I said nothing, just took in short, heaving breaths.
“You okay, Lena?” Aunt E watched me with those intense eyes of hers. Thank God Erin seemed oblivious. “I tried to call you back, but I know you don’t check your messages.”
I looked back and forth between them. Once. Twice. Three times. Finally, I spoke. “Just surprised to see Erin still here, that’s all.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” Erin said.
Me too. Aunt E kept staring, but I avoided her.
“How was Pennsylvania?” Erin said. “You see Karma Dodson?”
Yeah, right in front of me. She must’ve not known that I knew. She’d obviously sent her mother away so I couldn’t talk to her. “It was a dead end.” I smiled. Let Erin believe her plan had worked. “Let me run to the bathroom.”
I picked up the cordless in Aunt E’s bedroom and called 911 as soon as I closed the bathroom door. “Yes, we have someone in my house I think might be dangerous.”
After I gave the operator my address, she promised to send a police car right away. “How soon can you get here?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
I hung up and checked the time: 4:31. Every minute felt like ten. Perky Black Girl was long gone. Super Black Woman was at the ready. I could do this—keep Erin occupied until they got here. Then leave it to the police to figure out if she was a murderer or just a fraud.
I splashed water on my face, wiping my hands on towels that had been there since the dawn of time before heading back to the kitchen. The pies were now in the oven, and Erin was doing dishes. Aunt E sat at her kitchen table. She said nothing when I came in. Just watched me.
“I didn’t hear the car pull up,” Erin said.
I came over to help her dry. Last thing I wanted was for her to have easy access to steak knives. “Left it at your house. Remember?”
I watched to see how she’d react. She barely blinked. “You didn’t text me.”
“Figured you’d be home. I knocked on your door and everything.” I stopped myself. It’d be silly to tip her off before the police got here. “Obviously you weren’t. How was your meeting?”
“Great. Think they might invest.” She handed me the final plate. “My turn to pee.”
As soon as she left, Aunt E spoke. “What is going on?”
I waited until I heard the bathroom door close before I walked over to her. “She’s a con artist. Desiree found out. I think she may have something to do with Desiree’s death.” I couldn’t say I think she killed her. Not to Aunt E. Not until I knew Erin was out of the house. “The police should be here any minute.”
Aunt E swallowed. “Let me get Kitty.”
She always kept her hot-pink Hello Kitty aluminum bat next to her bed. I waited until she was well on her way before running to the front window to see if the police had arrived. There was no one outside.
When I walked back to the kitchen, I saw Erin’s purse sitting on the table. I had it unzipped before I even realized what I was doing. Zarah had seen Erin snatch her phone back out of Desiree’s hands, which meant Desiree had seen something Erin didn’t want her to. I needed to see for myself. Unfortunately, the designer bag was filled to capacity. No doubt a by-product of not having anywhere to live.
I felt around, recognizing objects by touch. Lipstick. Wallet. Hairbrush.
I kept going until I felt a zipper. Something rectangular was inside. I unzipped it. Bingo. Hot-pink plastic.
The screen was black when I pulled it out. I tapped the home key to wake it up, praying she didn’t have a passcode. The lock screen photo popped up.
My smiling face stared back at me, crowding in next to Mel and Desiree.
Desiree’s phone. The one I’d been wanting to get my hands on since she died. The one I’d assumed had been stolen with the car. There was only one reason for Erin to have it.
She had been up there with Desiree that night.
I touched the home key again, bringing me to the Enter Passcode screen. I started to plug in my birthday.
“What the hell are you doing?” Erin said.
She was behind me. I took my time turning around, holding the phone up like she’d told me to freeze. We stared at each other from across the room before I spoke first. “Holding my dead sister’s phone. The one I’ve been looking for.”
I’d never been in a physical fight in my life. But I’d seen enough of them on TV. The real ones on Worldstar. The fake ones on soap operas. The even more fake ones on reality TV. I thought I knew how this would all go. I’d pull out my earrings, then pull out her weave. I’d hurl punches and improperly used synonyms for a female dog. Flashes of anger would result in flashes of nipples as we rolled round and round on the floor.
Turns out, I stayed exactly where I was. Didn’t even think about throwing the phone at her head. Just held it more tightly. Because as much as I wanted to beat her ass right then and there, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Not with Aunt E in the house. Not with knowing what Erin had already done to Desiree.
“I can explain,” she said.
I glanced at the time on Aunt E’s cable box: 4:43. Three more minutes. I could stand here and listen to my sister’s murderer explain why she’d killed her if it meant that in four minutes she’d be explaining it all to the cops. And then to cellmates and then to a jury of her peers who wouldn’t believe a single word coming out of her mouth—just like I wasn’t about to.
“It was a mistake.” She sounded like she thought that would make me feel better. That my sister dying was only some miscalculated math problem on her SATs. “I’d done some coke, and there had to be something in it. I didn’t know what I was doing when I—”
I finally let loose. “Killed her.”
She stepped back as if I’d actually slapped her. “What? No. I was talking about why I have her phone. I was with someone when Desiree died. You know that.”
I glanced at the clock. Two more minutes. “Yeah. Mr. One Night Stand Whose Name You Forgot.”
“Why would I lie about that?”
“Why would you lie about having a town house in Chelsea? Why would you lie about your rich daddy screwing your nanny? Why would you lie about your name, Karma?”
Recognition hit her like the car she’d had repossessed. All my plans to wait for the police up and left too. “You took my sister to the Bronx so no one would know you up here. Shot her up with heroin, went back to her hotel room, and went to sleep.”
She shook her head, faster and faster. “I’m a liar, yes—”
“Con artist.”
“Con artist. But if I killed Desiree, why would I still be here? I want to know what happened to her just as much as you do.” She took a step closer.
“No,” I said. “Stay there.”
“I loved her.”
I looked away, not because I couldn’t look at her but because I wouldn’t. Super Black Woman. From my peripheral, she was still staring at me hard. As if willing me to look at her. To believe her.
“I helped her.”
Bullshit. “Only thing you helped her do was die.”
Aunt E came from the bedroom, bat in hand. Erin didn’t see her. Erin moved, and I couldn’t help it. I flinched, revealing the tough-girl talk was just that. In truth, I was scared shitless, praying the Super Black Woman cape was bulletproof. I’d never wanted to see a cop more in my twenty-eight years of being Black.