Page 2 of Happy Is On Hiatus
How were they going to take this news? Who was going to tell them?
Rita sat the two containers of hand sanitizer on top of the heap of clothes and went to open the door. She tucked the lighter under her arm, pushed the cart through the open door, and moments later huffed as she had to maneuver it down the three front steps. Once it was onthe level pathway, she knelt down to pick up the pieces that had fallen, tossing them back on top. Then she wheeled the cart down to the end of the driveway.
Her black Volvo XC90 was parked inside the double-car garage. Nate had driven his gold Lexus GX to the airport or wherever he was.
Nathaniel Geoffrey McCall, the finest dark chocolate–complected brotha her seventeen-year-old eyes had ever seen in person. Her parents had been a little wary about her dating a college student four years her senior. But Rita had fallen in love the moment Nate brushed that first soft kiss across her forehead.
With a quick motion, Rita pushed the rolling cart to the side until it tipped over and all the clothes and shoeboxes fell onto the driveway. She righted the cart and wheeled it behind her. Turning back to the pile of clothes, she had to pick through them to find the jugs of hand sanitizer, but when she did, she opened them both and poured the contents all over the clothes. Grabbing the lighter from under her arm, she flicked the switch and touched the glowing flame to the red Michael Jordan jersey first. Then she moved over a little to the box of Air Jordan tennis shoes and let the flame touch that now-damp-with-sanitizer box. Another flick, and the flame was set to a black pinstriped Tom Ford suit and then to a Walter Payton jersey.
Golden flames caught on quick, licking at the pile of clothes with savage glory. Rita took a few steps back until she bumped into the rolling cart; then she folded her arms across her chest and watched Nate’s shit burn.
Chapter 2
911 ...WHAT’S THE EMERGENCY?
It had finally happened. Rita had lost her damn mind.
Sharae turned off the engine and jumped out of her car. She’d been in full panic mode the moment she heard Rita’s address over the police scanner. The fire department and paramedics had also been summoned. Without a second thought, she’d switched on her police siren and driven the Howard County Police Department–issued sedan through every red light in the twelve miles between her house and Rita’s.
She sprinted across the lawn in her navy-blue Crocs, heat from the flames in the driveway greeting her before she was within six feet of her cousin, who was standing as still as a statue. With her arms folded across her chest, Rita’s gaze remained focused on the bonfire at the end of her driveway.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sharae asked, grabbing her cousin by the shoulders. “You tryin’ to burn down the entire neighborhood? And what the hell is that smell?”
Rita jerked out of Sharae’s grasp. “Lemon-fizz hand sanitizer,” she said, her expression deadpan. “Some of it got on my hands and my nightshirt.”
Sharae followed Rita’s gaze to the big wet spot on the front of Rita’s pale-pink nightshirt. “You’re outside without your robe and wearing your bonnet.”
When Rita only blinked her amber-colored eyes with naturally long lashes at her, Sharae continued. “You’re the first to talk about anybody coming outside in their pajamas and/or hair bonnet.” Rita was always dressed to impress, no matter what the occasion. She believed appearance was the first thing others judged, and she always wanted to start off on the right foot. Sharae was more of the don’t-give-a-fuck-what-anybody-thought-about-her mentality, but love had her allowing Rita her idiosyncrasies.
“It’s inappropriate,” Rita replied with a shrug. “Except for today.”
Sharae didn’t have time to ask other questions—a fire truck had turned into the Willow Grove housing development. Rita and Nate had bought the model home when the development was first built, so they were close to the entrance of the forty-five-house area. Sharae looked up to see two police cruisers and the fire truck coming to a stop in front of Rita’s driveway.
“Let me talk,” she told Rita. Even though she had no idea what she was going to say. She was still trying to figure out what was going on. The one thing she knew for certain was that something wasn’t right here.
The six-foot flames and nauseating lemon scent should’ve been a dead giveaway.
“Detective Sharae Gibson,” she identified herself, stepping forward and tapping the badge clipped to her belt. She never kept it in her jacket pocket like her partner, Malik, did. Mainly because she had a habit of leaving the jacket to her favored pantsuits on the back seat of her car. At present a smoke-gray jacket matching the pants she now wore and a pair of black Louboutin pumps occupied that space.
Sharae recognized the first officer to approach. She’d seen him around the Northern District Headquarters where she worked butdidn’t know his name. Three other officers had gotten out of the cruisers as well. Two were hanging back and looking around to survey the scene, while the other watched the firefighters, who’d immediately gotten to work putting out the fire. Muted gold streaks had just begun to peek through the thick gray clouds, and in the distance birds chirped. The front doors of the three houses closest to Rita’s had also opened, neighbors stepping outside to see what was going on.
“Cranston. You homicide?” the first officer with the cap of sun-kissed gold hair asked.
“Yeah. This is just a little mishap. My cousin was taking out some things for the consignment shop to pick up, and it caught fire.” Sharae lied as easily as she blinked.
“That’s a hell of a fire,” Cranston said, pulling out his notebook.
“No shit!” the officer who’d come to stand at Cranston’s right added. “Is that the homeowner over there? I’ll go question her.”
Sharae blocked his path. “No need, uh ...?” She stared at the second cop, glancing at the badge on his right uniform shirt pocket, then back up at him.
“Phillips,” he said, his lips thinning into a straight line.
She nodded. “Okay, Phillips. I’ve already talked to her, and she’s not hurt. Nobody’s hurt. Just a little mishap. Sorry you guys had to be called out so early in the morning.”
Phillips’s brow wrinkled, his pale-blue eyes fixing on Sharae. “You live here with your cousin?”
“No.”
