“It would appear,” said Vince.
“And why,” asked Ricki, “would they allow a prisoner to have a rope that thick in her cell? They couldn’t hardly cut that thing it was so thick.”
Neither Vince nor George had even noticed that. “That’s true,” George said. Then he looked at Vince. “While we’re investigating, what are you going to be doing in the meantime?”
“I’m getting her out of this town until you can get me some information. I don’t want whomever is behind this to try to do to her what they did to her sister.”
“I’ll get a security detail up here too,” said George. “I told you about roaming this countryside without security.”
“Don’t worry about me. Nor Ricki. I’ll take care of her. You just find out everything you can.”
George nodded. “Will do. Where will you be?”
“At my estate.”
“And which estate is that, Mr. Fontaine? Is it the one here in Connecticut, or the one in Chicago, or the one in L.A., or the one in Paris, or the one in Rome, or the one back in D.C.?”
He hadthatmany estates? Ricki was floored. She knew he was rich. But that sounded like a different level of rich. Not that it mattered. It didn’t. Facing the fire did. “I have to go tell our parents,” she said.
Vince looked at her. He had forgotten about her folks. But he hadn’t forgotten how much she wanted to avoid her folks. “I’m sure the police will notify them eventually.”
But she was shaking her head. “I have to tell them. I can’t let the police do it. They don’t care about Erica. They’ll try to make like everything was Erica’s fault when that’s not true.”
Still championing her sister to the end. How could he disapprove of that kind of loyalty? “Okay,” he said as he tapped on the window and the limo driver, who was standing at the backpassenger door, opened the door for him. “Keep me in the loop,” he said to George.
“Do they have any five-star hotels in this God forsaken town?” George asked.
“You’ll have to go to Hartford,” said Vince. “But don’t go too far afield. I want answers.”
“And you’ll get them,” said George. “Don’t you worry about that.”
And then Vince and Ricki got out of the limousine. But instead of going up to their room, they walked over to the Bentley. Vince could see a few scratches on the front grill from that incident with that pickup truck, but nothing that noticeable. Considering the way he went off of that road, he was pleased that was all there was.
But it did remind him that all still wasn’t resolved.
He put Ricki on the front passenger seat, got in under the steering wheel, and they made the slow drive to her parents’ home.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They lived across the tracks, on what was obviously the black side of town given the faces they passed. But what was also obvious was how well-kept and clean that side of town was. It was even more pristine than downtown.
It shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was. Because every small town Vince had ever ventured into, and whenever he crossed what was usually railroad tracks of separation from the white side to the black side, there would always be a stark difference. There would always be rundown shacks, and dirt roads littered with trash, and dilapidated buildings that seemed centuries old and just as long unkempt. The remnants of a double standard that blacks had to suffer through the entirety of their lives. But not in Milton.
Black men wore suits, and black women wore fancy dresses. They were in and out of their black-owned restaurants and barbershops and beauty salons and feed stores and a bank and a library too. It seemed like another world Vince had entered into. And he was pleased.
“African-Americans appear to be doing quite well here in Milton. When did it change?”
Ricki looked at him. “When did what change?”
“All of this black success?”
Ricki looked back out of the side window. She knew he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. “It was always this way here and all over the United States. But the Klan and other racists took it all away and the law didn’t protect blacks so there was nothing anybody did about it. But here in Milton, the laws didprotect them. Those racists tried to burn us down or loot from us or just steal our land, but the law wouldn’t let them. And since the industries we were relying on belonged to us, we didn’t suffer businesses shutting up whenever whites moved out of the area, creating poverty. There were never any whites in our area to begin with, we didn’t rely on their businesses, so we became one of the few successful black communities that were able to prevail.”
“A perfect storm of positivity for a change,” Vince said.
Ricki looked at him. That was a good way to put it. “Right,” she said.
But when he looked over into those big browns, he could tell she was worried. “I know you hate to bring this kind of news to your folks.”
