Grace & Jamaal: Part 3

by D D

Grace and Jamaal risk everything as their dangerous pasts collide.

Realistic 3D

romance

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GRACE & JAMAAL IIIPARADISE BEFORE THE FALL Jamaica felt like another life. For five days, Jamaal didn't answer unfamiliar numbers. He didn't check the news back home, didn't ask about Choppa or Griggs, and barely acknowledged the phone he kept switched off inside the hotel-room safe. For once, Grace didn't push him to explain anything. Whatever waited for them back home could wait a little longer. Their resort sat beyond a crooked road bordered by palms, with the Caribbean stretching endlessly beyond their balcony in shades of turquoise and deep blue. During the day, they drank rum cocktails, ate jerk chicken from roadside stands, swam until their shoulders ached, and wandered through crowded markets where nobody knew their names. Grace noticed something different about Jamaal there. He seemed lighter. She saw it most clearly when he smiled. She had grown accustomed to the harder version of him—the man who checked mirrors twice, studied every unfamiliar face, and instinctively chose seats where he could see the entrance. Jamaica hadn't completely erased that man, but it had quieted him. For the first time since Grace had known him, Jamaal seemed capable of simply existing. One night, long after most of the resort had gone quiet, they walked barefoot along the beach. Grace wore a loose white dress over her swimsuit, the warm breeze moving the fabric around her legs. Jamaal wore linen pants and nothing else, moonlight catching the contours of his shoulders as they walked beside the dark water. "You ever think about disappearing?" Grace asked. Jamaal glanced toward the ocean. "Every day." "No. I mean really disappearing. Somewhere nobody knows Jamaal. Nobody knows Grace. Nobody knows what you've done." He stopped walking and looked at her with a faint smile. "You'd get bored." "You don't know me." "I know you." He stepped closer and placed his hands around her waist. "You like danger too much," he said. Grace tilted her face toward his. "Maybe." "That's what I thought." She kissed him. It started slowly, almost teasingly, but the playfulness didn't last. Jamaal pulled her closer, and Grace wrapped both arms around his neck as the ocean breeze cooled their skin. His mouth moved from hers to her cheek and then her neck, lingering there while she closed her eyes. They wandered farther down the beach until the resort lights were distant and the music from the bars had faded completely. Out there, beneath palms and moonlight, everything waiting for them at home ceased to exist. Grace slipped her dress from her shoulders and left it in the sand. Jamaal drew her against him again, kissing her with an urgency that made her forget the world beyond the beach. When a wave suddenly rushed farther up the shore and washed around their ankles, Grace laughed against his mouth. "Jamaal—" "I got you." He always said that. And on that beach, she believed him. Their night became an intoxicating blur of kisses, warm skin, whispered words, and ocean water rushing around them beneath the stars. There was something thrilling about the isolation of it—the two of them alone beneath an enormous Jamaican sky, surrendering to each other without walls, ringing phones, locked doors, or consequences waiting outside. Later, they lay together in the warm sand with the ocean rolling quietly a few yards away. Grace rested her head against Jamaal's chest and listened to his heartbeat. "If this was our life," she whispered, "I'd stay." Jamaal stared toward the stars for several seconds before answering. "But it ain't." * * * The first thing Jamaal did after landing back home was turn on his phone. Thirty-seven missed calls. The relaxed expression Grace had grown accustomed to in Jamaica vanished instantly. Messages began appearing one after another before he could even open the first. Then the phone rang. Griggs. Jamaal answered immediately. "What happened?" Griggs was breathing heavily. "They know everything." "Who?" "The police, man. They hit Choppa's girl's place. My mama's house. Warehouse too." Jamaal stepped away from the baggage carousel. "How?" There was a pause. "Slim." Jamaal stopped walking. "What about Slim?" "He was talking." "Slim is dead." "I know. That's the point." Jamaal glanced toward Grace, who was watching him from several feet away. Griggs lowered his voice. "Some cop named Ronnie had him feeding information. Paying him. Slim gave him everything—jobs, addresses, names. Then Slim ends up dead before anybody can put him in front of a lawyer." "Ronnie killed him?" "That's what I'm hearing." "Why?" "Clean up." The call ended. Jamaal stood motionless with the phone against his ear until Grace approached him. "What happened?" He shoved the phone into his pocket. "We gotta go." "Jamaal—" "Now." The vacation was over. Within forty-eight hours, their entire world began collapsing. Griggs disappeared first. Police found him two days later hiding inside an apartment across town. There was no dramatic shootout and no last-minute escape. They brought him downstairs in handcuffs while news cameras recorded everything. Choppa lasted one night longer. Officers cornered him outside a motel shortly before sunrise. According to the police report, Choppa ignored commands to surrender and pulled a handgun. Several officers opened fire. He died before the ambulance could get him to a hospital. Grace watched the report from Jamaal's apartment. Jamaal didn't. He stood near the bedroom window stuffing clothes into a duffel bag. "Where are we going?" Grace asked. "You ain't going nowhere." She stared at him. "What?" "I'm leaving." "Then I'm coming." "No." "Jamaal—" He turned toward her. "This ain't vacation anymore. Choppa dead. Griggs locked up. Slim got murdered. Everybody connected to me is going down." "And you think I'm just staying here?" "Yes." Grace walked closer. "No." "Grace." "If you're running, I'm running." For several seconds, Jamaal simply stared at her. That stubbornness was one of the reasons he loved her. It was also one of the things that frightened him most. Finally, he zipped the duffel bag. "Pack light." * * * For three days, they moved. Different motel every night. Different vehicle whenever Jamaal could arrange one. Cash only. No credit cards. No calls home. Jamaal shaved his beard. Grace dyed her hair darker. They kept their phones switched off and avoided highways whenever possible. By the fourth morning, Jamaal had started believing they might actually make it. They were nearly two hours outside the city when flashing red and blue lights appeared in the rearview mirror. Grace looked behind them. "Jamaal." "I see it." His hands tightened around the steering wheel. "What do we do?" "Nothing." The cruiser continued following them. Jamaal slowed. "You sure?" Grace asked. "It's probably routine." "How do you know?" "I don't." He pulled onto the shoulder. Grace's breathing became shallow. Jamaal looked at her. "Listen to me. Whatever happens, don't move fast. Don't argue. Don't reach for nothing." The officer approached the driver's side slowly. Jamaal lowered the window. "License and registration." "Yes, officer." Grace watched Jamaal carefully retrieve his wallet. The officer took his license, looked at it, then at Jamaal, then back at the license. Something changed in his expression. "Step out of the vehicle." Grace felt her stomach drop. Jamaal remained calm. "Okay." "Hands where I can see them." "My hands are right here." Another cruiser arrived behind them. Then another. Grace stared through the windshield. This wasn't a routine traffic stop anymore. "Jamaal..." "Don't move, Grace." He stepped outside. "Hands on your head!" Jamaal immediately obeyed. "Turn around!" He turned. Three officers now had their weapons drawn. "I'm complying," Jamaal said. "On your knees!" Slowly, Jamaal lowered himself onto the pavement. His hands remained above his head. "I'm on my knees." "Keep your hands up!" "They're up." Grace watched helplessly from inside the car. Everything Jamaal had told her to do repeated inside her head. Don't move. Don't argue. Don't reach for nothing. Then an officer suddenly shouted. Jamaal flinched. The gunshot exploded through the morning. Grace screamed. Jamaal dropped onto the pavement. "No!" She grabbed the door handle. An officer rushed toward the passenger side and slammed his palm against the window. "STAY INSIDE!" "He didn't do anything!" Grace screamed. "He had his hands up!" Jamaal lay bleeding on the asphalt. Officers swarmed around him. One kicked something away from the area near his legs while another yelled into his radio for medical assistance. Grace couldn't hear half of what they were saying. She could only see Jamaal. Then another vehicle arrived. An unmarked black sedan. It pulled onto the shoulder behind the cruisers and stopped. Grace barely noticed it at first. The driver's door opened. A man stepped out. And Grace stopped breathing. No. For a moment, her mind refused to accept what her eyes were seeing. The man straightened his jacket before walking toward the scene with the casual confidence of someone who knew every officer there would move aside for him. Grace knew that walk. She knew those shoulders. She knew the face that hadn't changed nearly enough in all the years she'd spent trying to forget it. Ronnie. Her former boyfriend. Grace hadn't seen him in years. She had never told Jamaal much about him. There had never seemed to be a reason. Ronnie belonged to another version of her life—a jealous, possessive man who had treated affection like ownership and rejection like humiliation. But Ronnie wasn't supposed to be here. Then Grace remembered the name Griggs had given Jamaal. Some cop named Ronnie. Her blood went cold. Ronnie turned his head toward the car. Their eyes met through the windshield. He smiled. Not surprise. Not recognition. A smile. As if he'd been waiting for her to understand. Grace's hand slowly fell away from the door handle. Suddenly Slim made sense. The money. The information. Slim's death. The raids. Griggs. Choppa. Jamaal had believed Ronnie was a dirty cop protecting himself after using an informant. Grace knew better now. This was personal. "Jamaal!" she screamed. He couldn't hear her over the officers surrounding him. Ronnie walked toward the wounded man lying on the pavement. Jamaal looked up weakly as Ronnie stopped several feet away. "Jamaal Carter?" Ronnie asked. Jamaal's eyes narrowed. "Who...are you?" Ronnie didn't answer. Instead, he looked toward Grace. Jamaal tried to follow his gaze, but an officer stepped between them. "Don't move." "I ain't moving." "Roll onto your stomach." "I've been shot." "Roll over!" Jamaal painfully obeyed. Grace began pounding against the window. "Stop! He's hurt!" Ronnie never looked away from her. Another officer pulled Jamaal's arms behind him and secured handcuffs around his wrists before paramedics were permitted to approach. Grace stared in disbelief. "Why are you handcuffing him? Help him!" No one answered. The paramedics lifted Jamaal onto a stretcher. He looked toward the car. Grace pressed both hands against the glass. "Jamaal!" His head turned slightly toward her voice. But officers immediately surrounded the stretcher. Grace reached for the door again. The officer outside blocked it. "You need to remain in the vehicle." "I need to talk to him!" "You can't." "That's my boyfriend!" "Ma'am, stay inside." The stretcher disappeared into the ambulance. Grace never got another word with him. The doors slammed shut. An officer climbed into the ambulance beside the paramedics, and another cruiser pulled ahead to escort it. Within seconds, they were gone. Jamaal had been shot, handcuffed, placed under arrest, and taken away without ever learning why the man from the black sedan had looked at Grace the way he did. Without ever learning who Ronnie was. Grace remained inside the car, trembling. Then footsteps approached. Ronnie stopped outside her window. She looked up at him. For several seconds neither spoke. Finally, Ronnie leaned slightly toward the glass. "Been a long time, Grace." Hearing his voice again made her stomach turn. She stared at him. "You." Ronnie smiled. That was all the confirmation she needed. "You paid Slim," she said. His expression didn't change. "You had him tell you everything." Ronnie said nothing. "And then you killed him." Still nothing. Grace looked toward the empty highway where the ambulance had disappeared. "You did all of this because of me?" Ronnie's smile became smaller. Colder. "I told you a long time ago," he said. "You make bad choices in men." Grace stared at him through the glass. Years ago, that look would have frightened her. Not anymore. "You shot him." "I didn't pull the trigger." "You knew what would happen." Ronnie straightened. Grace suddenly understood the full cruelty of what he'd done. He hadn't needed to personally kill Choppa. He hadn't needed to personally arrest Griggs. He hadn't even needed to be the officer who shot Jamaal. He had simply built the road that brought all of them here. Slim had been useful until he became dangerous. Griggs was behind bars. Choppa was dead. And Jamaal had just disappeared inside an ambulance in handcuffs. Ronnie had dismantled Jamaal's world piece by piece while keeping his own hands clean enough to walk away. But he'd made one mistake. He'd come here. He'd needed Grace to know. That was his weakness. Ronnie began walking back toward his sedan. Grace lowered the window several inches. "Ronnie." He stopped. She stared at him. "You should've stayed a stranger." For the first time, his smile disappeared. Grace raised the window. The officers continued moving around her, talking into radios and photographing the scene, but their voices became distant. Her thoughts returned to Jamaica. Moonlight. Warm sand. Jamaal's arms around her. The ocean moving around their bodies. His heartbeat beneath her cheek. If this was our life, I'd stay. And his answer. But it ain't. Grace had thought Jamaal was talking about Jamaica. Now she understood. Paradise had never been their life. It had only been borrowed time. Somewhere down that highway, Jamaal was bleeding in the back of an ambulance, surrounded by authorities, having no idea that the stranger who had watched him get taken away was connected to Grace. He didn't know Ronnie had once loved her. He didn't know Ronnie had never accepted losing her. He didn't know that Grace had just discovered the truth. And Grace didn't know whether she'd ever have the chance to tell him. She looked through the rear window. Ronnie's black sedan pulled onto the highway and disappeared in the opposite direction. Grace watched until it was gone. Then she sat back. The fear inside her disappeared. Something colder replaced it. Ronnie wanted Grace to know who had done this. Fine. Now she knew. And she would never forget. THE END

Grace & Jamaal: Part 3

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