The Banks Sisters 2 Read online

  The effects of the two glasses of wine had completely worn off. Instead of being in the mood to be loved and felt up by Chase, she was ready to violently lay hands on someone—Walter and his girl in particular. “Wow, I’m so sorry, Chase. I swear I am, but that man knows how to push my buttons. After all he’d done to my sister and our family, he had the nerve to leave Tallhya hanging in the hospital. That’s some bold bullshit to do. I never wanted you to see that side of me.”

  “The hospital? You didn’t tell me one of your sisters was sick. How is she doing? Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, puzzled, not knowing what else to say or do.

  Simone tried her best to defuse his barrage of questions. With a straight face, she let Chase know her sister was getting great medical care and would be all right, even though she knew Tallhya was crazier than a bat out of hell. Part of Simone also wanted to confide in him that she had to have some procedures done in the very near future that may prove to be extremely detrimental to her general health and existence, but she opted not to.

  Although they were getting closer as the days went by, she still knew she and her siblings were criminals, and he was the law; certainly not a match made in heaven. Instead of being honest, she continued with her mockery of the truth. Further putting on an act, Simone promised to deal with Walter another way when and if she encountered him again. Knowing he had to get back to the office, Detective Dugan made sure Simone got in her car and left the restaurant premises. Watching her taillights turn the corner, he suspiciously rubbed his chin not knowing what to make out of her split personality behavior and all the wild accusations of sadistic behavior her brother-in-law had made. What the hell was that? That was something I didn’t even know she had in her. Chase’s thoughts made him second-guess his lady, but he chalked it up to not knowing the entire situation. Besides, he knew how and what people would say just to be vindictive.

  * * *

  Back at police headquarters, Detective Dugan got settled in his black leather chair. With a strong cup of black coffee sitting on the right side of his desk and a yellow notepad on the left, he was ready for the long haul. Knowing he’d be stuck in the semicool office until the late hours of the night, he took a few minutes to meditate in hopes of getting his mind right. He locked his fingers together after placing them behind his head. Leaning back in the chair, he proceeded to close his eyes. Lost in the darkness, his thoughts started to drift back to the happiness he felt earlier in the day when he had lunch with Simone. He got a warm feeling inside. The detective couldn’t help grinning, thinking about how good it felt having her smile at him. His manhood started to jump as he relived the sensation he experienced when she caressed his knee, then upper leg. Thinking about how beautiful she was made him feel like some dumb kid; some crazy teenager in love. He missed that feeling and was giddy that Simone had unearthed those sentiments buried in him.

  Unfortunately, as fast as Chase was caught up deeply in his emotions of what he felt could possibly be undeniable love, his keen investigative personality snatched him out of that fantasy and into a feeling that he could only describe as a living nightmare. His perfect princess Simone was a monster in disguise. In a mere matter of seconds, she’d transformed. His possible mate for life made visible her monsterlike tendencies for all the restaurant occupants and him to see. The stunned police detective witnessed her turn from a beauty to a beast firsthand. Simone traded in her diamond tiara for a jagged sword and had no problem doing so.

  He knew there was something more to Simone’s zero to a hundred drastic behavior change, even if she did despise her brother-in-law. Sure, he’d cancelled the girl’s insurance, cheated on her, and had a bastard child behind her back, along with stealing her lottery winnings, so of course, Simone would be heated for her sister’s terrible betrayal. That reaction was normal and was to be expected. But Simone wanted blood. She was on the verge of being deranged and homicidal. He’d been on the police force for years and recognized all kinds of sick minded individuals. He’d seen the type of rage Simone had exhibited earlier in ruthless and rotten murderers that were apprehended but coldheartedly showed no remorse. Simone’s demeanor when trying to get at Walter and his girl mirrored those traits. It was as if she had no home training. Whatever the true reason was, he knew he’d have to figure that out later on his own time. Right now, Detective Chase Dugan had bigger fish to fry, and the clock was ticking.

  Unlocking his fingers, he opened his weary eyes. Sitting upward, he reached for his sports teams’ decorated coffee mug. After getting some of the strong brew flowing through his system, the detective in him was alert. With the cracking of his knuckles, he was about ready to connect some dots and solve some of the pending high-profile cases that had been haunting his sleep, the chief’s, and the mayor’s.

  As he looked over the growing stack of papers and reports stuffed into the manila folders labeled after each individual crime, he shrugged his shoulders. These cases are linked together somehow. If I just set my mind to it, I can see what I’ve been missing. First things first; where the heck is Tiffany’s cell phone? Why isn’t it listed in her personal property? I know she had it on her when she left that stage. Now, either the other dancer that discovered her body has it, along with the bracelet and earrings I noticed she was wearing before her death, or the killer does. Finding the paper he’d jotted the distraught female’s number on from the club, he hoped she’d be either honest enough or scared enough to come clean and admit she’d stolen off a dead person.

  If that didn’t work, Detective Dugan knew he’d have to put a trace on the line through the company provider. Regardless, he was hell-bent on locating not only that phone, but the person or persons that were so brazen to even consider perpetrating a crime that bold in a building full of people. In the meantime, he once again retrieved Tariq’s cell phone and pulled up the last number dialed from his line before Tiffany’s; someone listed in his extensive list of contacts as just “B.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Thanks to the news reports and her sister’s dim-witted boyfriend, Bunny was satisfied she was not a suspect in Tiffany’s murder. Not fearing being arrested, she knew it was safe to go home to the condo. Now somewhat back in her right mind, she decided to return the multiple missed calls and voice mails from her siblings. Knowing Ginger would be the easiest to speak to, Bunny dialed that number first. “Hey, what’s going on?”

  “Oh, hell, naw, bitch! Don’t ‘hey, what’s going on’ me! Where the fuck you been? We been calling you and calling you; blowing your fucking phone up!”

  “Dang, I been around. Can’t a girl get some alone time? Damn,” Bunny smartly responded like she’d done no wrong in not responding to any of their calls.

  “Around like where? Girl, me and Simone been by your crib and everything. You know after you ain’t call back we was gonna be worried.”

  “Yeah, I know but—”

  “But nothing, trick. You know that slick shit you did going underground was whack as hell, especially considering what went down before you left Me-Ma’s.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Okay, then, fool, now like I said, where the hell you been, besides, of course, the strip club slicing a bitch’s neck?”

  “Say what?”

  “Bunny, don’t play with me,” Ginger’s voice went from female to male, letting his sister know this wasn’t the time to play word games.

  “Look, Ginger, I know y’all seen the letters, and I hope y’all understand.”

  “Of course, we do, but you still just can’t disappear like that on us.” Ginger’s attitude grew sassy with each passing word. “So where you at now because we gotta talk and don’t try to avoid us!”

  Bunny informed Ginger where she was at. Telling him she had a game plan on deck to settle a few more scores, she told him to get in touch with Simone. “Y’all meet me over here. I got some shit to tell y’all I found out from that slut Tiffany.”

  “Cool, because we need to put you up o
n your dead mother’s whereabouts amongst other things that done jumped while you was fucking AWOL!”

  Bunny sat in the driveway of her condo dreading going inside an empty home. Spoe wasn’t there for her to laugh or joke with or to fuss and fight with. It was just her and his calming spirit. A spirit that couldn’t touch her; couldn’t kiss her; couldn’t wrap his arms around her or sadly give her the dick she craved.

  * * *

  Simone made it back home to Me-Ma’s in no time flat. Still infuriated from her verbal altercation with Walter and his twisted face jump off, she slammed her car door shut. The amount of force she used caused a small bit of rust to fall from the bottom frame landing on the concrete. Seething with anger, Simone burst through the front door as if she was the police executing a search warrant for two murder suspects in a nursery school massacre. Finding Ginger in the kitchen just ending a conversation, she unloaded the partial 411 on not only what Chase told her at lunch about the cases he was working on, but the battle royal she was about to have with their sister’s no-good, soon-to-be ex-husband and his dead baby’s momma he’s involved with.

  Deciding to listen to the rest of Simone’s wild escapades in the car, Ginger and she walked out the door and pulled off in Simone’s clunker heading toward Bunny’s. When the pair finally arrived, they found Bunny’s car in the driveway. The door was already unlocked so they let themselves in. Once back inside of the condo, they discovered Bunny’s overnight bag thrown on the couch. Walking upstairs, they heard the shower water running and their murderous rampage sister humming. Giving each other the serious side eye, Simone and Ginger shook their heads.

  Ginger raised his finger to the side of his head, twirling it around, indicating that he believed Bunny had taken a couple of huge steps off into the deep end of insanity. First, the way she just abruptly jumped to her feet and skin carved their mother and Lenny up like two Thanksgiving turkeys. Then, she washed off their blood and just walked out of Me-Ma’s—no words spoken—and disappeared for close to thirty-six hours. Finally, she plotted on, apparently tracked down, then boldly executed a stripper in a nightclub full of potential witnesses like it wasn’t shit. Now here, Bunny was taking a shower, humming old love songs like she didn’t have a single care in the world. As if she was easy street.

  “Hey, girl, we here,” Simone yelled out, hoping she wouldn’t startle Bunny and become her next bloody victim.

  Bunny got out of the shower, dried off, and threw on a track suit. Meeting her siblings down in the living room, she was ready to tell them every detail that had jumped off since she’d last seen them; every gory detail. Starting with the moment she decided to end their mother’s useless life.

  Simone, Bunny, and Ginger all took a seat at the table. Each not knowing what the other was going to say, Ginger, being a true drama queen, started the ball rolling. Simone knew of his antics and late illicit night of passion with Pastor Street, but Bunny was still in the dark. Pulling out his cell phone, Ginger proceeded to show both his sisters the candid snapshots he’d taken of the good-dick-having-preacher their grandmother admired so before her death. The more each sister scrolled, the more embarrassed they became seeing the supposed man of the cloth exposed. The video Bunny had taken of Ginger giving him the bomb head in Me-Ma’s living room on the couch and the floor near the coffee table was bad enough, but these images seemed to be ten times worse. Ginger had somehow managed to get every possible angle captured. He got Cassius Street’s good side, bad side, and most shocking of them all, his dark side. Simone and Bunny couldn’t believe the nerve Ginger had and found it hilarious. They were amused that the pastor was dumb enough to not notice that Ginger was snapping away when he claimed to be checking his Facebook page and returning text messages. Ginger was so wild with it he even took selfies with him and the naked sleeping ordained man of the cloth.

  “Yeah, you two amateurs see these.” Ginger’s smile grew wider and brighter each time a new salacious picture was revealed. “Well, these little Kodak moments along with me and my Bible-thumping homeboy’s sex tape gonna get us back Me-Ma’s house come tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, really?” Simone smirked knowing Ginger was up to no good.

  “Yeah, tomorrow.” Ginger cleaned underneath his fingernails and rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling. “Let’s just say tomorrow at church, right in the middle of service, a fool like me might mess around and catch the Holy Ghost . . . and everything else I could catch in that piece.”

  Bunny had been strangely quiet but finally chimed in, giving Ginger a high five. “See, now that’s what I’m talking about! Hit that conniving sack of shit where it hurts. Those church members and them off the chain collection offerings is Pastor Street’s bread and butter, so yeah, fuck his hustle all the way up.”

  “Well, since you in such a fuck-a-nigga’s-hustle-up mode, Bunny,” Simone eagerly chimed in, “I hope you know you threw some serious salt in me and Ginger’s game the other day.”

  “Huh, what you mean?” Bunny’s facial expression changed as she played with a broken clasp tennis bracelet on the table.

  “I mean, damn, sis. I know you were deep off into your zone. I could see that. Me and Ginger both could see the bullshit. But, damn, your ass went all Freddy Krueger, Jason, and Michael in that basement.”

  Bunny innocently bit down on the corner of her lip. “Oh yeah, that.”

  “Oh yeah, is right, bitch,” Ginger threw his two cents in the conversation. “You just went all Rambo with it and left blood every-damn-where.”

  “I’m sorry, y’all. I don’t know what happened. I just was kinda in my zone. You know.”

  Ginger wasn’t done going in. He had no intentions to let his sister, Bunny, off the hook that easily for going berserk, then dipping like she had a personal cleanup crew on call. “Well, I showl in the hell knows what happened. Your dumb ass cut Momma and that nigga up foot to ’fro, left blood everywhere, and pranced your slap-happy ass upstairs to take a hot shower, then sashayed out the front door leaving me and this crazy-in-love witch to do the cleanup.”

  “Hey, now. Why I gotta be a crazy-in-love witch? Remember me, heifer? I was the same one that was down in that basement shoulder to shoulder with your crazy ass scrubbing blood and wrapping bodies up,” Simone leaped to her feet and announced as if she was seeking an award or politicking for political office. “Have you forgotten I was the one that rode with a bag of hands on they lap?”

  “Oh yeah, that,” Ginger laughed as if what they did to their mother and Lenny was no big deal.

  Bunny was still in the dark, not knowing what to think about what Simone and Ginger were claiming jumped off. “Bag of hands? What in the hell y’all asses talking about?”

  Simone was already standing and decided to fill Bunny in. After telling her the trouble they had removing Deidra and Lenny from the basement of Me-Ma’s, then dropping them off at the bank of the James River, her sister was finally up to speed. Never getting a total explanation of why Bunny flipped out like she did in the first place, Simone and Ginger decided to just let it go, especially considering Spoe’s deceased corpse was discarded at that very river as well. They chalked it up to the small bit of crazy that was rumored to flow through their bloodline.

  “Oh yeah, so while I have y’all attention, let me tell y’all the entire way lunch went down with Chase. Like I was telling Ginger back at the house, things were all good with me and him while we were eating. I mean, real, real good.” Simone had a huge smile showing all her perfectly lined teeth. “He told me they did discover Momma and Lenny’s bodies.”

  “What?” Bunny blurted out, still on the verge of panic.

  Simone put up her hand for Bunny to calm her nerves. “Naw, sis, don’t worry. At this point, like the rest of the bodies they find there, rest in peace, Spoe and Tariq, they don’t have any real leads; just speculation.”

  “Oh, whew, that’s good.” Bunny placed one hand over her heart and fanned her face with the other. “But what about . . .”


  Simone reassured Bunny as well as Ginger that her detective boyfriend had absolutely no idea Bunny Banks was the one that sent Tiffany home the night before. That they were the ones that not only robbed the bank and set Ghostman up, but had killed two people in cold blood. When they were both over that much-needed relief of not going to prison by sunset, Simone hit them with the last part of her lunch. The part that she knew would surely cause them to become just as enraged as she was when it was going down in real time. “Okay, now both of you get ready to hear this bullshit right here.”

  Bunny and Ginger’s full attention was on their sister. After being blessed with the knowledge that they had dodged the bullet of the law, well, at least temporarily, they couldn’t imagine what else was more outrageous than that. “Tell us,” they both begged, sitting on the edge of their seats.

  “Well, when Chase and I were leaving, I bumped into a ratchet female by mistake.”

  “And . . .?” Ginger’s eyes bucked, waiting for the story.

  “And right off rip, I told the rat ‘excuse me,’ because it was on me. So you know saying my bad was nothing, you know.”

  “Okay and . . . Just hurry up and spill the tea, bitch. Who was she? Damn, I’ma grow old waiting for you to get to the good part.”

  “Real talk, I don’t even know her name, but she straight had a message for you. A serious message for that wild ass!”

  “For who?” Ginger sucked his teeth as if Simone was lying. “I know you ain’t talking about me. Girl, bye. I don’t even know who you talking about.”

  Simone laughed. “Yes, the hell I am; a message for you, that’s who.”