Power by Debra Webb Page A

As if he’d just realized the same thing Jess was thinking, he frowned. “She never came back to work after that.”
    Because she disappeared. Then less than seventy-two hours later DeShawn vanished as well.
    Jess thanked Mr. Davis and prepared to question Jerome Frazier.
    Frazier wasn’t too crazy about the idea of talking to Jess and Harper in the small storage building in the rear parking lot. Other than sitting in Harper’s SUV, that was the only privacy they could hope for.
    Standing amid the stacks of paper products required to run the seafood restaurant and still wearing his apron, Jerome folded his arms over his chest and remained silent.
    “Do you understand the rights Detective Harper has just explained to you?” Jess asked. The Miranda rights weren’t really necessary just now but she wanted him worried.
    “I got nothing to say.”
    “Yes or no, Jerome?” Jess said more firmly.
    The silent treatment continued.
    “It might be best if we took him downtown, ma’am,” Harper suggested.
    Jess exhaled an impatient sigh. “I guess we have no choice.”
    Jerome visibly stiffened. “No way. I didn’t do anything wrong and I don’t know anything that can help DeShawn.”
    “Do you have any idea what happened to him?” Jess demanded.
    “That ho he was messing with is part of that crazy-ass posse always chopping heads off and shit. I don’t care what DeShawn thought—she was just using him.”
    “By ho, do you mean Nina?”
    He gave Jess an incredulous look. “Who else? DeShawn’s on a path. He’s gonna be somebody. Until he met that Nina bitch, he didn’t let no girl alter his focus. That girl messed with his head. He’s gonna get himself dead trying to help her—if he’s not dead already.”
    “How was DeShawn trying to help Nina?”
    “She said she loved him. They could have a life together. All they had to do was get away.”
    “You think there’s a possibility they’ve left Birmingham?” BPD uniforms had gotten a good deal of legwork done yesterday. If the couple had left the city, they hadn’t done so in a taxi, on a bus, train, or plane. “What sort of transportation do they have?” DeShawn Simmons’s eleven-year-old Buick was still at his grandparents’ house.
    Jerome shrugged. “Maybe Nina knows people. None of DeShawn’s friends would help him make this kind of mistake. No way.”
    “I don’t suppose he’s tried to contact you?”
    Nineteen-year-old Jerome shook his head but he made one mistake. He lied. Until then Jess had sensed he was telling the truth, but the way he averted his gaze and that little tick that started in his jaw gave him away.
    “Thank you, Jerome. If you hear anything,” Jess said, handing him a card, “call me immediately. Your friend’s life depends on our finding him fast.”
    “Wait.”
    Jess turned back to Frazier.
    “This says you’re a fed.” His gaze narrowed with suspicion.
    “Sorry about that. I just started this job and I haven’t had time to get new business cards made. Just ignore the fed part.”
    Jerome still wasn’t convinced, but that was irrelevant as far as Jess was concerned. When she and Harper reached his SUV, she hesitated before getting inside. “We need Officer Cook today. Now. I want someone tailing Frazier. He either knows where DeShawn Simmons is or he’s heard from him since his disappearance.”
    The parking lot had begun to fill with the early lunch crowd. The morning was gone and the afternoon would fly just as fast. Jess had a list of DeShawn’s friends as long as her arm that she wanted to interview. Sheriff Griggs along with the deputy chiefs of both Patrol and Support had met first thing this morning to form additional search teams. The media attention DeShawn’s case was getting had lit a fire under the BPD.
    DeShawn Simmons was now the poster boy for a better awareness of social and economic equality. The mayor and all the others in charge of this city had better listen up. Jess had a feeling this