“I can have her out of here right now, and she doesn’t have to write down a thing.”
I cut a smile as my brother-in-law, Harris, stepped into the room, followed by a balding white man in a bad suit. Harris was the husband of my older sister, London. He was one of the best attorneys in New York and worked exclusively for our family business, Duncan Motors.
“What he said,” I added, suddenly perking up.
“Who the hell are you?” Anderson asked.
“I’m her lawyer, and unless she’s being arrested for something, I’m taking her home.” He held out a hand to help me up out of the cheap-ass chair. “Come on, Paris.”
“Lieutenant, she knows who the killer is,” Officer Unbe-weave -able whined to the white guy who’d come in with Harris.
He just shrugged. “Cut her loose.”
“Bye, guys,” I said as I snatched my purse from the table. Walking to the door, I turned to Brooklyn’s ugly-ass partner and smiled. “You impressed now, bitch?”
I almost skipped past Harris and the lieutenant, grinning from ear to ear, until I saw the imposing figure standing in the corridor outside the door.
“Uh-oh.” I nearly let go of my bladder and peed on myself. Just the sight of my father, LC Duncan, standing there with his trademark fedora, tailor-fitted overcoat, and gray scarf draped over each shoulder scared the crap out of me. A huge part of me would rather have gone back in the room and faced the cops than dealt with the scowl on my father’s face.
“Daddy, I didn’t do anything. I swear.”
LC
2
Eight hours earlier ...
I walked into the large conference room of Duncan Motors for our annual year-end board of directors meeting, followed by my wife, Charlotte, who I called Chippy. Already seated at the table was Orlando, our tall, slim, brown-skinned third son. He had a phone to his ear as he worked an iPad like it was a piece of him. He didn’t say much, other than to acknowledge his mother with a wave as we took our seats. Orlando wasn’t being rude or anything; he was engaged in a phone conversation with one of our distributors about a shipment of pre-owned Bentleys for one of our six high-end pre-owned car dealerships.
Like myself, Orlando was a workaholic. He ran a tight ship, for which the devil was in the details. He was the company’s chief operating officer, in charge of running the day-to-day operations of our dealerships. Only thirty-three years old, he was turning into one hell of a man, if I did say so myself. Of course, like everyone, he had his flaws of a sort. He had no idea I knew anything about it, but we were going to have to address it in the very near future.
“We’re good, Pop. They turned the cars over to our guys in Maryland, and the shipment will be delivered sometime tomorrow,” Orlando called out to me with a thumbs-up before continuing his conversation. In addition to our pre-owned car dealerships, we also owned three Toyota dealerships, which made us one of the largest African American dealers of cars in America, as per Black Enterprise magazine.
Chippy shook her head. “Will that boy ever learn to slow down?”
“Somebody has to pull the load around here,” I replied, wishing the rest of my children had what Orlando possessed. They all contributed to the family business, but none of them had his work ethic. He was the first one in the office every morning and the last one out every night.
“I heard that,” my youngest and more defiant son, Rio, chimed in as he walked into the conference room and took his seat. Rio was wearing a bright yellow paisley shirt that could be seen halfway across Queens.