Takedown. Julie MillerЧитать онлайн книгу.
were patches of brightness and warmth here and there where hope and promise tried to shine through. A freshly painted window box waited for spring flowers to be planted. A trio of preteen girls sat on the stoop across the street, chattering in laughing voices under the rosy glow of the setting sun. Construction signs promised a condemned building was about to be razed and replaced by something clean and new.
But she was just as aware of the weary posture of the shopkeepers locking their doors and pulling down protective cages, the curious glances and quick dismissals from workers climbing off the bus at the corner and hurrying toward their respective homes before any kind of trouble found them. And she couldn’t miss the homeless man, dragging a filthy backpack behind him as he turned into an alley and disappeared.
Thankfully, though, there were no pimps, no gang-bangers, no visible dealers she recognized from those lost days a decade ago when the dark corners and hidden secrets of this Kansas City neighborhood had offered her a false escape from the sorrows and stress of her teenage life. Of course, night hadn’t fallen yet. Shadows and moonlight were usually the only invitation the cockroaches needed to come out of their holes.
A shiver of remembered nightmares rippled across her skin, leaving a sea of goose bumps in its wake.
You’ve moved beyond this place, she reminded herself with a mental nod, shaking off the sudden chill. She was older, wiser and ten years clean without a fix of coke. To her dying day, she’d atone for that wasted part of her life by helping youths like Troy Anthony move beyond the sucking trap of No-Man’s Land the way she finally had. So do it, already.
“Wait up.” Zipping the front of her sweatshirt jacket, Jillian hurried to catch up to Troy as he maneuvered his chair over the curb onto the sidewalk. She grabbed the handles and steered him up the concrete ramp that zigzagged beside the stairs leading to the apartment building’s double doors. “I promised front door service, and that means apartment 517.”
Troy turned his key in the lock of the inner lobby door. “Ain’t nothing wrong with these magic hands. I can get up to the fifth floor by myself. You’d better head on home before dark.”
“Is everybody my big brother today? This’ll take like, what, five minutes max?” Jillian rolled him across the cracked tiles of the lobby floor, and waited while he pushed the elevator’s call button. The numbers over the elevator doors didn’t light up, but she could tell from the grinding of gears and cables that the car was descending inside the shaft. “I don’t want your grandmother to worry about you getting home safely. She’s got enough on her plate.”
“You’re sure you’re not coming upstairs to snitch one of her chocolate chip cookies?”
“Hey, if somebody offers me homemade cookies and there’s chocolate involved…” Jillian waved her arms out in a dramatic gesture. “Ahh!”
Their shared laughter ended abruptly when the light beside the super’s door clicked on. Jillian clutched her fists back to her chest and she masked the catch in her throat with a cough. Great. Since when had she gotten so skittish?
Stupid letter. Stupid flower.
She smoothed her hair into her ponytail and tried to ease her paranoia by taking stock of her surroundings inside the lobby. She and Troy were alone. The super’s light must be rigged with some kind of motion sensor that she had inadvertently set off, because no one else had entered the building behind them or come out of the apartment. She should be relieved the light had snapped on because it dispelled the evening gloom gathering in the lobby, although the corridor beyond the super’s apartment remained in shadows. She was relieved. For a moment. Deliberately focusing her senses also gave her a whiff of a pungent odor that was decidedly less pleasant than the aroma of freshly baked cookies she imagined coming from Troy’s apartment.
Jillian wrinkled up her nose. “What is that smell?”
“Probably Mrs. Chambers’s cats in 102. She can’t say no to a stray. You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I think somebody needs to change the litter box.”
“You sure? You seem a little rattled.”
“Just tired. It’s been a long day.” A final ding of the elevator gave her the perfect excuse to brush aside Troy’s concerns. As the steel doors parted, she grabbed the handles on Troy’s wheelchair. “The Jillian Masterson chauffeur service is ready to—”
“There you are. Where have you been? You’re late. Way late.” A sharp voice from inside the elevator greeted them before the tall, stout black woman braced the doors open with her thick, gnarled fingers.
“Grandma—”
“Don’t you Grandma me.”
Jillian pulled the chair back as LaKeytah Anthony stormed out. The older woman with the purplish-dyed hair reached out to her grandson to give him a tweak on his chin and a light cuff on his ear in one smooth motion. “Dex is upstairs by himself, doin’ his homework. You were supposed to have him here forty minutes ago. Now I’ll be late gettin’ to my shift at the Winthrop Building.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Anthony. I got held up at the office for a few minutes. Troy called.”
“An hour ago!”
“It’s rush hour,” Troy defended. “Jillian drove as quick as she could. You know there’s construction and stuff.”
LaKeytah wouldn’t hear it. “I thought the whole idea of you drivin’ him was to get him home early. You know what I’m fearin’ when I don’t know where my boys are.”
The idea was to get Troy to therapy, period. Saving the Anthonys time, money and concern was supposed to be the bonus. “It wasn’t my intent to worry you.”
“I can’t get to work if he isn’t here.”
“Dex is fourteen,” Troy argued. “He can be by himself for half an hour.”
“How old were you when you got shot?”
“Mrs. Anthony!”
The older woman’s fatigue was evident as she finally paused to catch her breath. “Maybe if I’d been here to walk you home that night…”
“Then maybe you’d have got shot, too.”
Dismissing the sad logic of Troy’s words, LaKeytah straightened and pointed a stern finger at him. “Dinner’s in the microwave. Make sure Dex finishes his algebra.” The accusatory finger swung toward Jillian. “I’m gonna be late to clean my offices now, thanks to you. If you want to help Troy, you get him home on time.” With a grunt and a glare, LaKeytah stormed outside, letting the lobby’s double doors slam shut behind her.
A beat of shocked silence passed before Troy leaned forward to open the elevator doors again. “Sorry about that.”
Still feeling a sting of guilt, Jillian summoned a wry smile. LaKeytah Anthony worked two jobs, raised two teenagers and had plenty of reason to worry about her family in this neighborhood. Though she didn’t appreciate being anyone’s whipping post, Jillian thought she could understand the other woman’s anger. “Your grandmother’s stressed out about work, and like she said, she’s concerned about you.”
“She’s concerned about Dexter.” He rolled his eyes to punctuate his mocking acceptance that he was the grandson LaKeytah had already given up on. “She just wants me home so I can babysit.”
“Troy.” Jillian squeezed his shoulder. “It’s more than that.”
He shrugged off her offer of comfort. “She’s got no cause to jump your case like that.”
“Forget it.” She wheeled him inside and let him position his chair while she pushed button number 5.
“I can get upstairs on my own.”
“I know you can. But I promised to see you home, okay? Home’s the fifth floor.” The doors drifted shut. Let him be all tough and hide