That was years ago, when Daddy was in jail awaiting trial. We went by to visit Quincy. Mama made his favorite pie. He suffered through the pain and acted like he was fine, even when I could see a grimace on his face with each move. The next day he forced his mama to visit us. He’d heard I’d locked myself in the closet because I was afraid of getting shot like him. Nightmares filling me each night, that the police would storm through our house. I got over it; never dreamed it would happen again with Jamal. When Quincy came to visit me back then, he stayed by my closet for hours. We talked about our favorite shows. Things we liked to do. How much he missed school. When he left, he promised he’d always look out for me. Sealed it by kissing my cheek before hobbling down the stairs, our mamas yelling at him to be careful.

I can tell Quincy’s thinking about that day. He drops his head and runs his fingers around his locs.

“Jamal’s took care of you pretty much your whole damn life. You think he’d run so far he couldn’t get to y’all if he needed to?”

“He’s close, then?” I grip Quincy’s arm, my heart hanging on every word.

“Nuh-uh. Don’t be using your flirtish ways unless you mean it. I’m not playing these games with you.”

“Quincy,” I say, “tell me where my brother is and what you know about Angela.”

“All I know is he was messing with someone else’s girl on and off since right after homecoming. A white girl at that. Fast-forward six months and she ends up dead. That’s why I stick to sistas.” Quincy gives me a lazy smile. “They were supposed to hook up that night. Then I get a text that plans changed. So he met me here. Whoop-whoop, she didn’t show. Typical. That’s it. Then when Jamal was here, he got a text, said he had to bounce. Whoop-whoop.”

I pause, make sure I should admit this out loud. “I saw Jamal at home before the cops came, and he was cleaning up blood.”

Quincy glances up at the ceiling as he grips the chair, then makes eye contact. “Jamal wasn’t messed up the first time he came over. But…when he came back, he said he found her, tried to save her, but she was pretty much dead in his arms, bleeding from her head. Like someone banged a rock on her head. He got there and found her like that.”

“Why didn’t he call 911?” My heart aches at what Jamal must’ve been feeling, finding Angela like that.

“What you think was going to happen in this town if your brother called 911 and he got blood on him out at the Pike, hanging over a dead white girl’s body?”