back at his house. Not so much because Alessa was gone or because he missed her, but because the money she had earned for him was no longer there. He had had his crew canvassing the neighborhood in search of her since she had disappeared. The longer she was missing, the more her absence fed his rage. He gloated over all the ways he would teach her the lesson of her life when he found her. He would make her regret she had ever been born. He knew Tasha was in on it and intended to get the truth out of her. He didn’t care if she was his sister. No one double-crossed Harlin, not even Tasha.
Now that Alessa wasn’t around, Tasha visited her brother far less frequently. When she looked in on him, she could see he was becoming desperate for income to support his drug habit. Two of his three large televisions were gone, along with some paintings he had bought over the years. She assumed he was selling his belongings for cash to buy dope. He was also pressuring her to sell more weed. The quantity she’d been selling for years and which he had considered enough to meet his needs was insignificant to him now. She tried to talk to him about his addiction to make him want to get help, but this only enraged him further.
Tasha assumed he was on edge from his drug use and his obsession with finding Alessa. He could easily become violent. She had told her parents about what was going on with Harlin before she went to his house on a Friday morning, so they would follow shortly after she arrived.
“Hi, Harlin,” she said. “You doing okay?”
He scowled at her. “I’ll be doing better when you tell me where she is. Don’t even try to lie to me, Tasha. I know that you helped her. Otherwise, you would be a crazed bitch by now, wanting to know what had happened to her. You better tell me now. The sooner you tell me, the easier it will be.”
“I don’t know where she is,” Tasha said, trying to control the tremor in her voice. “And what do you mean by ‘the easier it will be’? Are you threatening me?”
“Nah, ’course not!” Harlin said nonchalantly. “I don’t need to threaten my baby sister. Look, I don’t care who you are. If you screw me over, I’ll always get even. You know how I operate and you know what I’m capable of doing. So the way I figure it is if you don’t tell me where she is, you’ll be out on the street tonight making me money. I’ll have clients set up for you by noon. The decision is yours. Either I turn you out or you tell me where she is and this all goes away. What’s it gonna be?”
Tasha panicked. She knew Harlin all too well and understood that he would do exactly as he had threatened. Until this moment, she had never been as terrified of him. Tasha tried to buy time. She knew her parents would be there any minute. She didn’t want to tell her brother where Alessa was without warning her first to give her time to move.
“Harlin, why are you treating me like this?” Tasha began, forcing out some tears. “Don’t you love me anymore? How could you even think of sending me out on the street? I have nothing if I don’t have you.”
Harlin stepped up close to her. “You’re so right,” he said. “You don’t have nothing without me. So you tell me where she is or you’ll be out making me the money she owes me.”
They turned at the sound of the front door being flung open. Harlin’s parents stepped into his living room. Tasha breathed a silent sigh of relief. Harlin’s parents were shocked at his appearance. When they confronted him on his drug use, he turned belligerent.
“So what?” he said defiantly. “What do you want from me? If you don’t like it, get outta my house!”
Harlin’s mother rose to her feet and slapped him across the face. She turned to her husband and gripped Tasha by the arm. “You can see us when you decide to make your life right,” she told her son. “Until then, you’re not to come near us. Do you understand me?”
Harlin gave her a wicked smile. “Sure, Mother, whatever you say.” Then he looked at Tasha and said, “You know the deal.”
As Harlin’s parents and sister left his house, they were all visibly shaken. Her mother turned to Tasha and asked, “What did he mean by ‘you know the deal’?”
Tasha’s eyes darted away from her mother. “Nothing, Mom” was her evasive reply. “He’s talking trash because he’s all messed up on dope. I have no idea what he meant. Let’s go home.”
Tasha knew she needed a plan and quick. She would call Alessa at the shelter when she got back to her house. She needed to protect them both now, even as she mourned the loss of the brother she had once loved deeply.
