Page 32 of Love & Vendettas

“Speaking of facts,” Denver states, walking in the door, “Aspen is running five minutes late.”

“A’ight.” I eyeball him, not wanting to start without him, but not wanting to keep the focus on myself either.

“What’s been going on with you guys?” Denver asks the girls, changing the subject effectively for me, sensing that I feel like I’m on the hot seat.

“Getting ready for this case against Dante Knotts. It’s a headache already, and we’re still in the jury selection process,” Savannah, who’s the D.A. for the city of Chicora Falls, groans.

“Why’s that?” Cheyenne asks.

“You know that they’re challenging everyone who we want on the jury, which is to be expected, but it’s getting petty now.”

“Well, what do you expect from a city whose high-profile running back is on trial for murdering his wife?” Denver asks.

“It should be an open and shut case. We found him in the house with his hands covered with blood, holding the gun,” Damascus, who’s a detective, states. “He committed the crime; his ass needs to go away forever. It doesn’t matter how much money he has or the power he yields over this city. They act as if he’s the messiah.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not going to be an easy trial, I can tell you that now. With the media circus that has come to town,” Savannah declares.

“Sorry, folks. I’m here,” Aspen announces, sweeping through the door. “Our board meeting ran over a little bit, no matter how hard I tried to keep it on track. Trying to buy up the property the old airport sits on isn’t quite as simple as we thought it might be.”

He joins the rest of us at the table, loosening the knot in his tie.

“Well, let’s get right down to business so that I can let y’all get back to your lives, figuring out the problems of the world,” I say.

I click the remote in my hand and turn on the six monitors on the screen to our left. All eyes turn that way as an image of Essence Hamilton fills the first screen, and details fill the other five.

“What the hell?” There are variations of that from all around the table.

“You all should have heard about this by now, but for some reason, she’s not announcing it until Monday. I wantedyou to get ahead of the game, and I would have filled you in by now, but you all weren’t available yet,” I explain.

“She’s running for mayor?” Cheyenne, the city planner, asks.

“Yeah.”

“The timing is a little suspect to me,” Damascus mutters.

“To me too. Which is why I want to jump on it before it gets out of hand. Together, we have the power to stop her advancement in the city,” I state.

Savannah looks as if she is going to be sick to her stomach, as she should be. She was appointed to her position as D.A. by the current mayor, but if Essence Hamilton wins the mayoral race, she knows that she’ll be out of a job.

Essence was the former D.A. and was replaced by Savannah when the new mayor took office four years ago. She’s taken a hard look at most of Essence’s cases since then and retried and won several that Essence lost.

I see the strain around Savannah’s eyes. I knew that it was going to hit her hard. She hasn’t been available; otherwise, I would have told her before the others.

“What do you need from us?” Damascus asks.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but—”

“Then don’t,” he grunts through gritted teeth.

“And I probably shouldn’t be hearing this either,” Savannah asserts, finally speaking up.

“The rest of us are free and clear to hear,” Aspen declares, looking from Cheyenne to his twin brother, Denver.

“I’ll just say this to protect Damascus and Savannah if it should ever arise, though I know that it won’t. We’re looking into her background from every angle. And I do mean every angle, scraping the bottom of the barrel.”

“You’re going back thirty years ago,” Denver comments.

“Even before then.”

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