The Burning Bush by Kenya Wright Page A

let’s just make this quick.” I shut the top drawer.
    “I just think you and Angel shouldn’t automatically assume she is a hooker.” Cassie kneeled on the floor and searched under the bed. What she was searching for, I didn’t know, but I guess anything would help.
    “Were you both adventurous with boys in high school?” Cassie blinked her eyes as they returned to blue.
    I considered the question. MeShack and I had taken each other’s virginity. After that, we made love anywhere and everywhere. We had no parental supervision. And thus, we’d put dents in the kitchen counters and bedroom walls. The closet pole never bent back the right way. We’d even been forced to replace my bed frame five times, sneaking stolen ones in so my father wouldn’t kill us during the few moments he was sober and clear-minded enough to see through our lies.
    “Okay, maybe she has an open-minded boyfriend.” I leaned toward them and whispered, “But keep in mind, the habbie I’m working with said she was a hooker for a pimp named Kilo.”
    “Well, that’s not good. I know Kilo. He’s nothing but bad news.” Angel put the jacket’s hood over her head. Her cheeks now had a bluish-gray tint. “I don’t think he killed her though. What you described was a lot of magic. Kilo has no magic. He would’ve just beaten her to death.”
    Kilo sounds like a great guy.
    “How did she die?” Cassie directed those big blue eyes at me.
    “Don’t worry about that. Trust me; it may give you nightmares.” I glanced at Angel. “How do you feel?”
    “I feel like an annoying person is following me around, worried about me for no reason.” Angel sucked her teeth and leaned back until she was lying on Onyx’s bed. “If you ask me how I’m doing again, I’m going to bite you.”
    “You’re really scary there with your corpse skin and winter clothes.” I turned and headed to Onyx’s closet. “I told you not to absorb any more magic, but no, you had to see what it felt like to be a Were-hyena.”
    “Here we go. I’ve been waiting for this,” Angel murmured and closed her eyes.
    “Lanore, how does the habbie know Kilo is her pimp?” Cassie asked, taking out her recorder.
    I stopped and glanced over my shoulder. “He asked around.”
    “Kilo, suspect number one,” Cassie said into her silver recorder. “What’s your story, Onyx? Why bright orange to black? Why the sorrow, the pain? Why hang the butterflies by their necks? Why the edible panties? Talk to me, Onyx—”
    “We’re dropping Cassie off next,” Angel announced, still with her eyes closed.
    “Yep.” I opened the closet. “And Angel, have some respect for the dead and get off her bed.”
    “She doesn’t need it,” Angel mumbled.
    Cassie came up on my left side and dragged a chair into the closet. “I wonder where her diary is.”
    “Diary?” Angel raised her eyebrows.
    “A book that people write their thoughts in,” I offered.
    “I know what the hell a diary is. I’m not stupid. I just doubt a hooker has one,” Angel said.
    “Oh my goodness, Angel. She’s probably not even a hooker.” Cassie jumped on the chair and rummaged through the top shelf.
    “Both of you keep your voices down. I don’t think her mother wants to hear that,” I said.
    Cassie pulled out a box with several Xs drawn on it with black marker.
    “I’ll get that.” I let her drop the box into my hand and carried it to the bed. “Anything else up there?”
    “Uh . . . not really.” Cassie quickly put something behind her.
    Angel giggled, her eyes now open and centered on Cassie in the closet’s opening. “Little, pink Cassie just pocketed a bag of marijuana.”
    “Absolutely not,” I said. “Your brother would kill me if he knew you had that.”
    Zulu had zero tolerance for drugs.
    Angel bounced up, headed to the closet, and snatched it from Cassie’s hand. “Drugs are bad for you, kid.”
    Angel sniffed the bag, smiling, and then stuffed it into her pocket.
    “But