me or they will kill me.”
I looked at the bulge in her pocket. “Why don’t you just shoot them?”
“Shoot them? I’ve never shot anyone.”
“Why do you have the gun?”
“They made me take it, to persuade you to come with me.”
“What do they want with me?”
“They say they just want to talk. Kadijah said that she had never met someone almost as smart as she and her sister. I think they want you to be friends with them.”
I looked at Cole Slaw, she didn’t buy the story either but we went along so we wouldn’t cause a scene. The twins smiled identical smiles as we walked toward them. One with a mole on the left and the other with one on the right, they were mirror images of each other. They made Cole Slaw and I get in between them, Kadijah in front of us, and Peaches and Shannon behind us. We all walked out of the door near the 14-screen movie theater that I had heard so much about but would probably never get a chance to experience.
“I love girls’ night out, where are we going now? Hey, can we go to the soft pretzel factory?” Cole Slaw asked. She ran into me so I assume that Peaches had shoved her out of disapproval.
We walked across the parking lot to a silver Escalade. Nothing but the best for crazy twin murderers. As soon as we drove out of the parking lot, my phone rang. Kadijah and Peaches both held out their hands for me to hand over my lifeline.
“You too, Ms. Thing,” Peaches said to Cole Slaw. She handed hers over reluctantly.
“That was Mallory.” I mouthed to Cole Slaw and she nodded.
“Was that my Mallory?” Shannon asked. “I really miss her. Can I call her later?”
“No, you cannot.” The twins screamed simultaneously.
What a day. I found my ex-husband dead on a hotel floor, I’d been kidnapped by my client, her housekeeper, and my ex-husband’s current wife/widow, and my leg was itching like crazy and I couldn’t scratch it through the cast. I didn’t know how much more I could take.
“Isn’t this exciting,” Shannon whispered, showing me her cell phone. Her Twitter profile was full of tweets about where we were going and what we were doing. I hoped that someone would take them seriously and send for help.
The car was silent for the remainder of the ride. Twenty minutes later, we pulled into the parking area of Korman Residential on Lindbergh. We got out of the car and the twins led us to an apartment near the fitness center.
“Nice place, who's it?” I asked as we walked into the apartment.
“A friend,” Peaches said, pushing me down on the plush couch.
“What are y’all going to do with us? If you were going to kill us I figure you would have done it by now,” Cole Slaw asked.
“I see why you and Sassy are friends; you are both so full of spunk. What was that phrase we heard?”
“They ‘bout it, ‘bout it,” Shannon answered.
“Shut up all of you,” Kadijah said. She was the serious one; she had no tolerance for foolishness. “We brought you here because we need your help. My sister and I have been ‘in business’ for years but you are the first person that has figured out that there are two of us.”
“Actually, I didn’t figure that out on my own.”
“We know, that’s why we lured the two of you here. You meet our standards and we would like for you to be a part of our organization,” Kadijah said.
“What exactly is this organization?” I asked.
“We provide services to people who are trying to forget their past. For the right price, we give them the life they have always wanted,” Peaches said.
“That sounds a lot like identity theft,” Cole Slaw said.
“We like to call it helping the fortunate and helping the less fortunate,” Kadijah said.
I looked at the two of them and shook my head. What in the world made them think that my partner and I wanted to be a part of a crime ring? There were so many unanswered questions floating around in my head. I wondered if I would get any of them answered.
“So, um, why was Joshua…Abdul killed?”
“Because of her,” Kadijah said, pointing to Shannon.
“It wasn’t my fault. How was I supposed to know he was married?”
“Did you ask him? Do you always just screw guys without asking questions?”
“Well, he had his own place. How many married couples live in two different places?”
“Whatever, but he knew our arrangement. He already had two women, why did he need another one? A butterball that doesn’t know how to pick up after herself.”
“A butterball? I got your butterball. You black, African, b…”
“You shut up right now,” Kadijah said, pulling a gun from inside her jacket and putting it up to the side of Shannon’s head.
Shannon didn’t say anything. I hoped that her tweets would start paying off soon. Someone was bound to get killed in there pretty soon and I was hoping that the killing could be prolonged indefinitely. Kadijah turned her attention back to me.
Mr. Muhammad lived with two wives, two other baby mama’s and who knew how many other women. For a guy that didn’t know how to use his you know what, why did all of these women want him? A dirty thought came to me but I tried my best to suppress it. It was nasty to think of a dead man’s head between the legs of hundreds of women.
“So what are you going to do, Ms. Detective? Are you ready to start making some real money?”
“Can I get a little time to think about it? A week or two maybe?”
“You have an hour. If you do not give me the answer that I want, I will not be happy. You’ve seen what happens when I’m not happy.”
I thought about the pictures of Mr. Muhammad’s body. Then Carl's lifeless body on the hotel room floor, I shuddered. We had to get out of there but I had no gun and I didn’t stand a chance if I tried to make a run for it with a cast on my leg.
“Kadi, did you forget about that appointment we have? It’s time for us to go.”
“Okay. You, make sure you keep an eye on these two. And don’t you try any funny stuff because we will find out,” Kadijah said to Shannon. My heart almost stopped when she reached into Shannon's pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She pressed buttons but the screen did not light up. Shannon had been tweeting her butt off so the battery was probably dead. Kadijah figured the battery was down too so she put the phone back in Shannon’s pocket.
“We’ll be back,” Peaches said as she and Kadijah walked towards the front door. Kadijah hit her on the arm. “I’ve always wanted to say that. You make me sick.” Then they walked out, closing the door behind them.
We sat there for about fifteen minutes not saying anything. The urge to pee hit me with a vengeance.
“Shannon, where’s the bathroom?”
“Down the hall to the right. Sassy please don’t do anything sneaky, I think they have the place bugged. They may even have cameras,” she said, shaking her head.
Apparently, if they had cameras they would have known about her cell phone usage.
“Okay, I’ll be good,” I said.
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It just got interesting....!