Renee Read online

  She needed information on Janae, and she needed it fast. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, a high yellow–skinned girl with fire-red hair walked into the lounge. She walked over to a group of people sitting at a round table and began to converse with them. Moments later she glanced over and saw Page, alone at a booth. Page gave the redhead a look that had business written all over it.

  Bingo! Page thought. Here goes my little information machine. Just put one quarter in her and she dishes out all the dirt.

  The redhead nodded at Page. She said a couple more words to their coworkers and then made her way to the back of the lounge. Page smiled. She knew that everything she needed to know was literally walking her way. Tina was the queen of gossip and knew almost everything there was to know about people in New York. She was very selective about the people she gave information to, and when she did, she made sure they came out of their pockets. She limited the people she gossiped with so that she wouldn’t be dragged into any unnecessary problems.

  Tina saw dollar signs when she looked at Page. She was sure that since Page’s sister had magically disappeared, Page would want to hear any information that came her way. Page’s and Janae’s sisters had been archenemies while in high school. Because of this, Page’s sister was a suspect in Leslie’s murder. However, the evidence showed that Page’s sister, Renee, wasn’t the culprit, and for that reason, the police had left her alone. Everyone believed the young girl was innocent, everyone except for Janae. She was sure that Renee had taken Leslie’s life, so when she got wind of the fact that Renee had up and left without a word, she was even more certain that it was true.

  Tina kept her ears to the streets, and she’d been dying to hear anything about the whereabouts of Page’s sister, in order to make a dollar. Little did she know, Page couldn’t have cared less if her sister was lying out on a beach somewhere or was dead in an alley in Brooklyn. As long as she was away from Renee, Page was happy. The only reason she associated with Tina was that Page wanted to make sure her sister remained missing, and she wanted to hear it first if Renee ever did resurface. Now that Janae was back, and was throwing around threats, Page knew Tina would come in handy in more ways than one.

  Tina approached Page with a friendly smile and sat down across from her.

  “What’s up, Page? I haven’t seen you in a minute.” Tina’s bright red hair was blinding. Every time Page saw her dye job, she couldn’t help but think there was no way Tina wouldn’t be pegged as a gossiper.

  “Well, that’s because I haven’t needed any info,” Page answered honestly.

  Tina whipped out her iPhone and responded to a text message. “Yeah, I heard about Janae coming to the library. I’d heard she was coming through next week. That’s why I didn’t rush to tell you. I don’t know how it got under my radar that she had switched up and was coming through today.”

  Page smirked. “You know, just for that slipup, I’m not paying you the full two hundred.” Page’s right eyebrow rose like the Rock’s when he gave “the people’s eyebrow.”

  Tina took a deep breath, frowned, placed her iPhone back in her pocket, and nodded.

  Page went on. “I told your ass, as soon as info hits your ears, it should hit mine. Now, for that slipup, your ass lost out on money.” Page spoke sternly and harshly, daring Tina to challenge her.

  Tina just nodded her head again and remained silent. If it weren’t for the money, she would have no dealings with Page. She knew everything about everyone, except for Page, and that creeped her out. No one was squeaky clean.

  “Now, what else do you know about Janae?” Page asked.

  Tina sat up straight, preparing to tell Page all she knew, hoping that the news she had was good enough to get at least some of her money back.

  “You already know about her leaving Brooklyn and moving to Jersey with her parents after Leslie’s death. Well, according to my sources, life in Jersey wasn’t any better than life in New York. I just found out that Leslie’s death fucked Janae up so much, she’s been talking to someone professionally since she arrived in Jersey. I think she’s on meds. She’s so fucked up in the head.

  “Janae wasn’t the only one going through hell over her sister’s death, either. Her mother also saw a therapist, but she took the death a lot harder. Last month she committed suicide by keeping their car running in the garage, with the doors and windows shut. She left a suicide note, saying that she had tried, but she couldn’t live another day without her oldest daughter. She prayed that God would forgive her, and she apologized to Janae.”

  Page’s face scrunched up. Damn. This chick is good. How the hell she find out what the suicide letter says? This hasn’t even been on the news. I’m not paying her enough for this shit.

  “I know fine threads when I see them. When and how did she come into money?” Page straightened out her short-sleeved dress and ran her fingers over her newly waxed eyebrows.

  She worked in a library, but her mother had money and kept her fly at all times. Her mother’s boutiques were doing really well, so well that they were in the process of opening a third one in Manhattan. For a twisted soul, Page was a gorgeous young woman. At the age of nineteen, she had an hourglass shape, a mocha complexion, and a low haircut that Halle Berry used to sport. Her presence demanded all eyes on her.

  “That’s what I was getting to. Months before her mother’s death, Janae wound up meeting this guy from Brooklyn. Things got hot and heavy fast, and now she’s stuck on homeboy like glue. He’s paid. He supplies her with nothing but the best, and he even moved her in with him.”

  “It’s all starting to make sense. Move in with the dude from Brooklyn and get a better chance at revenge. I feel her, gangsta,” Page responded.

  Tina nodded her head. “Yup. But I wouldn’t say she moved in with him just to seek revenge on your sister. I hear she’s so sprung over dude that even if he lived in Alaska, she would have followed him.”

  “What’s dude’s name and address, and what’s his occupation?”

  “That, I don’t know. All I know is he resides in Brooklyn and is paid. The best info that I got on him is how he takes care of her every need, took her in when her mother died, and that she’s madly in love with him. So in love that she put some chick in a coma who was staring at him while they were walking down the street together.”

  Once again, Page’s right eyebrow went up. “A coma? Chick really became gangsta, huh? Tell me how many bodies she has under her belt.”

  “I don’t know. I just heard that she’s beating the hell out of anyone who even looks at her man.”

  “What company does she keep?”

  “I’m not sure about that either.” Tina felt herself losing more and more of her money. “If you’re talking about anyone and everyone she associates herself with, I can’t say.”

  Damn. She has never asked this many questions before. Something must be up, Tina thought.

  Page sat quiet for a minute, pondering if there was anything else she needed to know.

  “One more thing, since you can’t tell me dude’s name, occupation, or home address . . .” Page paused, giving Tina a look that clearly said, “You fucked up.” “Can you at least tell me who he associates himself with?”

  Tina put her head down and shook it, answering no.

  No? Homegirl can tell me that Janae’s seeking professional help and what her mother wrote in a suicide note, but she can’t tell me who homeboy chills wit’? Page mused.

  Page shook her head. “Get on your A game, Tina. You’re missing out on some serious loot, and I’m not talking about a measly two hundred dollars.”

  Page finished her drink and then got up. She went into her purse, pulled out bills, and threw 150 dollars on the table. Without further comment, she left the booth and headed for the door. Her heels clicked against the tile on her way out.

  Chapter 5

  Janae sat on the floor at the side of her bed, with her face in her arms. The tears on her face had dried up, and she felt as
if she no longer had a tear left in her body to release. When she looked up at her night table, the clock read 4:00 a.m. She bit down on her lip, desperately trying not to cry all over again. Her boyfriend had yet to return home.

  I refuse to think that he’s still at work.

  Janae sat up straight, laid her head against her bed, and closed her eyes. At that moment, she was willing to do anything in order to calm down. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

  * * *

  Five hours later, Janae woke up in bed, dressed in the same clothes she had had on the day before. She had a headache from all the crying she’d done the night before, and it took a second for her to remember what had actually taken place. As she lay there, everything slowly started to hit her.

  She turned to her right and saw Jared lying on his stomach. His face was turned away from hers. The second she saw him, tears slid from her eyes. She wiped them away, sat up, and started to nudge him. The longer he took to wake up, the harder she nudged.

  Jared turned to face her and finally opened his eyes.

  “Where were you last night?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly.

  “What?” Jared’s eyes were open, but it was obvious no one was home.

  Janae spoke louder. “Where were you last night!”

  “At work.” Jared stretched his body out.

  “Then why didn’t you get home by two thirty in the morning?”

  “Because work lasted longer than usual. The office had a party and trashed the place.”

  When Janae met Jared, she had been led to believe that he was some rich kid who was given everything on a silver platter by his parents, who were both lawyers. This explained why he was loaded and lived in a nice brownstone in Brooklyn. Yet the truth of the matter was that he was not getting money from his parents, but from working for Renee. He had never told Janae what he really did for a living, and after they moved in together, he’d lied and told her that he’d got a job doing maintenance in an office building at night so he wouldn’t be so dependent on his parents. This was the perfect lie, especially since working for Renee required a lot of late nights. Janae had never questioned him until recently.

  “I saw you driving down the street yesterday morning. I saw you do all you could to avoid me. You damn near killed yourself in the process,” Janae remarked.

  Jared looked at her like she had lost her mind. But he thought, Damn! She saw me? I know I pulled a 007, but I was that noticeable?

  Yesterday was the first of the month, and Jared and Waves had picked up Renee’s money from the local pharmacies she did business with. Whether if it was by way of fake paper or digital prescriptions called in by dirty doctors, druggies got whatever they wanted out in the open. Jared had driven and had listened to Waves rant and rave over how cold he thought Renee was. But while Waves had spoken, all Jared had been able to think of was how smooth Renee’s legs were and how she bit down on her lip when she was angry.

  While in his fantasy world, Jared had noticed Janae walking down the street, and he’d immediately broken into a U-turn. He’d nearly caused an accident, one that would have resulted in him killing himself and Waves, just to avoid being seen by Janae. He knew that if she’d seen him, she would have grilled him about why he was out in the street, instead of home, sleeping.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jared said as he grabbed the TV remote.

  Before he got a chance to turn on the TV, Janae took the remote out of his hand and placed it on her night table.

  “Yes you do. Tell me, shouldn’t you have been home, sleeping? Why are you out running around in the morning when you get home late from work? When I left in the morning, you were still in bed. What were you doing? Waiting till I left before you got up and headed out?”

  The more Janae spoke, the more annoyed Jared became. He really felt she was digging into this more than she needed to. It didn’t help that she saw right through Jared. He had known she had a doctor’s appointment yesterday morning, and he had purposely waited for her to leave before he did. He’d do anything to avoid being interrogated.

  “Janae, you’re tripping. Ain’t no one avoiding you, and yeah, I did leave out early yesterday morning. So what? I had a couple of things to take care of before I went to work.”

  “I bet you did. So what’s her name?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. What’s her name? No man would pull a stunt like that unless he had a trick in the car with him. So tell me, who is she?”

  This chick is really buggin’. Her ass is getting all paranoid on me.

  “Just be real. Who is she? Because I’m telling you right now, she only wants you for your money. She doesn’t love you like I do, and she damn sure don’t need you like I do. What you have to realize is, I’m the only one you need, just like you’re the only one I need. I don’t even know why you work. Your parents can pay your way. Plus, I got some money my mom saved up for me before she died, so we’re okay. All you need to do is quit that job, and we can always be together. I can’t stand sleeping alone. I need you by my side to make me feel safe.”

  This is the shit I’m talking about, Jared told himself. She’s too damn needy. How do you tell someone to quit their job so that you can spend more time with them? What type of selfish shit is that?

  When Jared first met Janae, she’d been nothing like the way she was today. She’d been a true ride-or-die chick, a gangsta, a no-holds-barred kinda girl. They’d met at the ferry while Jared was keeping an eye on one of Renee’s investments. After exchanging numbers, they’d had a couple of dinner dates, and the two of them had hit it off and become inseparable. After a couple of months, Jared had really started to believe that she was the one for him. Granted, Janae knew absolutely nothing about who Jared really was—she hadn’t even known his real name until recently—and still, their relationship worked. Jared was a private man. The business he was in required him to be nothing else.

  However, after two months of living with Janae, Jared had slowly started to regret it. She had become needy, paranoid, and jealous. He had thought it was cute that when they first met, she was protective and would hurt females who even looked at him. But over time it had become too much. She would blow his phone up every hour, search his pockets, and wait up until he got home in the wee hours of the morning. She was smothering him.

  He knew that she had just lost her mother, and that her father had disappeared after the suicide, so he was aware that Janae was going through some rough times. But he couldn’t take the way she treated him. She was digging her claws into him, and he could feel the scratches.

  Shorty’s gonna make me lose my mind if she keeps this up. I can predict that I’ma get rid of her soon, he thought now.

  Jared got up and stood at the side of the bed. His brown complexion complemented his broad shoulders and his chiseled chest. He made his way to the bathroom.

  “Where are you going?” Janae called.

  Jared stopped and looked over at the clock. It read 2:00 p.m. “Out.” He didn’t have to be at work for hours, but he wanted to get away from Janae as soon as possible.

  After Jared went in the bathroom, Janae leaned her head against the headboard. When she looked down at her clothes, she remembered she had never changed the night before.

  I remember whenever I used to fall asleep without changing into my pajamas, he would change my clothes for me and place me in bed. He doesn’t even bother to do that anymore, probably because he’s undressing the next girl, she thought.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jared walked back into the bedroom. Then he left like a bat out of hell, without even saying goodbye to Janae. She just sat there on the bed, hurt and confused. Janae had become so needy and protective of Jared because he had actually made a commitment by moving her in with him. She didn’t want to lose him, like she had her family. She knew that he was unaware of her sister’s death, and the fact that she even had a sister to begin with, so Jared could not possibly understand the pain she
was going through. Janae felt like she had a curse over her head. Everyone she loved died.

  Her father was still alive, but in her eyes, he was dead. Instead of them mourning their loved one’s death together, he had disappeared to God knows where after her mother died. Traumatized, Janae was scared someone would come and take Jared away from her. He was the only person she had left, so when she stepped into her new home with him, she’d made herself a promise: over her dead body would she let someone take Jared away from her or allow him to leave her.

  Thoughts of Jared with another woman and of her deceased family members floated in her mind. Before she knew it, she jumped off the bed and started trashing the entire place. She threw clothes, dresser drawers, plates, chair cushions, and pots and pans all over the place. After a half hour of throwing things nonstop, Janae had exhausted herself, and she collapsed on the living-room floor. Within minutes, she fell asleep, like a child who had had a long tantrum.

  Two hours later, Janae woke up in the middle of the garbage can she had once called her living room, and was introduced to broken glass, upturned chairs, cracked picture frames, and other detritus lying all over the floor. Her head was spinning, and she didn’t feel any better than when she had first trashed the place.

  She got up and headed to the bathroom. From the medicine cabinet, she took out a bottle of One A Day vitamins, and then she left the bathroom, walked into the dining room, and poured the powdery white substance out of the vitamin bottle, onto the dining-room table. She divided the cocaine into four thin lines and then sniffed each line back to back until she had cleaned the table. High and numb to any feeling, she eventually started to clean the house, acting like nothing had ever happened.

  Chapter 6

  Page sat at a table in the prison’s visiting room, her palms sweating, her legs shaking, and her heart beating a mile a minute. She was so excited yet nervous to see the love of her life. She wondered if he looked the same. Page was ashamed to admit it, but she hadn’t been to see him in months. She had been forced to buckle down in order to maintain her 4.0 GPA at college. If there was one thing he had drilled into her, it was the importance of an education.