James’s fingers curled into a fist, then released, then curled again.
“What?” Daphne asked.
“That’s not Nicole Monroe. That’s my sister, Chanel Washington.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Iassure you, that’s Nicole Monroe,” Ava said.
“I assure you, it’s not,” Lovell said. “I haven’t seen Chanel in ages, but I’d recognize her anywhere. She hated me, liked making my life miserable. Believe me, I remember.”
Two muffled voices conferred as Daphne caught his eye. He didn’t see doubt there, just concern.
“Is it possible Chanel stole Nicole’s identity?” Daphne asked, her gaze fixed on his.
“It would be unusual, but possible,” Ava said.
“People steal identities all the time. Is it really that unusual?” Daphne asked.
“My neighborhood wasn’t a safe one, and when your life depends on knowing who’s around you at all times, people would have noticed,” Lovell responded. But she had. Somehow.
Daphne frowned. “You said Chanel was killed in a home invasion?”
“She was,” Callie said. “Or that’s what the police report said.”
“Can you pull it up?” Daphne asked.
“What are you thinking?” Lovell asked.
“If Chanel stole her identity and, as you pointed out, folks weren’t likely to mistake people, then that means the victimwas intentionally misidentified as Chanel,” Daphne said. “I’m curious who ID’d her and if she was ID’d on the scene or later.”
“On the scene,” Ava said. “By Nicole Monroe, Malcom Carter, and Keshaun Low.”
“Anyone want to take a bet as to the real identity of the ‘Nicole Monroe’ who identified the body?” Lovell muttered.
“Who’s Keshaun Low?” Daphne asked.
“When I left, he was a mid-level member of one of the local gangs,” Lovell said, pulling up the smattering of memories he had about the man. And he’d been a man—already in his early thirties when Lovell left seventeen years ago. “He’d be in his early fifties by now, I think.”
“Fifty-four,” Ava said. “Nicole is the face and manager of Sweet Dreams, Malcom the head of security, and Keshaun, who goes by Kenneth Low now, drives the clients to and from the house and manages the…”
“Trafficked humans?” Daphne supplied.
“Yeah, them,” Ava said, her voice heavy with the weight of what she’d uncovered.
“So the actual murder victim all those years ago was likely the real Nicole Monroe, maybe at the hands of Chanel, Malcom, and Keshaun/Ken, and then they identified the body as that of Chanel, while Chanel adopted Nicole’s identity, conveniently avoiding all the charges brought against her?” Callie summarized.
Lovell didn’t want to agree. He might have cut ties with his siblings ages ago, but he’d done it because they weren’t healthy for him to be around. That was a far cry from thinking of them as potential murderers, willing to steal a dead woman’s life to escape responsibility for their own misdeeds, only to set up and run a human trafficking ring. But he had to. “Yeah, I guess that’s what we’re thinking,” he said. Daphne’s hand slid over his. He spread his fingers, and she slipped hers between them.
“Wouldn’t Nicole’s family report her missing? And James said people would have noticed if Chanel was suddenly masquerading as Nicole,” Daphne pointed out.
“Nicole didn’t have any family. Her parents died in a train accident—their car got stuck on the tracks a year earlier—and she had no siblings or cousins,” Ava said.
“And while people would have noticed Chanel taking Nicole’s identity,” Lovell said, “even if they wanted to say something, who would they have told? No one cared about the people who lived in that neighborhood—not the cops, not social services, not any government agency. The only people who did care were those who wanted it cleaned up and swept away. Maybe it’s changed, but back then, it may as well have been its own country, with its own set of laws.”
The familiar feeling of detachment stole through his body. He’d nearly forgotten how hopeless, how isolated, he’d felt as a kid. There was New Jersey, then the tristate area, then the rest of the United States. And then there were the twelve blocks that made up his neighborhood. Walled in by invisible barriers made by the communities on both sides. For those who lived on the outside, it was a blight that the rest of the city needed protection from. For those who lived within, it was all they knew. Within those few blocks, they could live or die as they pleased; they commanded their destinies—or so they told themselves. A few understood that the control it offered was nothing but an illusion, a false power given to them by a system that had utterly failed them. Some accepted and lived with this, while others, like him, got out.
Ava sighed. “I wish I could say it’s changed, but it’s not much better.”
