LITMIR.BIZ

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the answers I need?”

      “You trust me to do my job,” he answered matter-of-factly as he turned the page he’d been reading. “Despite what some people think, I’m really good at what I do.”

      “Weren’t you with the police department once?” she asked, trying to remember what little Simone had told her about this brother.

      Mingus nodded, meeting her stare for the second time. “I was.”

      “What happened?”

      “That, I wasn’t any good at.” The slightest smile pulled at his full lips. “I discovered I work better when I work for myself. I have issues with authority.” His eyes dropped back to the book, seeming genuinely interested in the poem he was focused on.

      Before Joanna could respond, Simone poked her head into the room, eyeing her friend and then her brother. “Everything okay in here?”

      Mingus shrugged his broad shoulders. He glanced at Joanna. “You good?”

      Joanna nodded. “I’m fine. I just needed a moment to myself. My old people were just a bit too much for me to handle.”

      “They’re just worried about you,” Simone said, trying to be comforting.

      “My mother is doing what everyone is doing—trying to figure out what I did that caused all of this. She hasn’t once considered that maybe I didn’t do anything to provoke being attacked. Why is that?”

      “Because you’re a woman,” Mingus answered. He rested the book back into the custom clamshell box where he’d found it. He continued. “Even if the situation were reversed and the teacher were male, there are those who’d be asking what the girl did to provoke his attention. More times than not boys and men are getting high fives for having scored while girls and women get labeled as community sluts.”

      “Well, that’s not fair,” Simone said.

      “Maybe not, but that’s how our society is.”

      “It’s total bull,” Joanna snapped, the profanity surprising the other two.

      Mingus chuckled, then he and his sister exchanged a look.

      Simone moved into the room and crawled in beside her friend on the bed. “We’re going to figure it out, Joanna. Mingus will figure it out,” she said, leveling one last look on her brother as she added emphasis to his name.

      Mingus moved onto his feet. “Are you staying here with Joanna tonight?” he asked, looking at his sister.

      “I had planned on it,” Simone said, nodding.

      “That’s not necessary...” Joanna started. “Really, I can—”

      Interrupting, Mingus narrowed his gaze. “Someone needs to keep an eye on you. You’re already plotting how to get out of that ankle bracelet and over to that boy’s house to interrogate him. We can’t let you go out like that.”

      He focused his eyes on her hands, her fingers twisting and turning the monitor around her ankle. When he looked back up, she could feel herself blushing profusely.

      “I wasn’t...well, not really. I just...”

      Mingus suddenly laughed, the sound of his voice bringing the first rays of comfort shed felt since rising that morning. The warmth of it vibrated through the space and bounced from one wall to the other. Joanna and Simone soon found themselves laughing with him, the mood in the room lifting ever so slightly.

      Mingus winked at her. “If my sister wasn’t here, I’d show you how to get that off without getting caught. But since she is, it’ll have to wait until we’re by ourselves.”

      Joanna smiled, the first warm bend to her lips since they’d met. “Promise?”

      “I got you!” With one last wink, Mingus gave them both a wave. “Joanna, I’ll pick you up in the morning. Simone, I will catch you later. You two try to get some rest tonight.”

      “Good night,” Joanna said. “And thank you.”

      “Later, big brother!”

      The two women paused, listening for the front door to open and then close after the man. When they heard him rev the engine of his car as he pulled out of her driveway and down the street, both released easy sighs.

      “I like him,” Joanna said, shifting her gaze to look at her friend. “Your brother. He has a good spirit.”

      “He’s pretty special. But I worry about him and I’m not sure why because, of all my brothers, I think he’s the most capable of taking care of himself.”

      “That’s an interesting statement.”

      Simone shrugged. “Mingus never goes with the flow, never follows the rules, never stresses over anything and he always comes out on top. Every time! There’s nothing he hasn’t attempted that he hasn’t excelled at. Even when he was a police officer. He was one of the best. But he doesn’t like authority. He hates being told what to do and I doubt there is anything he’s ever taken seriously.”

      “Why do you think that is? Your whole family is so by-the-book about everything. Why do you think he deviates from the status quo?”

      “Wish I had an answer. Mingus just is the way he is. His way works for him. We stopped trying to figure him out when he was twelve years old!”

      Joanna smiled, seeming to reflect on the comment as she thought about the tall, dark and handsome stranger who was suddenly so important in her life. Even without saying it Mingus seemed to understand her desperation, wanting to help her fix what was broken. In just the few hours of knowing him she sensed he was a man who said more with his silence than most men articulated with words on a daily basis. Despite his mysterious, bad boy demeanor, there was something about her bestie’s brother that was sitting comfortably in her soul. Something that made her feel like everything would be fine as long as she had Mingus Black on her side.

      She shifted her body off the bed. “I hope you didn’t put all the food away. I think I’m hungry.”

      “Actually, I didn’t put any of it away. And we made enough for an army. You’ll be eating spaghetti for the next month.”

      “Good,” Joanna said, her smile widening. “I like spaghetti!”

      Simone grinned. “So does my brother. You should have told him to stay.”

      Joanna grinned back. “I should have. Maybe next time I will.”

      * * *

      Mingus sipped three fingers of Conviction bourbon. It was a rich blend of corn and malted barley with a hint of sweetness that reminded him of vanilla fudge and chocolate-covered cherries. He sipped slowly, his mind lost in thoughts of the history teacher.

      Papers were strewed across his living room coffee table. Copies of Joanna’s arrest warrant and complaint, her employment file with the city and miscellaneous information his brother had deemed important. He’d read the report taken by police, the initial charges leveled against the educator and accounts from the victim reading like a romance novel gone very wrong. How she’d begun to pay extra attention to her student, offering to tutor him after hours. Then tutoring transitioning to something more when the young man expressed his attraction to her. Innocent flirtation and playful banter becoming more personal and then physical. David Locklear believed himself in love, consumed by desire, until he wasn’t. He’d felt defenseless, alleging his favorite teacher had threatened to compromise him graduating if he tried to leave the relationship. A failing grade on a thesis paper had been the final straw leading to the boy telling his mother, who herded him down to the police station to give a statement.

      When he was done reading everything for the umpteenth time, Mingus settled in his leather recliner, lifting his legs up and out in from of him. He closed his eyes, remembering the hurt that had furrowed Joanna’s brow, questions steeped in the hot tears that had rained down her warm brown cheeks. She’d been

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