Riley hops off the car. “I’m going with you.”
“What?” I shake my head so many times I get dizzy. “No way in hell. Your parents are expecting you home. It’s okay—you’ve done enough for Nic.”
“If I had, she’d already be here. Now let’s go.” Riley walks past me and straight to Javon’s car.
I curse under my breath then glare at Javon. “Look, if you even think about hurting her—”
“Nigga, I ain’t got time for empty threats. Let’s go.”
Riley opens the door to the backseat and slides in. I follow her. Before I can even close the door all the way, Javon speeds off.
“Whoa.” I scramble to click on my seatbelt. “What’s going on?”
“Nic’s phone’s back on,” Javon explains as he pumps the gas and grazes under a traffic light just as it turns red. “I got an alert on my Find My Friends app. Check it.”
Javon hands me his phone and, sure enough, Nic’s picture pulses on the screen. My heart almost jumps out of my mouth. I slap my hand over it just to keep everything in. Could it be? After all this time . . . every call going straight to voicemail. Every text message going unanswered. Every lead leading to a dead end. Finally, this is something we could hold on to. I blink away tears when I notice it: Nic’s picture is moving. Wait . . . if Nic’s phone is moving, that means she’s moving. Which means . . .
“She’s alive!” Riley says, then wraps an arm around me to squeeze me in a hug.
Holy shit. My sister’s alive. I rest my head on top of Riley’s and close my eyes. Take a moment to take this all in. Nic’s alive. I get to go home and tell MiMi that Nic’s alive. Hell, I get to go home with Nic.
Javon snatches his phone back. “I need this to track her.”
I nod. Lean forward in the space between the two front seats to keep my eyes on her picture. To make sure she’s still moving. And she is. Two weeks of silence and now she’s letting us know she’s okay. She’s okay. Wait, if she’s okay, that also means . . .
“You didn’t kill her,” I say to Javon.
Javon smirks and gives me a side eye. “Nigga, are you crazy? Of course I didn’t kill her.”
I want to believe him. Hell, I have to believe him—the proof is on his phone. “I don’t get it, though,” I say aloud. “Why were you and Sterling arguing in front of her house? Why does she get all cagey whenever I mention you or Nic around her?”
Javon takes a deep breath but shifts his eyes back on the road. “Sterling’s my alibi.”
Riley and I look at each other, confused.
“What does that mean?” Riley asks for both of us.
“The last time I saw Nic or Kenny was about two weeks ago. Slim was throwing one of his Friday eve parties.”
“Friday eve?” Riley asks.
Javon shakes his head. “Some stupid shit to get ready for the weekend. But Slim comes up with stupid shit all the time to find an excuse to party.”
Friday eve? That would be Thursday. The last time I heard from Nic was that phone call from two Thursdays ago. I lean forward again, ready to put together the pieces.
“Sterling came with her. Homegirl got white girl wasted. And when she gets like that, she also gets a little . . . touchy-feely. Particularly with me.” He scratches something on his face, clearly embarrassed. “Anyways, Nic wasn’t feeling it, but took all her anger out on me. Broke up with my ass in front of everyone then took off with Kenny. Straight clowned me. So, I took off, too.”
I take in what Javon tells me, but there still seem to be holes in his story. “If you took off, too, then who’s to say you didn’t go after them? You knew you couldn’t hurt Nic because she’s your girl, but Kenny’s fair game, right?” I knew firsthand what he could do when he was pissed about Nic. I still have a scar on my chin to prove it.
Javon huffs, his patience running thin with me. “I ain’t sweating Kenny. He presses up a little too hard on Nic sometimes, but that nigga isn’t my competition.” He pauses, winces. “Wasn’t my competition. Yeah, I wanted to rough him up some, but I couldn’t do whatever they think I did to him. Toss him out like garbage? Not my style.” At that, he punches the steering wheel. “Not my fucking style.”
Riley and I give him his moment. The pain for Kenny is still close to Javon—raw like an open sore. And if he’s putting on a show for us, he could give Denzel Washington a run for his money. I want this all to make sense for me, but everyone knows Javon’s a bad guy. We heard the stories about what he’d do to guys if they were short with his money, or even short with him. Aside from our tussles, I’ve never seen him exact revenge firsthand—but there’s always truth in rumors, right?
“I went home after I left the party,” Javon says after getting himself together. “Sterling came over to . . . check on me.”
Riley scoffs. “Wow,” she says.
Javon frowns. “Look, Nic knows how I roll, okay? But she also knows I got love for her.”
Love? Love? He’s kidding me with this. I think about all the times I had to cover for Nic when she was off doing who the hell knows with Javon. All the arguments I had to break up between Nic and MiMi when MiMi found holes in my stories about Nic. How Nic went from honor roll student to barely a student over the course of kicking it with this clown.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” I spit out.
Javon looks at me through his rearview mirror. “Come again?” he says—almost warns.
I’m too fired up to take a hint. “Nic turned into a whole-ass other person after getting with you. Suddenly, all she ever wanted to do was get high and cut school. Forget college. Forget leaving the Ducts. She’s never going to be able to put our hood behind her with you holding her back.”
“Jay.” Riley touches my arm, begs me to calm down with her eyes, but I’m on a roll now.
“But you don’t even give a damn. You got your stoop. You got your paper. Hell, you probably have some chick on rotation just in case Nic never made it back.” The words tumble out of my mouth, too quick for me to keep up. Like they’ve been aging on the back of my tongue. And it feels good letting it all out. Not just for Nic, but for me. Hell, even for Javon. He needs to finally get it. All the bullshit he pulls is why Riley thinks she can make jokes about me knocking someone up. Why Joshua Kim doesn’t trust me to handle the cash. Why Officer Hunter doesn’t blink twice when I tell him my sister’s missing. My dad warned me about The Man even when I was too young to know who the hell The Man was. But Javon’s almost a grown-ass dude. Why can’t he see he’s doing exactly what The Man wants by slinging shiz in his own hood? To his own people?
“Oh, you got me all figured out, huh?” Javon’s hands clench around his steering wheel, so tight that his knuckles grow pale. Probably imagining wringing my neck. “Know my social security number, too? The pin to my ATM card?” Okay, maybe Riley was right. I should’ve dropped this a long time ago. If Javon gets too pissed, no telling what he might do. He probably wouldn’t even give a damn that Riley’s in the backseat. On instinct, I reach over and grab her hand.