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“Good evenin’” I returned in a very exaggerated southern accent. “I was wondering if you could help me. I’m looking for my friend, Phoebe. Is she here?”
“No, she’s not.” Reed replied back. “Now get the fuck out of here.”
“Now hold on a second,” I said quickly, pushing on the door before he could close it in my face. “I’m not sure if she told you, but there’s a lot going on tonight. I think she’s going after Byron or something by herself. Lock’s house is on fire. He’s about to lose everything and on top of that one of his guys is missing the other is in surgery fighting for his life. Now his woman is MIA. Do you have anything that would help us find her?”
Reed stared at me for a long time, and I thought I saw compassion fill his eyes. But that thought quickly died when his brows creased and hate and anger filled his features.
“I couldn’t give a fuck ‘bout your cop brother-in-law or his people. Fuck them. As I said, I don’t know shit. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Now get your fat ass off m—”
Reed’s sentence suddenly died out of the blue.
Okay, that wasn’t entirely accurate. His sentence did die but it was due to my knuckles hitting his nose. He deserved it. He had the audacity to call me fat.Fat! I’m pregnant you son of a bitch!
Reed covered his nose with both hands which left his crotch open for attack. I punched him in the balls, pushed him out of the way and stepped inside the warehouse.
“You fucking bitch!” he cried out.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mocked, waved him off and searched the area. It looked as if I had stepped inside a waiting area of an office. There was a light from a hallway that lit up the space enough for me to see the layout. There was a receptionist desk, empty of course, chairs, a colorful area rug, a table with a few magazines and two tall plants. It was a nice space, I had to hand it to them. Very inviting.
“What’s going on in here?” Garrett stepped inside the reception area and turned on the light. I blinked a few times, allowing my eyes to reacclimate to the change in lighting.
“We’re looking for Phoebe, have you seen her?”
Garrett ran his hand over his head, a ponderous look on his face. “I think she was here. I heard her voice anyway, but when I came to the door, she wasn’t here. What’s going on?”
I told him what I knew. The fire at Lock’s, how someone tried to kill him and his team. How Phoebe thinks Lock’s dead and is on a war path for retribution.
“She’s going after Byron,” I told him, wrapping up my update. “She said he told her he had killed Lock, even had some type of recording of the shooting. I don’t know. I tried to call her to tell her he was fine, but her phone goes right to voicemail. I think she turned it off.”
“Yeah, she did. I heard something on the police scanner about the fire at Lock’s and since I heard her voice here, I figured I’d call her. She didn’t answer my call either, so I tried to locate her phone. I wasn’t successful.”
Garrett folded his arms and took in his now quiet friend.
“What did she say to you?”
Reed didn’t respond right away, but I saw the guilt weighing heavy on his shoulders.
I shook my head, knowing exactly what happened. “You’re a whole asshole, do you know that? She came here asking for your help and you turned her away, didn’t you?”
Reed narrowed his eyes on me. “That’s right I did. There’s no fucking way I was going to help that son of a bitch cop. The fucker should have been more careful. Plus, she made her decision going to him for help instead of us.”
I couldn’t believe this grown ass man sounding like a petulant child. “Oh my god, how old are you, fucking five? You’re mad because she chose to be with the man she loves, the one that she knows in her heart is her soulmate over your sorry ass? Your jealousy knows no bounds does it?.”
“I ain’t jealous of shit.”
“Oh please, yes you are. You’re in love with Phoebe. We all can see that shit. But she doesn’t feel the same way. You know this and you’ve used your friendship as a way of controlling her, of keeping her close. But you stupid fuck, she’s not yours to control. She’s not yours to keep close. That’s not how friendships work. If you were truly her friend…” I stepped up to him and poked him in the chest, right where his so-called heart pounded. “…If you loved her, you would have put away your own needs and did whatever you could to help her. But, no, you were so bent on your own selfish needs, you couldn’t see past your own hurt to see hers.”
I shook my head, gave him my most disgusted look and turned to face Garrett. He was looking at me as if I had grown a third eye. I ignored his shocked expression and asked, “Can you help us find Byron?”
It took a few seconds for Garrett to snap out of his trance before he started moving toward the back of the warehouse, past the receptionist desk. He waved us to follow him.
He said over his shoulder, “I’ve been trying to do that and so far, I haven’t had any luck. I was just about to call Danny when you guys banged on the door like crazy people.”
I shrugged, giving no apology for my actions, and followed him to a large room with a long table and three monitors on top of its surface. There were a few computer towers on a large desk, adjacent to the long table and one of those gaming chairs facing the monitors. Another table sat to the left and I rested my tired ass on the table while Garrett sat in his seat. Noelle, doing what she did best, stayed by the door, her shotgun resting on her shoulder.
Garrett dialed Danny using his computer and I saw his troubled face appear on the large screen.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Garrett greeted immediately. “Heard about your guy. Is he out of surgery yet?”
