But he didn’t answer. Like every human being that had ever been a part of her life, he was treating her as if what she thought, or what she cared to say, or what she needed to know didn’t matter.
But that didn’t stop her questioning him. “Whose money is it?” she asked him.
He mumbled something, but Charly didn’t understand what he said. “What?”
“Mafia,” Darryl said. “It’s mob money, okay? I stole mob money!”
Charly’s heart dropped. “Darryl, you didn’t!” she cried. “You stole from the Mafia? Darryl!”
As if her reaction to his crime reminded him of the horrible trouble he had gotten himself into, he gave up with the packing and left some plastic bags still in his dresser. He flapped his suitcase close without zipping it up, placed it under his arm, and began hurrying out of their spacious bedroom. “Let’s go,” he ordered. “Let’s get out of here!”
But Charly was still in a state of shock as he bumped by her and hurried onto the landing. Where did he think they were going to go? He stole mob money. Mob money! How in the world did he think he could ever get away with something that crazy?
Unless . . .
“Do they know you stole it?” she asked him as she hurried onto the landing behind him. She was hoping against hope that he had some sense left.
But her hope was, again, quickly dashed. “They know,” Darryl said. Then he stopped and looked at Charly. “They’ve got a contract out of me.”
Charly’s already big eyes stretched larger. “A contract?” she asked. She’d heard of such a thing in the movies. It was when the Mafia paid a hit man to take you out. But this was no movie. This was her life!
But as usual, Darryl didn’t seem to care about her part in his drama. He was out for self the way, if Charly were to be honest, he always was. He continued to hurry toward the stairs.
Charly felt as if she was floating. How could the day go so horribly wrong? But there was another thought too: why didn’t she leave this fool when he first showed her who he was?!
But as soon as she thought it, she realized she no longer had a choice. Because as soon as Darryl began running down the stairs, and as she was hurrying to the top stair after him, their front door was kicked open and a white man with what looked like a pump-action shotgun, entered their home. His gun was raised and aimed at Darryl even as he bust in.
Charly screamed. Darryl stopped in his tracks as if he wanted to turn around and run back upstairs. Because as soon as that gunman entered their home, he didn’t hesitate. He pumped that shot gun and shot Darryl right through the chest with a blast so loud Charly felt as if she’d been shot too!
The blast was so powerful that Darryl didn’t just fall, but he fell over the railing and all the way down to the first floor, his unzipped suitcase flying open as it fell, too. All of that money that meant the world to him, that he was willing to risk his safety over and hers too while he was at it, spilled out like confetti in a parade. And Darryl died, Charly realized, with his eyes wide open. The way hers never was.
But she could only glance at her unfortunate husband. Her focus, instead, had to be on that gunman. She was certain he wasn’t ready to call it a day. He killed his target. That should have been the end of it.
But she’d made the mistake of making eye-to-eye contact with that killer. He saw her clearly, and she saw him clearly. And he pumped that shotgun once again, and fired.
But Charly was already running for the bedroom. His shot tore a hole into the side of her wall, but he missed her.
But that didn’t mean he gave up on her. Not a chance, and she knew it. She could hear him running up those stairs too.
Shaking nearly uncontrollably, she closed and locked their bedroom door and started nervously turning around in the room. What could she use to defend herself? They didn’t have a gun in the room. They didn’t believe in guns! There wasn’t even a knife or a baseball bat in the room. Even her cell phone was still downstairs. There was nothing!
She had no choice, she realized, but to make a run for it.
She ran to the bedroom window and snatched those designer blinds so violently that they broke away from the window frame and fell to the floor with a hard crash. But Charly didn’t care. She was fighting for her life and she wasn’t about to give up.
But the gunman was at the door, and he was bumping against it to force it open.
She nervously started unlatching both of the window locks. But just as she did, the bedroom door gave way and the gunman barged in. He saw her when she lifted the window.
As soon as he broke in, he pumped that shotgun, aimed it, and fired again.
But Charly was one step ahead of him once again. Because she already knew what she had to do. That was why, as he was firing that shotgun, she was diving out of that second-story window as if she had wings. She thought she heard that bullet whizz right by her ear as she dived.
She landed on their well-manicured lawn awkwardly, and painfully, but she didn’t delay. Because she knew he wasn’t going to delay either. She could just imagine him running to that window and firing on her again. And if she laid there, she’d be a certain target.
She got up, threw off her high heels, and in her tight skirt started running and screaming from the top of her lungs. “Help me somebody!” she was crying. “Help me!”
She had neighbors, but the properties were vast and she had to run across nearly five acres of her own lot to get to her next door neighbor’s expansive property.
The gunman ran to the window as she was running and screaming across her lawn. He smiled because he knew he had her. Even though she was running, she was still an easy target.
He pumped his shotgun again, aimed it directly at her, but something caught his eye. And he didn’t fire. Because as soon as he was about to unload what was his next-to-last bullet, a car suddenly turned the corner and was driving down the street. Charly turned when she heard the sound of a car, and began desperately waving her arms. “Help me!” she was crying. “Please help me!”
The white woman on the passenger seat of the car recognized her. They were neighbors. She told her husband to slow down and she pressed down her window. “Charly, is that you?” she asked. Not because she didn’t recognize Charly, but because of the usually calm, cool and collective Charlene Johnson just didn’t behave so hysterically.
“Help me!” Charly was crying. “He killed Darryl. Darryl’s dead. Help me! Please help me!”
“Get in!” her neighbor’s husband said anxiously as both neighbors, now scared themselves, looked toward Charly’s house. The gunman, seeing them, backed away from the open window and hid. The wife of his target already saw him. He wasn’t about to have anybody else make a positive ID too.
Charly opened the car’s backdoor and threw herself onto the backseat. Her neighbor’s husband took off, not to their home, but kept driving to get her to the police station. His wife was frantically calling 911 as he drove.
Charly looked back, at her house, as they drove away.
She didn’t see it, but the gunman was already running back downstairs to get into his own automobile and to get out of that neighborhood, and that town, altogether.
Charly turned back around, her heart hammering. She couldn’t believe what had just happened to her.