She wanted to phone her parents, but she knew they wouldn’t take her call. And especially not at a time like this. They’d be too busy blaming her somehow. She left Milton as soon as she graduated high school at eighteen, but somehow they would blame her.
But just as she was a little over an hour into her journey, she could feel her car began to struggle. First it was as if it was beginning to sputter. Like it couldn’t get enough gas. Then it started slowing, instead of speeding up, even after she floored it.
“Lord Jesus,” she said nervously as she began pulling over to the side of the road, “please don’t let me break down on this highway. Please!”
An exit was coming up in half a mile and the sign showed a truck stop café, so she decided to keep driving on the road side and pray she made it to that exit. Her car was still sputtering and moving slower and slower as if it could give out at any moment, but praise God she made it to that exit.
But she really needed to get to that truck stop café where the people were. So she kept on praying. And kept on moving. She knew her Mustang was already on its last legs, but she never dreamed it would fail her this soon. And especially not at a time like this!
She was pleased when she saw that the café was the first turn-in just off the exit, and it was adjourning what looked like a big rig gas station and one of those Bates motel kind of get up further back. She barely made it into the parking lot, just past its entrance, before her car completely died. It stopped and wouldn’t go an inch further.
She was grateful to God it went that far.
She looked at her watch. She was pleased that she was off of that highway, but she was still worried. She had to be in Milton before that bond hearing no matter what. She had to see for herself that her sister was okay even though she knew she couldn’t be okay with the charge they slapped on her.
She got out of her car and popped her hood. It wasn’t overheating, which would have been an easy fix: water. And there didn’t appear to be any distress under the hood. Although, in truth, she knew nothing about what distress under a car’s hood would look like.
She was wasting time.
She put the hood back down and got back into her car. When she tried to get it to start up again, it wouldn’t turn over. She tried and tried and got nothing. Before she had a dead battery on her hands to deal with too, she gave up.
She looked around. There was nobody at the self-serve gas station, at least nobody she could see, but big rigs were parked there. Which meant truckers were around somewhere. The kind of men that would know something about cars she would imagine. But what if they did? She still had to buy whatever parts might be needed. And pay them for their trouble too probably.
She grabbed her purse and checked her cash. If she counted the quarters, she had nine dollars to her name. Nine dollars after emptying her bank account to save JoJo’s dumb ass from certain death. And he had the nerve to be ducking and dodging and wasn’t going to pay her back she could feel it. But that was her own damn fault.
She pulled out her phone to give Geraldine a call. She was the only somebody she knew in her orbit who wasn’t broke all the time, and didn’t have to live paycheck to paycheck.
But when she went to turn on her phone, she realized it only had four minutes of battery time left before it became as dead as her car. And that was when she remembered she didn’t charge it last night. Damn! Of all the times to be forgetful!
She called Geraldine. No answer on her personal phone. So she quickly phoned the salon. After several rings, Laquesha answered. “Quesh, put Geraldine on the phone. I only have a couple minutes of battery time left.”
“Geraldine gone.”
“What you mean she’s gone?”
“She left. What you think it mean, Ricki? I got to go. I got a client. Call her on her cell dang,” she said, and ended the call.
“I tried to call,” Ricki began saying before she realized her fellow beautician had hung up in her face. Since her phone only had a few minutes remaining, she turned it off until she could get it charged. Now she knew she had to get into that café andhope somebody there would let her use the phone. Or at least give her a charge since her own charger was at home on her nightstand, naturally, still waiting for her to use it.
She tossed her phone back in her purse, grabbed her keys, and hurried across the parking lot.
She saw a fancy Bentley in the parking lot. Who on earth would be driving a car that rich, she thought, as she went inside.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Inside the café, Vince Fontaine was sitting at a window booth sipping his second cup of coffee. Although he only had a little over an hour to go before he would arrive at his Connecticut home on the outskirts of New Haven, he couldn’t drive another second. Coming up from D.C., he’d already been on the road for five-and-a-half hours before his drowsiness caught up with his exhaustion and forced him to take a break.
He had a private plane but opted to drive. He regretted that decision when that drowsiness came.
When Ricki got out of her car and began heading toward the café, he saw her coming. She caught his attention when she first pulled in to the very front of the parking lot and then got out to check under the hood. She caught the attention of some of those truckers in that café too. Especially the two seated in the booth directly in front of Vince. But all they could talk about was her sweet, petite body and what they wanted to do to it.
Vince noticed her nice figure too. She didn’t have the flat ass like a lot of ladies he knew. But she had curves that elevated her from that tomboy look some guys found attractive, to a more lady look. He preferred the lady look because he liked his gals with some meat on their bones. He wasn’t sure if the young lady heading for the café’s entrance had enough meat for his taste, but she had some.
But she looked so flustered that he wondered if she was okay. Not that he gave a damn either way. He didn’t. But it was so pronounced that it was noticeable.
She walked into the café like a woman on a mission and headed straight for the counter. Vince could tell she needed a favor, and when she said her cellphone was dead and she asked to use the café’s phone, he wasn’t surprised. But the pinch-faced lady behind the counter looked her up and down as if she could size her up. And what she was sizing up, she didn’t like at all. “It’s out of order,” she said.
When she began looking around, Vince could see an element of fear in her large eyes. She was the only black person in the entire café, for one thing. And other than pinch-face, the only woman. Those truckers were eyeing her in a way he could tell she didn’t like, and he could see her reticence to ask them for anything.
