Page 135 of Smoke

“No… no, no, no, no no!”

Romi dropped the phone and started running around to find clothes.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“My shop is on fire!”

“What!”

“That’s what I was telling you, man,” Tee said. “The shit is blazing. I was leaving the club and ran into the traffic.”

“You still there?” I asked, getting up.

“Yeah.”

“We’re on the way. Stay there.”

“Bet.” We disconnected the call, and I rushed to put on clothes. Romi was on the phone with her sister, asking her to come watch the kids. She hung up, tears streaming down her face.

“I can’t believe this.” She wailed, fumbling with her pants. “Who would do something like this?”

She started rambling before breaking into a full-on cry. I pulled her into my chest and held her tightly.

“We’re gonna figure this shit out, love. I promise you that.”

I had my suspicions as to who did this, but I needed confirmation. Romi cried for a while before finally pulling it together. She finished getting dressed while I went to check on the kids. Both were sleeping soundly.

Since Renay lived around the corner, by the time we made it to the front door, she was coming up the steps. Much to my surprise, Jakobi was with her. I’d dive into that another time, but right now, we had to go. After hugging her sister, they headed into the house. We climbed into my truck and backed out of the driveway.

I did damn near eighty all the way to the shop. We didn’t have to turn on the street to know that the place was gone. The amount of smoke and fire trucks gave that away. The truck had barely come to a stop before Romi was jumping out, and I wasright behind her. She ran toward the burning blaze, only to be stopped by an officer.

“I’m the owner,” she said, just above a whisper. “Please… what happened?”

“Right now, we can’t confirm, but from the smell of it, an accelerant was used. This was definitely intentional. Do you know anybody who would want to?—”

“You know exactly who would want to do this!” Romi screamed. “How many police reports have I filed? How many calls have I made? You were one of the responding fucking officers!”

I looked at him with a frown. “Get the fuck outta here and send somebody else to talk to her.”

“I—”

“What the fuck did I say!”

He huffed and mumbled under his breath as he walked away. I wrapped my arms around Romi’s shoulders and kissed her temple. Tears streamed down her face as we watched the business she’d built burn to the ground.

“It’s gone… It’s all gone. Everything I worked for is gone. They just couldn’t leave me alone.”

An officer made their way toward us, and I asked Romi if she knew him. When she confirmed she didn’t, I allowed her to speak with him because Tee was making his way over to me. We slapped hands as he pulled out his phone.

“So, my homeboy owns the barbershop across the street. They’re closed because he’s doing some renovation work himself. He was here late tonight doing some painting, and when he went to the alley to throw some shit away, he saw a car pull into the back of the lot. He said a woman got out and went to the back door.

“According to him, he couldn’t really make out her face, but he didn’t think anything of it because he knew a woman ownedthe shop, and most of the workers are women. He did say about fifteen minutes went by before he came back out and heard tires screeching as that same car pulled out of the parking lot.”

“Did he see the car?”

He shrugged. “He didn’t get a license plate, but he did say it was a black Mercedes Benz, one of the newer models.”

I nodded and pulled out my phone to call Jaeda.

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