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Averie had been sick for the past week.
“I’m fine. I am going to drink this white soda and eat these crackers. That’s been giving me some relief.”
“White soda and crackers? That sounds like something my Nana would have told me to eat to feel better,” I chuckled.
“Yes, but not just any white soda. It has to be flat and white,” Averie added.
“Usually though, if Nana found out I wasn’t feeling well, she would ask me if I’d had a bowel movement and force me to drink some cod liver oil.”
“Ugh! Cod liver oil is a form of child abuse. I don’t care what anyone says!”
“I agree,” we both laughed.
Brick pulled up to Chambers Security building. Countee called a meeting about my shooting at his office.
“If something doesn’t give soon. You are going to the doctor.”
“Yes, sir,” she rolled her eyes.
“I don’t care about your slick comments as long as you go and get seen.”
“I said okay! I’m sure this will pass. Viruses usually last about seven days.”
I helped her out of the car, and we walked hand in hand to the front door of the building. Count met us at the door and directed us to a room.
“Have a seat. I will be back.”
Averie and I chose seats at the table and waited for Count to return. We waited about ten minutes before the door opened again and in walked Roc and Coco. I gave Roc a bro hug then hugged Coco. They both hugged Averie also. I’d spoken to Roc, but it had been a couple weeks since we’d seen each other. Both of our schedules had been hectic. Countee and Laila came into the room.
“I called you all here for this meeting because I have some information about the shooting,” Countee said.
My heart started to race. I sat up in my chair and waited for Count to continue. He pressed a button, and a pixelated picture appeared on the screen behind him.
“What the heck!” I said as soon as I recognized the face on the screen.
“Who is it?” Roc asked.
“Doug Elson,” I answered.
“Who the hell is Doug Elson?” Coco asked.
“Elson served time with me at Pineville. We got into a little altercation because he and his friend liked to jack people for their commissary purchases. I wasn’t going for it, so I knocked him and his friend out. In turn, they put a hit out on me, and a guy stuck me while I was playing basketball in the yard.
I hadn’t thought much of any of them because they were all transferred from the prison before I left the infirmary. I never talked about the altercation, not even to my father. It was the code not to be a snitch.”
“Elson? Are you sure, Countee? Why?” Averie asked.
“Right, why would he want to shoot me? It’s been years since Pineville, and I never saw him again after I was released from prison.”
“Full disclosure, I got the name from Trell. He found out who did it and passed the information to me. One of my friends has some high-tech facial recognition software. It took a minute for us to find a camera angle that showed his face but once we did, it was fairly simple to run it through the software.”
“Trell?” Coco said and looked at Roc.
Obviously, Roc hadn’t mentioned speaking to Trell to Coco.
“What does Trell have to do with any of this?” Coco asked, “Averie did you know Trell was involved in all of this?”
“I don’t even know who Trell is,” Averie said looking at me.
