Page 83

“Probably not,” I said.

“I’ll look when I get home just to make sure,” she said.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up quickly.

I grabbed my keys. There was an electronics store about fifteen minutes away. They had to have something.

There was a young man behind the counter. When I gave him the phone, he laughed.

“This old. Where you get this from?”

“Do you have a cord or no?”

“I mean, this is older than me.” He laughed. “How much you bought this for…twenty dollars?”

Now I was pissed. I slammed my designer bag on the counter and pointed my finger in his face, making sure my diamond ring hit the light. Because who the fuck did he think he was trying to play?

“You trying to be cute, but nigga I’ll buy this building just to fire your young ass. Don’t ever muthafuckin’ play with me like that again. Now, find a cord to fit that bitch before I call corporate and get you fired anyway.”

He started fumbling with the phone. I stood there and watched as he tried to force several cords into the phone like I did earlier.

“There we go,” he said.

“I’ll buy it.” I waved him back over to me.

He snatched the cord up and rushed back. I had his ass so shook that he ended up just giving me the cord. It didn’t take me no time to get back home and rush to the kitchen to plug the phone up. I waited a few minutes and hit the power, but nothing happened. Tapping my nails on the counter, I waited a few more minutes and then something flashed, and the phone came to life. I was met with a lock screen.

“Dammit, Rah.”

It was only four numbers. It wasn’t his birthday. It wasn’t our anniversary, and it wasn’t the last four of his regular number. The phone warned me that I only had two more attempts.

“Fuck!”

I put the phone down because I didn’t want to lock myself out. Rah was lazy when it came to passwords, but at the same time hated for them to be figured out. He’d use something that meant something to him without being obvious to anybody else. I went upstairs to grab the box. Maybe there was something I had missed. There was a small piece of notebook paper taped under one of the flaps. You would’ve missed it if you weren’t searching for something. 0714 was on the paper when I unfolded it.

“The fuck is July 14th?” I said as I rushed back downstairs.

That wasn’t any of the kids birthdays, our anniversary, or my birthday. I picked the phone up and put the four numbers in, and the phone unlocked. There were no apps on the phone. The call log was clear, but there were messages. There was a recent text thread from him and somebody named West.

Rah: I told you I was tired of passing that shit down

West: That ain’t just yo decision to make

Rah: When it comes to my kids, it is

That was the day before he was murdered. I went through the messages, and everything was vague. The phone calls were only about thirty seconds. Then I scrolled down further.

West: Your dad built this shit before you were old enough to count money. You make this move and everybody tied to the old structure takes a hit.

Rah never said anything back unless it was deleted. So I went to the next text thread, which was labeled ‘D’.

Rah: Same place and time. No Meek or Pops.

D: You sure