“What’s up, Mo’ baby?” he greeted her, a little too warmly for my liking.
“Hey, boo,” she cooed, batting her eyelashes. I rolled my eyes, but Richie’s ass ate that shit up. “I need a huge favor. It’s an emergency.”
He sat up, so transfixed on Monica that he barely noticed me. “What you need?”
“Something happened to Jasmine,” she said. “She got snatched in the parking garage, and we need to see the footage.”
Richie’s smile vanished. “Jasmine got what?! You need to call the police.”
Monica shook her head. “This ain’t for them, boo. I know this breaks every rule in the book, but I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious.”
Richie finally looked over at me and sized me up. “Who’s this?”
“Her—” I started, but Monica balled up my mouth in her hand.
“Jasmine’s boyfriend’s brother. He’s helping me.”
Richie’s face tightened. “Monica… If anybody finds out, I could lose my job.”
This was getting us nowhere. I reached for the piece tucked in my waistband and leveled it at him. “We don’t have time for all this.”
Richie jumped up and reached for his service weapon, eyes wide.
“Jelani, put the damn gun down!” Monica said, throwing herself between us. “Richie, chill!”
“Monica, what the hell is going on?” Richie demanded, eyes wide.
I rolled my head and squared my shoulders. I was losing patience. “Say, man, just pull up the fucking footage so we can go.”
The gun in his hand trembled—he wasn’t built for this. The nigga probably never fired that thing in his whole career.
“Please, Richie,” Monica pleaded.
He hesitated, eyes flicking from her to me, and nodded.
Monica sighed in relief. “Thank you! We clocked out around 8:00 p.m. We were on the third floor in the garage.”
Richie dropped back into his chair and started typing.
We stepped behind the desk as the footage loaded. He toggled through the timestamps until he landed on 8:00 p.m.
“There,” he said, tapping the monitor.
The grainy footage showed Monica and Jasmine entering the garage and talking. After a few seconds, the feed froze and skipped.
Richie frowned. He rewound the video and pressed play, but it froze again in the same spot.
“That’s weird. It shouldn’t be doing that.”
“Y'all got any other cameras on that floor?” I asked.
He typed again, switching to a second feed. This one was corrupted, Motoo.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
Richie slumped back in his chair with a defeated look. “Sorry, Mo’. Looks like the whole feed’s corrupted.”
“How’s that even possible?” Monica asked, looking at me.
