Black Lace

  BEVERLY JENKINS

  Black Lace

  Contents

  Prologue

  Detroit City Councilman Reynard Parker hadn’t always been rich and…

  One

  The surprise snowstorm had reduced Detroit’s early morning freeway traffic…

  Two

  A short brother decked out in green scrubs and carrying…

  Three

  On the ride back downtown, the dark-eyed Lacy stayed on…

  Four

  Monday morning Drake sequestered himself in his office to go…

  Five

  Drake’s meeting with the governor took up most of the…

  Six

  When Lacy was first hired, one of the ideas she…

  Seven

  They decided to follow the saxophone of Boney James with…

  Eight

  Lacy’s Thursday evening meeting at the Northwest Activities Center started…

  Nine

  Later, she took a quick shower and put on some…

  Ten

  Lacy and her officemates spent the rest of the week…

  Eleven

  Drake got the word on Leo Vasquez’s condition around midnight.

  Twelve

  Lacy was in the tub soaking away the day and…

  Thirteen

  There wasn’t really much Detective Franks and his partners could…

  Fourteen

  Lacy had been waiting for this first real kiss since…

  Fifteen

  Sunday night, Parker and Fish were discussing strategies in the…

  Sixteen

  Parker was in his office trying to play the chess…

  Seventeen

  Lacy was preparing to leave the office when the phone…

  Eighteen

  That evening Drake joined the Richardsons for dinner. Afterward he…

  Nineteen

  Thursday, May 19, was Lacy’s birthday, and she began the…

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Other Books by Beverly Jenkins

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Detroit City Councilman Reynard Parker hadn’t always been rich and powerful. A high school dropout, he’d started out in the trash business like every other Black man who hadn’t finished high school—on the street slinging cans in the heat of summer and the balls-freezing days of winter. During those years, he’d gagged while picking up maggot-infested garbage, taken shit from condescending suburban customers, and come home smelling worse than an abandoned Porta-John to a wife who despised him.

  Then life changed. In 1986, on his thirty-fifth birthday, he hit the Michigan State Lotto. Twelve million dollars. He had sense enough to return to school for his GED, then go on to college, where he impressed himself and his professors with his grasp of economics. He graduated at the top of his class with a degree in Business Economics.

  The degree and his lotto money came in handy when his old trash employer went belly up in 1994. Reynard purchased the remains for pennies on the dollar. He then painted PARKER ENVIRONMENTAL on the trucks, hired his own people, and proceeded to build an empire that let him rub elbows with crooked politicians, corrupt union officials, and businessmen as shady and as greedy as he.

  Now, at age fifty-four, Reynard’s hair was gray and his belly soft, but he had lucrative trucking contracts on both sides of the U.S. border for hauling trash, toxic wastes, and other tainted loads. The profits, coupled with the hustles he had on the side, brought in more than enough to pay for his fancy Palmer Park home, suits from Toronto, and shoes from Italy. He ate in the best places, and when he decided to run for City Council, his contacts helped bankroll his campaign. His high profile charity work with felons and his position on the boards of a few local nonprofits further cemented the good guy image he wanted to project. He also had a new young wife; she despised him too, but not his money.

  So all in all, life was good for Reynard Parker. He had only one dream left, and that was to become the city’s mayor, but there was an obstacle in his path: Drake Randolph.

  One

  The surprise snowstorm had reduced Detroit’s early morning freeway traffic to a crawl. Lacy Green peered through her windshield, trying to catch a glimpse of the long line of cars ahead of her, but for all intents and purposes the wipers were useless. The thick blowing snow filled the cleaned glass just as soon as the blades swung back. It was 6:30 A.M., still dark, and the visibility was so bad she could barely make out the cars moving beside her. Last night’s meeting in the city of Ypsilanti had run so late she’d opted for a hotel room. Now, she had to get back to her job in downtown Detroit. Lacy was from Atlanta and she’d never seen anything like this weather in her life. For the past week, the temperatures had been warm enough for the tulips in the pots on her balcony to break through the soil, but overnight a major storm had roared in out of nowhere, and this morning it was still blowing and screaming.

  Concentrating on her driving, Lacy held the wheel tightly. This was her first Michigan winter, and she was still a bit shaky maneuvering on the snow, but she knew that the middle lanes were the safest places to be, so that’s where she and her ancient Escort were. The far left lane, which on regular mornings funneled cars rolling at eighty to ninety-plus miles per hour, wasn’t even cleared. The plows were using the lane to pile up the five inches that had fallen overnight. Schools were closed and the airport was reporting a three hour delay on departing flights. Today was the first day of April, and apparently Mother Nature had a wicked sense of humor.

  On the radio, the traffic reporter was advising folks to stay home. Lacy clicked off the sound and kept her eyes on the road. The last thing she needed to hear was someone stating the obvious. Lacy, like the thousands of others commuters region wide, had to go to work.

  The Escort’s groaning wipers cleared the windshield just in time for her to see a snow-covered Grand Am merging too fast onto the freeway. The car did a 360 and spun tail first into the snowbank on the right shoulder. The driver was lucky. Had the spinout been in the far left lane, the car most likely would’ve gone down the embankment and into the mawlike ditch that served as the median on Michigan’s main highways. Once in, the only way out was by tow truck.

  In reaction to the Grand Am’s dilemma, traffic slowed even further and brake lights twinkled like dull red flames in the whirling eddies. “Michigan, my Michigan,” Lacy muttered sarcastically, quoting the state’s motto.

  A glance up at her rearview mirror showed a ghostly stream of headlights strung out behind her like jewels. At the very back of the pack was one set of lights that seemed to be moving back and forth as if the driver was weaving in and out of the traffic. The sight made her shake her head. Conditions were too dangerous to be trying to get anywhere in a hurry, so she prayed the idiot kept his or her distance.

  Lacy grimly concentrated on the traffic ahead, but every few seconds glanced up at her mirror to gauge the lane jockey’s position. The car appeared to be making progress, but in all of this traffic, they were looking for an accident, and would probably get their wish. She, on the other hand, just wanted to get to work in one piece.

  Just as that thought crossed her mind, brake lights flashed ahead. The car in front of her began to slide. All around her other vehicles went on the defensive, angling and attempting to get out of the way of what looked like the beginning of a major pile-up. A tense Lacy downshifted and gently braked, praying she had enough space to stop safely. She did, and let out her held breath, but a quick look at the rearview mirror showed the lane jockey about to plow into her rear end. She opened her mouth to scream “Nooo!” but the solid impact threw her forward. The air bag deployed and the car began spinning like Kristi
Yamaguchi in a death spiral.

  Panicked, Lacy fought to turn the wheels in the direction of the slide, but the snowbank on the left shoulder was too close. The Escort spun trunk first, hard, through the piled wall of snow and rumbled down the snowy embankment. It hit the bottom nose first, flipped onto its hood, then flipped again and landed hard on its tires. That was the last thing Lacy remembered.

  She came to lying flat on her back. For a moment she lay there on the horizontal seat listening to the furious thumping of her heart. As it slowed, she realized she was alive. Very gingerly she wiggled her toes inside of her boots, and the pain in her right ankle responded with a screaming aria. She bit her lip in reaction then did a quick check of her remaining limbs and appendages. Her neck was sore and would probably be worse tomorrow, but everything else seemed intact. Still reeling, though, she slowly fumbled for the seat button beside her. Upright again, she rested her head against the air bag and took in a deep shuddering breath. A look around showed the snow surrounding her and the faint lights of cars above her on the highway. She supposed she should have been wondering whether help was on the way, but right then all she wanted to do was breathe and savor the realization that she was alive.

  Mayor Drake Randolph didn’t waste time yelling at his driver for causing the accident; there’d be time for that later. Right now his only concern was helping the driver of the Escort. Throwing open the limo’s door, he and his two bodyguards got out and headed down the hill.

  Other cars had stopped in response to the accident, but they didn’t pay them much mind because the going was rough. The wind was screaming. The blowing snow stung the men’s faces, making Drake wish he’d stayed in the car, but the oath he’d taken as a doctor took precedence over the oath he’d taken as mayor of the city of Detroit. He made his way down the knee-high snow praying the driver hadn’t sustained serious injury.

  When the still shook-up Lacy heard the knock on the window, it took her brain a moment to process the meaning of the sound. A man’s face appeared on the other side of the snow-covered glass. She assumed she was dreaming. Why else would Mayor Randolph be outside the car? She heard him yell, “Can you unlock the door?”

  She tried to shake off the cobwebs clouding her thinking.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Lacy studied his handsome brown face. He appeared to be genuinely concerned. The women of Detroit had dubbed Mayor Randolph “His Fineness,” and even Lacy, who had yet to meet a politician she didn’t want to burn at the stake, found his good looks almost blinding. The man made Denzel look like Shrek. When her brain asked why she was indulging in such asinine thoughts, she shook herself, then reached down and flipped the lock button.

  The door opened. Swirling wind and snow filled the car making her instantly draw away from the fury.

  He asked again, “Are you hurt?”

  The cold air hitting her in her face made her brain a bit clearer, but she was still a bit woozy. “Just my ankle. Neck’s sore. What are you doing here, Mayor Randolph?”

  He gave her that smile, the smile Detroit’s female citizens prayed they’d be blessed by at least once in their lives; a smile packing so much charming wattage it seemed to warm her insides. “Came to see about you,” he responded.

  Even in her groggy state, and with the wind whipping around her, she felt stroked by the soft tone of his voice. She blamed the reaction on the aftershocks of the accident. “Appreciate it,” Lacy mumbled. She could feel a hellacious headache starting to form. “Did you get the plate of the idiot who hit me?”

  Neither the mayor nor his bodyguards answered. Instead, the mayor said firmly over the wind, “Let’s see if we can’t get her back up to my car.” He looked at Lacy. “What’s your name, miss?”

  “Lacy Green.”

  “Ms. Green, you said your ankle’s hurt?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t know whether it was the weather or the shock, but she was freezing.

  “How’s your head?”

  “Hurts.”

  He leaned in closer and gently began examining the bones in her neck, arms, and shoulders. “Any of this hurt?”

  “Neck’s sore.”

  He ran his hand over her neck and shoulders again. When he finished, the handsome face studied her with serious eyes. “Do you think you can walk?”

  Lacy waved him off. “Yeah.”

  He stuck out his hand and helped her out. The sharp “Ow!” she yelled settled the matter of whether the ankle would support her weight or not. She leaned against the car until the pain subsided to a dull roar.

  The mayor looked up at the highway. “We’ll take you back up to my car.”

  Lacy was all for that. The wind was whipping like a winter hurricane, and she was so cold her teeth were chattering.

  Until that moment her main concern had been herself, but now, for the first time she could see the Escort’s physical condition. The sight made her eyes widen in dismay. “Look at my car!”

  The hood was so mangled, the engine and its innards were exposed.

  She cried out again, “Look at my car!” Overwhelmed by the extent of the damage, she thought she might be sick.

  One of the men said, “How ’bout we get you up to the mayor’s car and you can call a tow truck.”

  A devastated Lacy realized she was going to need not only a tow, but a couple month’s pay to get the Escort back on the road. Her headache worsened.

  The mayor asked, “What do you need out of here?”

  She forced herself to deal with the now. “My tote. Oh, and my CD case on the visor.”

  He leaned in and grabbed her stuff. Then came the task of getting her up the steep embankment to where the limo waited. The two big men with the mayor locked arms to form a seat, and she was transported like Cleopatra to the embankment, but because it was physically impossible for them to carry her up the steep slope and maintain their balance, they each grabbed one of her armpits and carried her the last few feet that way. Her toes dragged a bit, increasing the discomfort in her ankle, but they made it. A few moments later she was in the car. She was so relieved to be someplace warm and dry, she leaned back against the limo’s black leather seat and let out a breath of relief.

  The mayor got in beside her. One of the guards settled in on her other side, while the second man took the passenger seat. The thin-faced older man behind the wheel introduced himself as Burton. He turned and asked Lacy, “You okay, honey?”

  “No,” she offered truthfully. Between her headache, throbbing ankle, and the damage to her car, she knew it would be a while before she was okay. “Thanks for stopping to help, though. Did you see who hit me?”

  The silence that followed made her look up into his brown eyes. Under her pointed scrutiny, he dropped his head, then said, “I’m real sorry.”

  Lacy swung to the mayor. “You hit me?!”

  He gave her a chagrined look. “Technically, Burton did. Our apologies. He was trying to get me to a meeting downtown.”

  “A meeting?” she snapped. “I almost lost my life so you could get to a meeting!”

  “My plane from San Antonio got in late from the airport, and—”

  “So you ran me off the road?”

  Drake’s lips thinned.

  “Do you see that snow out there?”

  Drake nodded. “I do.”

  She summed it up. “He was driving too damn fast.”

  The mayor eyed his driver for a moment then nodded. “I agree.”

  Lacy plopped back against the seat.

  “The city will pay for all damages, of course.”

  “Of course.” She snatched off her wet hat and ran a hand through the small twists crowning her head. She was so angry she wanted to smack somebody.

  Drake pulled off his gloves and tried to apologize again. “I know you’re mad—”

  The blazing look she turned on him rendered Drake instantly silent. He supposed she didn’t want to hear him state the obvious. “How’s your head?” he asked instead.


  “Still hurts,” Lacy admitted. To her surprise, he placed a finger beneath her chin and raised her face so he could look down into her eyes.

  “Want to see if you have signs of concussion.”

  The warmth of his touch spread up her cold chin and down her shoulders. Once again blaming her reaction to him on the accident, she let him look for a few seconds more, then backed out of his hold. “I have a headache, but that’s probably normal after being run off the road.”

  He winced visibly. “Point taken, but let’s take a look at your ankle.”

  “It’s fine.” Lacy knew he was a doctor and that it made sense to have a doctor look her over, but she was so outdone by all this drama, she was having trouble thinking straight. It occurred to her then that once she made it to her job, she had no way home. Who knew how long her car would lay in the ditch before a tow truck could get to it? In this weather it could be days. She supposed she could get one of her coworkers to help her out but she hated imposing on people. Her head was pounding.

  Drake wanted to make sure the ankle wasn’t broken but guessed she’d had enough interaction with him for now, so he didn’t press. Burton was wisely staying out of the line of Lacy Green’s fire, which Drake thought made sense.

  Burton said, “I called the police and made the accident report.”

  “Good,” Drake said. “Do they want us to wait?”

  “No, the dispatcher said they were too busy. I guess a semi spun out over on the Lodge Freeway. Radio says the road is a parking lot.”

  Burton turned around and said to Lacy, “I told them it was my fault. They said they’d send somebody out to interview you about what happened in a few days. I’m getting a ticket, though.”