(LB1) Shakespeare's Champion by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online

let me in. Tough.
    “The chief is right on the other side of this wall,” I lied. Claude was sure to be at work by now. “He can be here in a split second.” I looked from the red mark to Jerrell. I’d cross him if I had to, but I didn’t look forward to it.
    “This here’s a family talk, Lily Bard. You just butt out,” Jerrell said, very firmly. I thought it would make me feel pretty good to hit him.
    “This is Deedra’s apartment. I think she gets some say in who stays and who goes.” I was always hoping Deedra would show some backbone—or some sense—and I was always disappointed. This morning was no exception.
    “You better start in my bedroom,” Deedra said in a small voice. There were tears on her face. “I’ll be all right, Lily.”
    I gave her stepfather a warning look and carried my caddy of cleaning materials into Deedra’s bedroom. It had a dismal view of the parking lot, and beyond that the embankment and the railroad track, and a bit of the Winthrop lumber-and-hardware business that backed onto the other side of the track. The most interesting thing about the view this morning was Deedra’s beautiful red Taurus in the parking lot, halfway out of its stall. Someone had taken a can of white spray paint and carefully scripted, “She fucks niggers” on the hood.
    I felt sick and old.
    Deedra had apparently pulled out of her parking spot before she saw the writing. Then, I supposed, she’d run inside to call Mom, but Stepdad had come instead.
    A tide of rage and fear rolled over me. My primary rage was directed at the bastards who’d ruined Deedra’s car, and most likely her life. The story would be all over town in no time, and there wouldn’t be any discreet lid on it, like there was on Deedra’s bad reputation.
    And then, less to my credit, I was angry with Deedra. She had been sleeping—from time to time—with Marcus Jefferson, who also lived in the apartment building, across the hall from Claude. And she’d told me it wasn’t for any noble reason, such as love, or even a bizarre reason, such as a desire to cement race relations. She was screwing him for the fun of it.
    You couldn’t do that in Shakespeare unless you stood willing to pay the price. Deedra had received the bill.
    I pointedly crossed through the living room a couple of times as Jerrell and Deedra continued their encounter. I couldn’t call it a dialogue, since what one said made no difference to what the other responded. Jerrell was bawling Deedra out, up one side and down the other, for dragging herself (and her mother) through the mud, for polluting herself, for exposing all of them to the glare of gossip and the threat of danger.
    “You know what happened to that black boy not two months ago?” Jerrell said hoarsely. “You want something like that to happen to you? Or to that man you’re going to bed with?”
    I was polishing the mirror over Deedra’s nine-drawer dresser when Jerrell said that, and I saw my reflection in the mirror. I looked sick. He was referring to Darnell Glass, who’d been beaten to death by person or persons unknown. I’d known Darnell Glass.
    “But, Jerrell, I didn’t do it!” Deedra persisted in stonewalling. “I don’t know where anyone would get that idea!”
    “Girl, everyone but your mother knows you’re just a whore that don’t take money,” Jerrell said brutally. “Lacey would kill herself if she knew black hands had been on your body.”
    I made a face into the mirror as I dusted the top of the dresser. I dropped a pair of earrings into Deedra’s earring box.
    “I didn’t do it!” Deedra moaned.
    Childlike in many ways, Deedra believed that if you denied something often enough, it actually hadn’t happened.
    “Deedra, unless you change your ways right now, I mean this minute, worse things than that paint job are going to happen to you, and I won’t be able to stop them from happening,” Jerrell said.
    “What do you mean?” Deedra asked, sobbing. “What