The Double Cross

by Anna J.

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Anna J is back with her tenth novel, and she's coming out the door blazing hot! Get ready for the ride of your life. Two is company, but three is definitely a crowd, especially when we all want the same man. Who does a man love more: the woman he lies to or the woman he feeds the truth? In the game of love and war, it's so easy to get sidetracked when you're the most sought after guy in your city, but for Chase Warren, he wants more. Bedding chicks is light work for him, but finding a forever queen proves to be a little more challenging. That is, until he lays eyes on Selah. She has everything he's looking for and more, but one mistake could cost him everything. Will Chase tell Selah the truth to save his relationship, or will he slip up before he gets the chance to save face? Men will be men, but with a woman like Selah, being reckless comes with consequences that could truly be the end of him.

Release date: February 25, 2020

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Dig just a little more. We don’t want the body to surface for any reason. I don’t feel like sitting in jail because of this man’s foolishness.” I instructed my friends to dig deep as we worked on our makeshift grave for my boyfriend’s body. We didn’t need any mishaps.

I never thought the day would come when I would really have to body this dude. I’d threatened to kill him many times, but for it to come to fruition was mind blowing. We loved each other. I mean really loved each other. That Jada Pinkett and Will Smith kind of love. That Aja and Fatin/Surrender to Love kind of love. That no-matter-what-you-do-I’ll-never-leave-you love. I still loved him, and I would always love him, even though I had to let him go. Wait . . . that last line was a complete lie. You definitely couldn’t do whatever you wanted to me and expect to get away with it. I still loved him, but that wouldn’t last much longer. I felt like when I met Chase, I had finally found the one I was going to spend the rest of my days with. We were going to have beautiful babies, the crib with the picket fence, matching cars, pool out back . . . all that and more like a Philly Offset and Cardi B. Why did he have to go and mess up a good thing? Why did he betray me?

Our story was right out of a fairy tale. Girl meets thug, thug sees she’s the shit, girl puts it on him, thug wifes her up, the end. We were like glue, the two of us. When people saw him, they knew I wasn’t far behind, and vice versa. A couple that partied together stayed together, and we were always on the scene as a unit. Everybody knew he was my man and I was his girl, but you always have one person who thinks they’re a damn superhero and wants to mess up a good thing. Sometimes it’s the closest person to you, and they have to get dealt with accordingly no matter the relation—the one who knows all your secrets because you have to tell somebody some of the shit you did. It’s not right, keeping all that mess bottled up inside. It causes constipation. Sometimes they’re right on the scene when the tea spills, and hopefully, you can trust them enough to wipe that shit up and keep it moving without telling all that missed it how it really went down. Adjust your sister’s crown without telling everyone on Facebook it was crooked. When they’re close, it makes it a little harder, but not impossible. All is fair in love, and having me fucked up about my man, no one is off limits.

Now, I’ll just go ahead and admit it to clear the air before we go any further because I need you to know how serious this shit is. Killing Chase was not an accident. Not in the slightest, and definitely on purpose. That was a straight shot to the dome at point blank range that landed square in the center of his forehead. I warned him numerous times that I would kill him before seeing him with another bitch. I guess he thought I was playing. Sharing my dick unknowingly and unwillingly was not a joking matter, and not to be taken lightly. Some shit just ain’t funny.

The bitch had hers coming, too. Let’s not get that fact fucked up. She was currently tied up unconscious in a basement not too far from where we were located. I was still trying to decide what I was going to do with her, and if I was going to spare her life. If I should spare her life. I wasn’t convinced at the moment that she deserved to live, but I was open to discussing it with her if she could make some sort of sense of this mess. She was one of the close ones that blindsided me with deceit. The least I could do was hear her out, right? I’d leave it up to her on whether she lived to tell the story or died trying to convince me to believe a lie. Ultimately, the choice was hers.

That was a rare occurrence, sparing one’s life in a life or death situation. It was not something that happened on a day-to-day basis. You could run the risk of them eventually spilling the beans, and we simply couldn’t have that. People can’t hold water without having to piss, so holding a secret was out of the question. Guilt made you do strange things. This one was close to my heart, though, and it hurt me what I might have to do to her. I was okay with living with guilt, though. I’d been doing it for years, but that’s a story for another time. I wore guilt like a great pair of Spanx under a skintight dress. I kept shit tucked nice and tight. Right now, the most important thing was finishing the task at hand. We were losing darkness, and this type of matter definitely didn’t need to see the light of day.

“I think we’re good now. He won’t be found for a while. You wiped him down good, right?” Skye, my home girl since pre-K, questioned as she climbed out of the hole, then reached back to pull me up. This was true friendship with us. She rode harder for me than I did for myself when it came to my well-being, and I knew for sure when things started looking crazy to me that she had been peeped it long before I had, but was giving me time to see for myself before we busted a move. Hell, initially this crazy fool was ready to go dig a hole in the cemetery to ensure he was never found. That’s how you know the love is real. That’s how I knew she would never be one to betray me in any fashion. That’s how I knew that I would need her support until the very end, and there was no question in my mind that I had it hands down, one hundred percent.

Mount Moriah Cemetery had been closed to the public for years. The only time people went there was to visit loved ones previously buried on the grounds prior to closing and to upkeep the land, which was mostly done by prisoners or people serving some type of community service order. There wasn’t a chance that someone would catch us digging at night, but the police rotation was heavy on Cobb’s Creek, especially on a Friday, and I didn’t want to chance it. I also had to remind her that it was against the law. I mean, so was burying a body in the back yard of an abandoned house in the bottom of West Philly, but we were less likely to get caught this way. Hood shit gets done in the hood where even if someone saw it, they didn’t see it. They weren’t about to say a damn thing out of fear of being next on the hit list. We were good right where we were.

“He’s clean as a whistle,” Vice answered as I reached back to get her out of the same hole. We were ride or die as a clique and known to not be the ones to play with on any occasion—a truth we’d had to prove on more than one occasion, unfortunately. It was a shame some had to learn the hard way. “My hands are going to smell like bleach for a week,” she complained as she inspected her manicure. She was the extra prissy one of the group, but she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty when the time came for it. No pun intended. I could dig it, though. A gel fill-in with the works cost upwards of $150 at Luxxe Nail Salon and Spa, so I already knew if anything as little as a rhinestone was missing, her next shop trip was on me—and thanks to Chase, I definitely had the money to cover it.

No more words were needed. We simultaneously gloved our hands, turned, and went for the body first wrapped in a sheet, and then in industrial sized black trash bags (to prevent leakage) to deposit into the earth. You’d be surprised how quickly a body starts to break down and decompose in the heat of the summer, and his body was already starting to smell because we had to hide him for a few days before coming to dig. I tried not to think about his rotting body sitting in my trunk, probably filling with worms as we speak. It didn’t have to be this way.

Damn it, Chase! Why did you do this to us?

We respectfully handled his carcass as we half pulled, half carried him from the trunk to the hole, gently lowering him in enough so that it wouldn’t be too far of a drop, and then letting him go on the count of three. He hit the soft dirt with a small thud, and a tear dropped from my eye as we dropped in three black roses. It didn’t have to be this way, but he really made me do it. Just thinking about it made me want to jump in behind him and stomp him down two more feet. We were set up to live the best life ever, and now this.

Now wasn’t the time to show weakness, though, so I wiped my tears, smudging dirt on my face in the process, and grabbed a shovel to help cover the body quickly before someone caught our black asses back there. Each pile of dirt that hit his body sounded like it echoed throughout the entire neighborhood, and I started to sweat a little as paranoia set in. There was no way to explain away a pile of dirt, a dead body, and shovels at this time of night. This would surely have us locked in the clink if we got caught, and no one had time for that. Once we were done, we packed the dirt down as neatly as possible, spreading the over-spill carefully across the rest of the yard so that it lay flat, and removed all physical evidence that we brought with us. As we walked out from behind the house, Skye used a broom to sweep away our footprints until we got to the concrete. We didn’t want any trace of our ever stepping foot on this property, and we surely weren’t waiting for rain or some other element to hide it for us. Clearly, this wasn’t our first time at the rodeo, and we knew how to cover our tracks. I’d watched way too much Crime TV to get caught on an amateur move. The first thing they looked for was boot tracks.

We removed our shoes and jumpsuits when we got to the car parked at the end of the alleyway, depositing them into a trash bag that would be burned in the furnace once we got back to the projects later in the day. Tasker Homes was a popular dumping ground to hide your filth, and no one would say a word. It was also important to not have all the evidence in one place. If you’re hiding a body down the bottom, you get rid of the shovels in Germantown, the clothing in South Philly, and the shoes in Clifton Heights. The cops would have to go on a wild goose chase for real to connect our shit that easily. Everything was burned to a crisp, and the ashes were let loose in the wind. Catch me if you can; I’m faster than the gingerbread man.

I had been casing this house for a minute once I realized Chase had to be dealt with accordingly. It was located in the bottom of West Philly (around that 38th and Haverford area near Olive Street, or what others may know as The Evil O), so Chase’s body probably wasn’t the only one rotting there. This neighborhood was known for never finding the missing that were plastered on the news and telephone poles daily. There were always people outside 24/7/365, but if asked any questions, they were all like Stevie Wonder to the bullshit. Nobody saw a damn thing.

When folks around these parts got rid of a body, they really got rid of it. It wasn’t uncommon for a body to be crushed with a few cars at a dump on Essington Ave. or dumped in the river by Bartram’s Garden. Just as long as you did your dirt in silence, no one questioned it. Ever. Unless, of course, they wanted to be next on a milk carton. If, by chance, your body was found, that wasn’t a mistake. That was a clear warning for the family to back the fuck off. Ten times out of ten they listened. Besides, all they really wanted was closure, right? That’s all any of us ever wants, and even then that’s not enough.

We rode back to the spot in silence, my heart getting heavier each block we got closer to the bitch. I was torn on what to do with her. She of all people knew what the deal was when it came to my man. She was there from the beginning when I met Chase. What happened to our bond? She had me questioning my loyalty and shit, and it did not sit well with me. Was it jealousy? Was it boredom? Was she lied to? Was he lied to? They definitely both lied to me, and that was the most fucked up part about the situation. Lord knows I didn’t want to put it all on him. Bitches are just as scandalous as men most times.

I was so confused about how they even had time to link up, but I was not naive to the fact that folks made time for what they wanted. When Chase and I weren’t together, we were forever on Face Time. If we couldn’t talk, we were texting. He never missed a beat, but come to find out, the slick ones never did. They knew how to play the game all too well—until they met me. You couldn’t out-slick a slickster. I invented the game, honey. All who played, played by my rules.

“Selah, I know this one really hit home for you. It’s hitting all of us equally as hard. Know whatever you decide, we rocking with you without a doubt. You’re not alone in this, sis. We promise.” Skye always had a way of making all the dirt we did seem not as bad.

Vice hugged me from around the back seat, and for the first time since this entire mess took place, I really allowed myself to cry and get it out. A good, ugly cry that I wasn’t even expecting. I was too shocked when I first found out to feel anything other than rage, and for the first time in weeks, I realized that my best friend was gone. No amount of missing persons flyers or Facebook posts would bring him back, and I had to walk through the rest of my life knowing that I was the reason he was now a hashtag.

I let Chase invade my space, something I rarely ever did. I let him into my space in more ways than I’d ever let anyone else in, and he did me the dirtiest. I would miss him, but I’d never forgive him; and if I did eventually forgive him, I’d never forget how he made me feel in this moment. The wall was back up, and it would take someone with super human strength to knock it down again. My trust level was at zero, unfortunately, and I just couldn’t deal right now.

We pulled up to the spot after stopping quickly to get beverages and some wings for Skye’s greedy ass. Come to find out, burying a body left you a little thirsty, and for some of us, hungry. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was getting. My girls must have sensed it because Skye reached over and grabbed my hand, and Vice put her hand on my shoulder. We came to handle business, and whatever happened, it was what it was going to be.

I felt like my bowels were about to betray me and I was going to shit all over the place if I didn’t move fast. Clenching my butt cheeks, I removed myself from the vehicle and made my way into the house where Chase and his crew used to bust traps. They had to move the operation after word got in the wind that the feds were on to them, so now his old-ass aunt just lived there.

She had to be like eighty years old, but she didn’t take care of herself during her lifetime, so she could pass for a smooth hundred-year-old without a doubt. Years of hard liquor and drug use (weed, sometimes coke) had her barely hanging on, but she was no trouble. She mainly stayed in her room, sometimes coming down to eat because we always made sure she had what she liked. You might catch her on the stoop on a summer night catching a cool breeze, but honestly, she was no trouble. Everyone in the neighborhood knew her and respected her, so they never allowed anyone to bring harm her way and were always ready to help her in need. She turned her hearing aid off when she didn’t want to be bothered, and she never answered the phone or the door. Even though I killed her nephew, I felt like I had a duty to take care of her until she passed. I just hoped we wouldn’t walk in one day and find her dead on the toilet or some shit, but so far, we’d been good. She never heard us bring in the bodies, and when I went to check on her, she said she was turning in for the night. That just meant we were cool to handle our business without being bothered. That was three days ago.

When we got to the basement, the bitch was wide awake, looking scared as hell with a tear-streaked face. A lump had started to form on her forehead and get dark from Skye knocking her unconscious two days in a row. She refused to stay asleep, and I couldn’t make up my mind about what I wanted to do with her. We could tell that she must have been trying to get loose, but we had her bound and gagged so tight there was no way she was getting out on her own. If I learned nothing else from the Girl Scouts, I learned how to tie a good knot.

My anger returned instantly, but I was known for keeping my cool, even in the most stressful situations. Skye and Vice, not so much. It was a very rare occurrence that I acted on pure emotion, and putting a bullet in Chase was one of those moments. I wasn’t sure if I regretted it yet. I could tell they wanted to pounce on her, especially Skye, but because of the delicate nature of the situation, they too remained as cool as they could, letting me get this one off on my own.

I helped them sit her up in a chair, her sobs bouncing off the damp walls and echoing throughout the space, sounding like we were in a haunted house and she was hired to do sound effects. I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for her. She didn’t have any for me when she broke up my home. I was sure she was remorseful for what she did, or at the very least, sorry she got caught. I hadn’t given her the chance to explain herself because, in all honesty, it didn’t really matter. Once you bit the hand that feeds you, it didn’t matter what happened afterward. The hand was already bit, and there was no taking it back. There was no explaining this one away. There was no taking back what was done. No rewind button. No do over. Now was the time for payback.

I grabbed a chair and took a seat across from her, crossing my legs at the thighs. The smell of urine, feces, and sweat was wafting around her body like stank off a dead fish. My leg bounced heavily, a true sign that I was pissed way the fuck off. I was sure my sister recognized it because she reacted the same way when she was upset. Guess we were more alike than we thought. Staring into her eyes, I saw they were identical to mine. Nose, lips, eyebrows . . . everything an identical twin sister would possess. We shared a sac together in our mother’s womb. She was my first best friend. Through thick and thin, could never bend: That was our motto from the time we could communicate. I was not sure what changed with us, but I couldn’t help but feel as we got older, she became jealous of me. I was always the fun twin, the outspoken and rebellious one. The life of the party. Everybody wanted to be squad. Even her, but she had a shoo-in because she was blood. Come to find out blood was not always thicker than friendship, and sometimes ran thinner than water.

She had her own fair share of friends, though, all completely opposite from my friends, just like she was the exact opposite of me. More reserved. Bookworm. Grades always more important than being popular. Shy. All we had that matched were looks. Everything else belonged to two different people. It killed me to have to do. . .