“She’s gone, Mick.”
I hear Victor’s words, but they don’t compute. I rush to her room. Everything looks the same. Except it’s not. Her clothes are missing from the closet. On her nightstand is the copy I’d given her ofPrincess Dionna and the Dark Shadowand a white envelope with my name written across the front in a messy version of Dee’s handwriting.
I steady my hands enough to tear open the envelope. I stare in disbelief.
Inside sits her ring.
And my world drops from underneath me.
ISURFACE FROM THE MEMORY to find Mama T standing in the archway.
“The only thing that can put that kind of trouble in a man’s eyes is a woman,” she says of Dee’s picture in my hand.
Mahogany wisps streaked with gray fall from the loose braid framing the face I’ve known my entire life. I don’t like seeing the stress lines pinch her brow. She’s still grieving for Cayo, and the threat of losing Dwayde looms over us all.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” I say, assembling a smile.
“We’re beyond all that, Micah.”
She means the secrets. The night Dee left, I came clean, confessing our relationship and my marriage proposal. I expected Mama and Papa T to be furious with me. They knew of my reputation with girls—the whole town knew. But my prediction of their reaction turned out to be all wrong. Instead of being angry that I would dare to date their daughter, they were disappointed that we’d deceived them, which felt a hell of a lot worse to me than anger.
My old man, whom Cayo had called to report Dee missing, was also there, hearing the whole story. He was livid. Not in front of the Torreses, of course. He put on the performance of concerned father and sheriff. But at home was a different story.
“What are you, fucking stupid?” He spat in disgust and grabbed me by the throat. “You were going to throw your life away because you popped the chunky girl’s cherry. Are you so far up Cayo’s ass that you’d ruin everything to stay in his good books?”
“This has nothing to do with Cayo!” I shouted, fighting back that time. “I love Dee!”
“Listen to me, you dumb fuck.” His beefy mitt tightened against my windpipe. “You have NC State and then the NBA to think about. Not some fat girl who saw the writing on the wall. She knew you’d get sick of her soon enough and realize she wasn’t worth throwing it all away for. She got the message and she’s gone. And if you so much as make one phone call to try to find her, I will put a bullet through your fucking head.”
A sharp blow to the temple punctuated his threat. But I barely felt it, past caring what Malcolm Peters would do to me. I went with Papa T to Amherst to look for her. We turned up squat. Papa T even hired a private investigator, but I suspect we never got any “real” answers because my old man intervened. Not that I could ever prove it. But with no idea where she would go—she didn’t have any relatives that we knew of—we were at a dead end.
As the days and then the weeks went by without a call, without a word, the hope of ever hearing from her spilled from me like sand through an hourglass. I descended deeper and deeper into darkness. When it came time for college, I couldn’t bear going to New York without Dee. I couldn’t bear life without her.
“Micah?” Mama T cuts through my jagged flashback. “Come sit,” she says, taking a seat on the couch and patting the cushion beside her.
I force the memories into the black-edged corner of my mind and put the picture down before joining her. Mama T angles her body to face me with kind but keen eyes. After I lost my mom, it was Rita Torres who stepped in as surrogate. She’d been the one to bandage my skinned knees, feed me soup when I was sick, call me on my shit, and hug me whenever I needed it. And even when I thought I didn’t.
“Out with it, Micah.”
I rub my hand back and forth over my hair, feeling the frustration pumping through my scalp. We haven’t talked much about Dee, mainly because I never wanted to. But I see she’s not going to let this go, and maybe getting her perspective will help me sort it out.
“I had a fight with Dee last night.”
Concern purses her lips. “What did you fight about?”
“I was wound up over Dwayde’s visit with the Franklins and went to her place to discuss offering them a financial incentive to drop the case.”
“You asked Deeana to bribe them?” Disapproval colors her tone.
“I know it’s not the most ethical move, but I had to do something.”
“You can’t fix everything, Micah,” she says, her voice softer now. “You carry so much unnecessary guilt.”
“I am responsible for this mess Dwayde’s in.”
“No,mi’jo, you’re not. The Franklins were bound and determined to find Dwayde. If it hadn’t happened then, it would have happened eventually. Once Vittorio and Isabelle filed for adoption, there’d be a paper trail leading the Franklins straight to Dwayde.”
“Maybe you’re right.” But my guilty conscience can’t quite let it go.
