Trina was inwardly distressed and didn’t want to say a word, but she knew she had to. She had to get it over with.
She got it over with.
“I was living in Reno, Nevada back in the day,” she said, “with this guy named Scotty Labaray, who was my boyfriend at the time. I didn’t know he was a gangster like he turned out to be when I hooked up with him, and that he sold drugs and had all these women he actually trafficked. But that’s who he was. Just a terrible person.”
She paused. Then continued. “One night one of his girls that I befriended because she was from Mississippi too, phoned me. I wanted to leave Scotty because he was starting to show signs of abusiveness, and she was tired of selling her body to enrich some hustler like him. She wanted out too. We’d even been plotting how we were going to get out, although neither one of us had the courage at that time to do much of anything. So when she called me and asked me to pick her up from this house that I knew Scotty had his girls using sometimes to turn their tricks, I didn’t hesitate. Especially when she told me her john had beat her up pretty badly that night. Scotty was out of town doing whatever he was doing. Javon, who worked as his lowkey second-in-command that nobody knew worked for Scotty at all except for me and a few of the girls, was out too. So I headed over there.”
Trina paused. Her large hazel eyes seemed to stare out in space, as if she was reliving it, not just retelling it. But she continued. “When I got there, I was expecting to drive down this narrow dirt road that led to the house, which was nothing more than a little shack back up in the woods. But when I was still on the highway, I saw her running out of those woods and she was running toward my car. And she had her hands stretched out like she was telling me to stop. Like there was danger ahead. So I pulled over to the side of the road. She had stopped running and was yelling something to me, but even with my driver side window down I couldn’t hear her. So I grabbed my Glock out of the glove compartment and opened my car door. I stood at my open door so that I could hear what she was trying to say. And that was when I realized she was yelling “get them. They’re gonna kill us. Get them!” And she was looking past me. She was looking behind me. I turned around and saw that a van was speeding toward us.
“They’re gonna kill us, Trina. Get them, Trina, get them! Scotty owes them money and they’re gonna kill us. Get them!” And she kept yelling it. And I was so scared.”
Unshed tears appeared in Trina’s eyes. Reno took her hand and held it. Then she continued. “I was so scared,” she said again. “But when that van didn’t just drive by us, but it slowed down and looked like it was about to pull over to the side of the road, I panicked. I was out there in the middle of nowhere. She was telling me they were gonna kill us because Scotty didn’t pay them. What was I gonna do? So I aimed my gun at that van. And that was when she yelledno, Trina, that’s not them.That’s not them! And she said it loud and clear and I heard her. I declare I heard her loud and clear. I heard her tell me that wasn’t them. I heard her. She even saidit’s a family, Trina, it’s a family. I heard that too.” Then she paused again. “But I fired anyway.”
Reno was so stunned that his hand fell from her hand without him even realizing it. Everybody in that room was stunned.
Tears began to fall from Trina’s face. Ordinarily Reno would have given her his handkerchief. Every man in that room would have given her a handkerchief. But Reno couldn’t move. He was frozen just like they were. Not one of them could believe it.
“You shot afamily?” a shocked Reno asked her.
Trina nodded her head. “I fired anyway,” she said. “I started shooting and I couldn’t stop. If anybody was getting out of there alive, it was gonna be me. That was my mindset.”
“But that girl told you it was a family,” said a shocked Sal. “You said she told you that before you fired the first shot. She told you they weren’t a threat.”
Trina nodded again. “Yes, she did. And I heard her, I can’t lie and say I didn’t hear her. I heard her loud and clear.”
Reno was so perplexed that it pained Tommy and Sal just to look at him. He looked almost as devastated as he looked when he thought Trina was going to die. “But if you heard her loud and clear,” Reno asked her, “why did you do it, Tree? If you knew it was a family in that van, and they probably pulled over to help you two girls, why would you start shooting anyway?”
They all looked at Trina. Because it didn’t make sense to them either. But Trina didn’t give them some well-thought-out answer that would explain everything. Because there was no good answer to give. She just shook her head. “I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know why. But I did it.”
“How many rounds did you fire?” Tommy asked her.
An anguished look appeared on her face. “I emptied the chamber on that van,” she admitted.
“Damn,” said Sal.
But she knew she had to tell it all. “After I . . . After it happened, I went over to the van. I didn’t have a bullet left, but I was still aiming my gun at that van. It was like I was still afraid, but I didn’t know . . . I wasn’t . . . I didn’t know what to do. But when I looked inside,” she said as the tears continued to fall, “and I saw that family.” She shook her head. She couldn’t bring herself to continued.
“How many?” Mick asked softly.
Trina actually looked at him. She told him he would lose all respect for her if he knew the truth. He didn’t seem to believe it at the time. She saw that look in his eyes. Including his sleepy eye. He believed it now.
But she wasn’t going to tell half of the story. Those blackmailers knew the whole truth. They would be happy to tell it. “It was a father,” she said, “a mother. And four small children.”
An audible gasp could be heard in that bedroom. Reno’s heart dropped. And just as she reached for his hand, forcomfort, he got up and began pacing the floor. It was as if he was beside himself with unbelievable shock.
Then he looked at her. “That girl told you a family was in that van, Trina!”
“I know that Reno!”
“But you killed themanyway? Are you serious?”
“I didn’t know what I was doing. I mean, I knew. But . . .”
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner? While we were dating? Before I married your ass?!”
And there it was. What Trina feared the most. He had lost all respect for her just like that. And rightly so. “I never told anybody. I started driving after it happened and I just kept driving. I wanted to die that night myself. But I didn’t even have the courage to do that. But I didn’t know how to… So I went back to the house. I went right back to Scotty’s place. I figured he was all I had. I certainly couldn’t go back to my good, Christian parents in Mississippi. There’s no way I could go back to them after what I’d done. I figured I deserved Scotty. But that didn’t last very long. Within days I was out of there too. He beat my ass and I was gone. I left. And came to Vegas. I figured I could blend in here. I could get lost here.”
“What about that girl that told you not to shoot?” Monk asked. “What happened to her?”
