Since she was in high school and first got a set of acrylic tips, she had picked up that habit and hadn't kicked it since. It helped her to think and right then her mind was racing at the new info dropped into her lap.

"She work in a diner over by where we live and I used to see Brandon there with her."

Naeema decided to back off that, not wanting to scare her by seeming too nosy. Vivica sometimes talked about Brandon and she was always sure never to pry too much. She learned early on in their friendship that Vivica revealed more when she was uninterrupted. And Naeema needed to hear-to know-more.

What role did Brianna play in this?

"Bas don't know what to do with you, Queen," Vivica said, picking up her phone again and tapping a text with her thumb.

"Huh?" Naeema asked, obviously distracted by her thoughts.

"Oh, he wants to fuck you . . . we all know that, but letting you ride on the job yesterday was all about him seeing if he could trust you," Vivica said.

And to have something to hold over my head in case he didn't.

Vivica picked up her phone when it lit up. Her whole face changed. Dick-sprung.

Naeema knew it was Red. "Your ass ready to go now," she teased.

Vivica smiled and stood up. "We'll chill another time," she said, looking sorry. "You wasn't stayin' wit me tonight, was you?"

"No, I'm carrying my black ass home. You go 'head, I'm'a stay. It's early," she lied. She just wanted Vivica to leave before she offered her a ride home. Naeema never did and had no plans to let them know where she really lived.

"A'ight. Call me tomorrow."

Naeema reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Viv."

She turned.

"Suck his balls and jack him off when he's about to nut," she said in her ear.

Vivica made a face and laughed. "Queen, girl, you crazy . . . but I'll let you know how it go."

Moments later her thin figure disappeared in the crowd . . .

Naeema squinted her eyes as she sat in a taxi outside the L&B Diner on Fourteenth Avenue and replayed the scene with Vivica from the club the last night. She had wanted to remember as much of it as she could to make sure she didn't miss shit. The little tip she gave her was in exchange for the one Vivica didn't even know she gave to her.

"You getting out?"

Naeema looked away from the diner to find the cabdriver turned around in his seat eyeing her. "The meter still running, right?" she snapped. "Then chill."

He mumbled something under his breath as he roughly shifted around in his seat.

She looked back out the window. She didn't even know if Brianna was at work.

And you never will if you don't get your ass out the car.

"Will you wait for me?" she asked as she slid her tote on her arm.

"You pay first," he said, turning around in his seat again.

Naeema reached into her purse. Her hand brushed the rolled-up money but she pushed that aside and reached for her bright red wallet instead to pull out a twenty-dollar bill. "Please wait. I won't be but a hot second," she said, pushing the bill into the metal slot of the bulletproof partition dividing them.

"Meter on," he said.

"Man, fuck you," Naeema mouthed as she climbed from the cab. She hadn't driven her motorcycle because, like her short hair, it was too big a fact for somebody to remember and she didn't want anything connecting back to her real life. So she was stuck with crabby cabbie and his whackness.

She looked up and down the nearly deserted street for oncoming traffic before she crossed.

From the looks of L&B's you would think it was closed and deserted. On both sides of the entire block there was nothing but empty lots where houses and apartment buildings once stood. The diner sat in the middle of the block and nothing but a few cars was parked outside of it. It was in bad need of a good pressure wash and a paint job. The windows were covered by bars, and old weathered graffiti, probably dating back to the eighties or nineties, covered the broken stucco.

It looked like the perfect spot to get got. No witnesses. Nowhere to run and hide. A straight-up jack spot.

She paused on the street to see if she could spot the three-bedroom apartment building where Red and Vivica stayed. She doubted that she could, since it was a block over, but she checked anyway. She wanted to get in and get out before Vivica's noncooking ass showed up. Naeema called her phone to see where she was and got no answer.

As she stepped closer to the diner she could smell the grease frying everything from eggs to chicken wings. She couldn't front that her stomach liked it and grumbled away in hunger.

The front door opened and a tiny dude with a short 'fro held the door open for her. "Thank you," she said, smelling the scent of weed and the diner's scent of greasy food heavy around him.

"No problem, ma."

The inside was not a mismatch with the exterior. It was small with a long counter and just four booths near the front door. There was barely room for two people to walk down the length of the diner at the same time. The walls were filled with cards showing the different meals offered and they looked like they hadn't been updated since the eighties or nineties either. She did appreciate that the air was blowing like crazy and the cool restaurant was a welcome from the heat outside.

The truth was, Naeema had seen and eaten at a lot worse. Sometimes it was these little dives that had the best food. As she took a seat at the counter she brushed back her black Chinese bob wig and eyed the older woman flipping burgers on the grill with one hand, the other on her hip. "What can I get you?" she asked, looking briefly over at Naeema.

"A cheeseburger combo to go, and I was looking for Brianna," she said, turning when she felt something brush against her ass.

It was just the bag of a woman making her way out the diner.

"I'm Dianna," the cook said. "Who you?"

"Monifa," she lied, as she took in the woman who had to be thick into her forties or even fifties.

I know damn well Brandon was not choppin' down this old lady.

"A friend of mine, Ms. JuJu, raised this boy named Brandon that got killed-"

The woman's face changed. "Oh, I thought you said Dianna," she said with emphasis. "Brianna is my granddaughter."

Thank God.

Naeema felt her body relax. She was glad she didn't have to whup this old lady's ass for molesting her son. And she meant straight fuck her up for all eternity.

"What you want with her?" Dianna asked, sounding suspicious as she slid burgers onto buns sitting on plates, like she'd been doing it for years.

"Ms. JuJu found a girl's ring in his stuff and wanted to get it back to Brianna if it was hers," Naeema said smooth as hell, using the lie she had benched and ready. To top it off, she pulled out a fake gold ring she'd bought at the dollar store.

"Brianna went downtown. You can leave it with me," she said, turning away to set the plates in front of two elderly men sitting at the end of the counter.

"Okay," Naeema said, even as her mind worked double time for a backup plan she didn't have. Shit. "Thank you."

Dianna came over to lean her short and square figure against the counter as she held her hand out. "Damn shame how he died," she said.

Naeema handed her the ring. "I'm just in town for the week and Ms. JuJu don't really talk about it. What happened?" she asked, sounding curious.

The bell over the door rang.

"It's hot out there."

Dianna looked past Naeema and smiled. "I told you to wait 'til that sun went down to go out in that heat."

Naeema's pulse raced. She swirled on the stool and looked at a tall, slender teenage girl with a curly weave walking toward them carrying a Payless plastic shopping bag. She had that pretty and perfect dark complexion and wide bright eyes with deep dimples.

Naeema saw a brief image of her son and Brianna sitting at one of the booths across from each other, smiling and flirting and not noticing anything around them as they got caught up in each other the way teenagers did when they were crushing on someone hard.

"Here, give it to her yourself."

Naeema turned and looked down as the ring was pushed back into her hand. "Thanks," she said softly, not sure why she felt all discombobulated and shit.

"We was just talking about Brandon," Dianna said before she turned to go handle her grill.

Naeema was watching the teenager and she saw the pain flash across her face. The dimples flattened and her eyes got sad. His death was still messing with her.

"You knew Brandon?" she asked, her eyes stopping at different points on Naeema's body.

Her face.

Her body in the strapless peach sundress she wore.

Her nails.

Even the sandals showcasing the French pedicure on her feet.

Naeema knew she looked much younger than her twenty-nine years. She'd heard every age from twenty to twenty-four but never a number close to thirty, and she definitely looked young enough for Brianna to get jealous that she was one of Brandon's chicks.

If only you knew, little girl . . .

Knowing the ring would piss her off, Naeema slid it back into her bag and stood up to step closer to her. "I'm a friend of Ms. JuJu and I was at her house and she wondered how you was dealing with everything."

"Ms. JuJu? Who dat?" Brianna asked, her thin face showing every bit of her confusion.

Shit. Naeema was confused as shit herself. Maybe her and Brandon wasn't that close?

"That's the lady that raised Brandon," she explained. "He must've been so caught up in you because he told her all about you."

Lies was slipping from her lips like breaths of air. Just easy. Too easy.

But very necessary.

Brianna's face softened as her dimples reappeared with a smile. "I really liked him," she said, sitting her bag on a table before she slid into one of the booth seats.

Prayers up that her grandmother too busy on that grill to stroll her ass over here and sit down . . .

"I didn't get to meet him but Ms. JuJu talks about him a lot," Naeema lied. She hadn't seen or spoken to the woman since she'd learned of Brandon's death. Naeema couldn't face the one person who knew she turned her back on her own son.

"He was real cool. Real laid back . . . but not no punk," she said, twisting one of her tight curls around her slender index finger. "I was a junior and he was just a freshman but he was cocky enough to holler at me in front of all my friends one day in the caf. Plus he was too cute."

Was.

"I was talking to this other kid named Rico and he felt like Brandon dissed him and all of that drama." Brianna reached across the table and lightly touched Naeema's hand like they were hangout partners. "Brandon whupped that ass. In front of the whole school too."

Naeema's heart skipped a beat. Maybe two.

Rico? Another damn lead the police missed?

"Rico Lopez? I think I know his mother," she lied.

Brianna shook her head. "Oh no, this Rico is black. Rico Anderson."

"Oh. Okay."

"And then somebody put that shit online. YouTube. WorldStar. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. Umph-umph-umph. Whoo, that ish was wild." Brianna shook her head. "For a hot second I felt bad for Rico but yo, if you start sum'n there gon' be sum'n so be ready or don't even start it, you know?"

"Shit, I woulda dropped out after that," Naeema said.

"Me too. But he didn't. Matter fact . . . Brandon the one that dropped out," she said.

Naeema's heart pounded hard as another new fact was dropped in her lap. Something else for her to feel guilty about. She knew more about her son in death than she had when he was alive. "Maybe Rico scared him or something."

Brianna shook her head. "Nah, that was because of his guidance counselor."

Naeema stayed quiet.

Brianna played with one of her curls again. "He didn't like how Mr. Warren stepped to him one day after school in detention. He really liked Mr. Warren too. He trusted him. That's why it fucked with him. I told him to report his perverted ass but . . ."

Naeema couldn't hide her frown. Another blow. Another missed opportunity to protect her son.

Brianna just shrugged her shoulders as her face filled with sadness again. "I'm glad you told me he talked about me to the lady because we had just really started talking," she said, her voice soft as her big eyes filled with tears. "It's fucked up. He was so cool and funny and smart. It's just fucked up. Right?"

"It's real fucked up," Naeema said, blinking to keep from joining her in showing her sorrow. "You think Rico had something to do with it?"

"Nah. He got locked up for a stolen car in March. I don't even know if he out yet."

Another dead end?

Brianna stood up and grabbed her bag, using her free hand to swipe away her tears. "Tell that lady I'm sorry I missed the funeral. I just couldn't see him like that. You know?"