Without Faith by Leslie J. Sherrod Read Free Book Online Page B

reason she did not want the police involved was because then it would have to be reported to Skee-Gee’s probation officer. I’d listened to her beg and plead on the phone with Minister Howard that very point, and for some crazy reason he went along, agreeing with her that the boys were up to a harmless adventure and would surface soon.
    I started to say something about her beloved son, the eldest of her five children, but I did not have the energy.
    Years ago, watching RiChard disappear down a path with Kisu for the last time, I’d had a sick feeling in my stomach, like my insides would cave in and disintegrate into acid.
    I had the same feeling now.
    RiChard.
    The lion’s head ring.
    I had been thinking about him and that. And now I remembered why.
    â€œYup, if someone calls demanding a ransom,” my father was saying for the umpteenth time, “I’ll cash in my highest value cards and signed baseballs and that should do it.”
    â€œThere will be no ransom because there’s been no kidnapping!” Yvette sighed and huffed and puffed.
    My father, Alvin Davis, a truck driver for a bakery in Little Italy, had the most extensive sports memorabilia collection this side of the Mississippi, or so it seemed. A local newspaper had once featured him surrounded by the baseball bats, boxing gloves, jerseys, and other pricey artifacts that made up his cache; but few people had ever laid eyes on the smallest, yet most expensive treasures he kept locked in the basement safe.
    â€œEven still, I’m sure I have something that would be enough to save three boys caught in mischief.” He kept eyeing the corner of the basement where the safe was, hidden cleverly behind a small fridge in the wet bar of the wood-paneled den.
    The lion’s head ring.
    I’d pushed the massive jewel into that same safe nearly two years ago. I needed to get it out before it was noticed by my dad or anyone else. I did not want any questions.
    I’d never gotten the answers I wanted two years ago when the ring had shown up in an urn mailed to me from the other side of the world.
    The urn, I would later find out, had actually been mailed by Kisu.
    Who clearly had not been murdered like RiChard claimed.
    The letter. The e-mail. The picture. The unconscious Kisu lying on a hotel floor, found by authorities in Portugal two years ago. The questions I’d left unanswered. The answers I did not want to know.
    I swallowed hard and squeezed my eyes shut while another piece of my stomach collapsed into the acid pit.
    â€œSienna, it will be okay.” Leon’s fingertips brushed over the back of my hand. “I’m sure Roman will show up real soon. He’s a good kid.”
    We were all crowded in my parents’ Randallstown basement: Leon, Yvette, my parents, and a woman named Sadie Spriggs, the self-appointed church comforter who showed up at all homes of the newly departed and recently ill with a box of tissues, a hymn book, and a tambourine.
    Her presence was not comforting to me at all.
    And not just because she was studying me and Leon with her mouth moving and no words coming out.
    â€œI have some friends on the force who may have some helpful connections if it comes down to it.” Leon’s voice was a whisper, for Yvette’s benefit I knew. He glanced uneasily at my sister, who was staring angrily at us. Good thing he was not in uniform. Then again, the way she was glaring at us, maybe he needed to be.
    Yvette, her son, and their bad history with police.
    And her son was with mine.
    I swallowed hard as the acid in my stomach seemed to be turning into a hot, roiling boil.
    â€œIf you want connections, why not talk to Brother Tyson? Doesn’t he still work for channel 55?” Sadie Spriggs’s suggestion surprised me. Aside from the fact that I thought she was sitting out of earshot from us, I was not sure how I felt about her offering advice. Prayers, hymns—those I was used