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“Hey, Ellie. How are those babies?”
“Perfect. Listen,” her rushed tone and lack of talking about her kids let me know that something was wrong. I immediately perk up.“Noah just came home. He didn’t give me the details and told me not to say anything but, like, come on. Does the man not know me? Also, given what it is, if anyone should know, it’s you, and I can’t not tell you, you know?”
“No, I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The witch is dead.”
“What witch?”
“The wicked witch, come on.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Ellie? Get to the damn point.”
“Steffie was murdered.”
The water glass I was holding drops to the floor.“Mu-murdered? What happened? Do-do we know who did it? I mean, when? Holy shit.”
I can’t breathe. The only person that has a reason to kill her is Nate. He wouldn’t do that, though. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t risk everything with his daughter by killing Steffie. Right?Right?
“Audrina. Babe. Are you there?”
I nod before it clicks that she can’t see me.“Yes, I’m here. I’m just…. I don’t know what I am, honestly.”
“I don’t have details about when, why, or who. What I can tell you is that Rambo and my brother were arrested.”
“Fuck.”
“I laughed when Noah told me about my brother. But in my defense. My brother is a dick, and Noah started the conversation with,‘Your brother has been arrested.’So, can you blame me? But when he said that Rambo was arrested, I knew that something really fucked happened. I wish I could tell you more, but I didn’t get anything else out of Noah. He loves to play the club business cardnow.”
I couldn’t see her, but I knew her eyes were rolling.
“Thank you for telling me. I’ll look into everything we may need to make sure that this doesn’t hurt Nate and his chances of getting the kids.”
“I asked Noah, and that’s when he told me from a cop’s perspective, they didn’t have anything on Rambo or my brother. That they’ll be grasping at straws, this shouldn’t ruin his chances, but we won’t know anything until we get to that point.”
“Okay. That surprisingly makes me feel a margin better.”
“Audrina?” I feel a small shake, and my eyes refocus. I look up, and Elvira is smiling at me.“Are you okay?” Her face and tone are both soft. I can tell that she truly is worried for me.
I nod my head.“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Good, because Sonya just got here.” she walks out of the kitchen right as the doorbell rings. I look around and see that both Baby Girl and Dillon are gone. Judge or someone else must have come in while I was walking down memory lane and taken them. Good. They didn’t need to hear whatever it was that Sonya had to say.
But I sure as shit did.
***
Not a lot shocks me. When it comes to the cases that we work on, I’ve seen everything. I’ve had to listen to a lot in my years doing this job, and a good amount of it is bullshit—like everything that Sonya is saying currently. I cannot believe the audacity of this woman. I can’t believe I had respected her at one point. She was once someone I saw as a friend.
I looked at Mama El, and while she looked calm, cool, and collected, I could see the fire in her eyes. She had been at this for a long time. She knew when bullshit was being spewed, and this conversation was ripe with it.
“Since the mother is deceased, and under the circumstances of how, it would be in the best interests of the child, I mean children, to move them to a more secure location. We can’t be too careful while the police do their investigation.” She had this air of arrogance to her stance and how she held her face. You can see the faux compassion in her stare.
“I’m trying to see how someone being murdered, not on my property, mind you, has anything to do with the kids. These kids were nowhere near the event that took place. They know nothing of it, and it will remain that way. Where Steffie was killed and dropped has nothing to do with me and my house. Try again.”
“Excuse me?” Sonya's head snaps back as if Elvira had slapped her.
“You heard me. Give me a different excuse. There is no reason to remove those kids. They had been out of Steffie’s care for months by the time someone decided to take matters into their own hands. Had that person wanted those kids, they would have gone after them already. The issue was the mother. Whom, need I remind you, didn’t come here. She wasn’t welcome. The safest place for those kids is right here.”
