my life. You’ll stay in this
prison of a place and find yourself another willing participant.” She looked at his handsome face, and then at
his large member. “Easily,” she added.
And
then she inhaled, opened her mouth wide, and took him in full.
Brandy
smiled when they brought DeAndre into the visitors’ booth inside the Jail, but
DeAndre couldn’t pull it off. A glass
wall separated them. They had to
communicate by picking up a telephone. The other inmates were already giving him all kinds of grief, thinking
they could intimidate him because he wasn’t a hardened criminal like them. They had nicknames for him already. Schoolboy. Sissy. Half-breed. Any name but his own. There was nothing, he felt, to smile about.
“What
did he say?” DeAndre asked as soon as he sat at the table and picked up the
phone.
“Good
morning,” Brandy said. “They’re treating
you okay, Dray?”
“It’s
okay,” he lied. “What did he say? Did you call him?”
“Did
I call who?”
“The
man you said could help us, Bran, what’s wrong with you!”
She
frowned. “Don’t you talk to me like
that.”
“Whatever. Did you call him, Bran?”
She
hesitated. Sometimes she wondered why
she bothered. Yeah, I called him.”
“What
did he say?”
Brandy
hated lying, but she couldn’t add to her brother’s burdens. “He’s looking into it.”
“Into
my case?” DeAndre was suddenly hopeful.
“Yeah. He’s . . . looking into it, Dray.”
“Good,”
DeAndre said. “But tell him to come and
talk to me first. Those cops believe I
did it and they’ll make him believe it too.”
“What
about the video?” Brandy asked. “It’ll
back up your story.”
“But
they claim there are no cameras inside that store.”
“That’s
a lie,” Brandy insisted. “Why wouldn’t
they have cameras? I don’t believe that
for a second!”
“I
don’t either,” DeAndre said. “But that’s
what they’re claiming.”
Brandy
already knew this was going to be an uphill battle. But if the cops were willing to pretend
evidence didn’t exist to get a conviction, she now realized just how steep the
climb was going to be. But she couldn’t
let her brother know that. “I found you
a lawyer, Dray,” she said with another smile. “A good one.”
“But
I thought you said that rich dude was going to look into it?”
“He
is. But you’ll still need a lawyer for
right now, rather than just some overworked public defender. He’ll be here to see you later today.”
“The rich guy?”
“The
lawyer, Dray. He’ll be here later
today.”
“But
what about your rich friend? When will
he let us know something?”
“Soon,”
Brandy said. “Real soon.”
“Tell
him everything Will and Eddie are saying are lies. I didn’t shoot anybody and they know it. Tell him to come talk to me first.”
Brandy
nodded. “I will, Dray. I will. But what about you? They’re
feeding you okay?”
“I’m
fine. I just wanna get out of here. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t shoot anybody and I didn’t try to
rob anybody. But none of the cops will
believe me.”
“I
told you not to talk to them.”
“I’m
not talking to them! I said I didn’t do
it, that’s all I said. But they keep
talking to me. They keep claiming they
have all this evidence against me. But
that can’t be true, Bran. I never did
anything wrong. But they won’t believe
me.”
Brandy
knew. They didn’t see this honor student
with the good grades and the clean record. To them he was just another statistic. Another thug in jail. “Don’t you
worry, Dray,” she said, to reassure him. “I’ll get you out of this. I
promise you.”
And
although DeAndre still couldn’t pull off a smile, he did manage to appear less
anguished.
It
was his sister who was inwardly agonizing.
An Historical Mystery_The Gondreville Mystery