Page 71 of Omar

"You trust yourself with her?"

I didn't answer straight away. Kadeem waited.

"I'm trying to," I said.

He nodded. "That's the right answer. If you'd said yes too fast I'd be worried."

We worked out the logistics. Shanay would make contact at the salon, come in as a walk-in client. Asha would have a bag ready, something small she could grab fast. Shanay would walk her out with an excuse that wouldn't make Cee suspicious. They'd drive to the Bed-Stuy apartment where Ma would be waiting.

"Why Ma?" I asked.

"Because when that girl walks through the door she's gonna need somebody who isn't you or me or Stone. She's gonna need a mother." Kadeem looked at me. "Trust me on that."

I did.

After Kadeem went upstairs I stayed at the kitchen table for a minute. Stone's papers were still spread out from the meeting. I started gathering them to stack neatly when a financial summary underneath the others caught my eye. One of Stone's working documents, a cross-reference he'd been building between Supreme's known accounts and the Baptiste financial records.

I scanned the columns. Names, account numbers, transaction dates. Halfway down the second page an account number caught my eye. I pulled out my phone and opened the photograph I'd taken of Pops' dormant financial files weeks ago. Scrolled to the account list.

The number matched. One of the accounts in Stone's cross-reference document was the same dormant account from Pops' files. An account that had been inactive since Pops disappeared but still existed in the system, still tied to a name I didn't recognize.

I photographed Stone's document, put it back where it had been, and left the house.

In the car I texted Asha: We're going to get you out. Soon. Trust me.

She replied a minute later: I trust you.

I stared at those three words for longer than I should have. Then I put the phone down, started the engine, and drove home.

The account number sat in my phone alongside the photograph of Pops' files. Two documents, two sources, same number. Stone had been working on that cross-reference himself. He'd have seen the match. He'd have recognized it.

But he hadn't mentioned it.

I filed that too.

Chapter 28

Asha

Supreme brought me flowers the next day. Not the usual bodega bouquet he'd grab on the way home when he remembered. These were proper flowers, wrapped in tissue paper, delivered to the apartment by a woman in a black apron who rang the bell and handed them to me with a card that read For my queen. Love always, Premie.

I put them in water and set them on the kitchen counter. They were beautiful. Lilies, roses, something purple I didn't know the name of. I arranged them in the vase, stepped back, looked at them. I understood exactly what they were.

A reward for staying.

Supreme cooked that night. He sent the cook home early, rolled up his sleeves, and made oxtail with rice and peas from scratch. He moved around the kitchen with music playing from his phone, singing along to tracks I didn't recognize, asking me to taste things while he stirred.

"How's the seasoning?" He held a spoon out to me.

"Perfect, Premie." I blew on it, tasted it, nodded. "Just right."

"See? I told you I could cook." He grinned. "You just never let me."

"Because you burn everything."

"That was one time." He pointed the spoon at me. "One time. And it wasn't burnt, it was caramelized."

I laughed because the joke was actually funny, which was the worst part of Supreme. He could be charming when he turned it on. He could make you forget, for ten or fifteen minutes at a time, that he was a man who ordered throats slit over dinner and unpacked your escape bag without raising his voice once.