Next Morning

I overslept. No news to me since I was out digging up graves all night! I practically ran to school, missing first period. But hey, I made it. I spent the whole day thinking why in the hell my dad pretended to die, in front of us. What was it for? Why did he do it? Then the bell rang for lunch. I got my lunch with Ruby.

"Find anything last night?" He asked as he grabbed a juice.

"His body wasn't there. Just a plain gnome." I sighed.

"You mean he's alive?" I gave him a look.

"No Ruby, i think he just decided to stop playing dead and took a walk."

"Amor, you look cute when you get angry but-"

"Sorry. I'm just wondering why now? Why cant he just come home?" I said as we paid for our lunches and met up with the crew.

"Hopefully we'll find the answers soon." I tripped over, falling face first into my food. I looked up. Purple, 19th street girls. I clenched my jaw.

"Oops."

"Better be careful diabla." One them sticks their tongue out. Ruby helped me up, i looked at them as they walked away laughing.

"Here." He passed me some napkins. I wiped off the pie that was on my face. "Here, i can pay for your food." I grabbed Rubys arm, stopping him from reaching his wallet.

"Its fine, im not hungry anyways." I hated those girls. I clenched my fist as I went to throw away my pie. Whats their problem. How did they know about diabla? We walked outside and saw that the crew was sitting with Jasmine.

"Jasmine, the reason we're acting so cagey is because this situation is life or death!" Ruby and I sat down.

"Theres a ticking clock." Ruby adds in.

"You got a prophet too?" Jamal asks him.

"No, but my folks are underwater financially." I looked at him. I head his hand, making him look at me. "I need this payout sooner than later, so we gotta move, and we gotta move fast."

"Baby, I'm so sorry." I rubbed his arm.

"Im sorry too, boo, but that it ain't my problem." Jasmine tells him. I looked at her. "So either talk or walk cause there's only 20 minutes left of lunch, and I got reaction videos to make." She looks at herself in her phone. I frowned, for what?

"Okay, so here's the sitch." Jamal was about to say it.

"Lets not forget, Jasmine is an explorer." Monse points out. You're right, she can be a dirty cop, like Hammel. Nobody can be trusted. "We'll never truly know where her allegiance lies."

"Monse's right. You should led with that." Jamal spoke. "This was a bad idea. Lets go." The five of us grabbed our stuff and head to a new place to eat.

"Your bad idea was taking down the prophets..." we stopped walking. What? How? When? Who? We turned to her, she shakes her inhaler. "But what do I know?" She takes a puff. We slowly turned back to her. We decided to have a meeting at her place. After school we met up. Jasmine has a nice room, gotta say. She sets up her powerpoint. "Okay, this is what I know." She dims down the lights. "Ooh nice shoes Jamal."

"Thanks." Jamal smiles, flexing his shoes.

"Is that it?" Ruby tells her, he really doesn't want to be here.

"No. Be patient, boo. So it all starts with Monse and Cesar." She clicks to the next slide. I was impressed with the edit of Monse and Cesar wearing medieval times clothes. "Lets call them Homeyo and Doodooette. Homeyo, the heir to the Santos, and Doodooette, the secret princess of the prophets." Uhhh not even close Jasmine.

"What are you talking about?"

"You'll have your turn to debate the facts, but until then, I have the floor. And don't dent it, girl. Why else would your dad be so mad for Cesar being at your crib on New Years?"

"Jasmine, how do you know about that?" Cesar asks her.

"I was there." She whispers. She hit play on the video. We watched as she creepily recorded the two.

"Wow."

"Oh." We all gasps.

"You had to promise not to see him again." She points at Monse.

"No, thats not what I promised, and my dad not wanting Cesar at my house wasn't about some vendetta. He was worried he was dangerous."

"Because he's a Santo!" And not all Santos are bad. "Girl, you are basically doin my job explaining this for me. Ooh, speaking of jobs, Monse's dad 'long hauls' are really about moving product."

"No. No they're not." She shakes her head.

"Oh, do you know where your dad was on every trip?"

"No-"

"Well I do! I've been tracking him via a tracker I put on his truck. Hes been traveling to Miami, Hartford, and St. Louis." She shows us the PowerPoint, where he has been, with drugs?

"So?" Monse shrugs.

"They also happen to be hotbeds of drugs. There's also been a spike of drug use in New Mexico."

"My dad hasn't even been to New Mexico."

"I know. I was just stating a fact." Jasmine smiles of her findings.

"Jasmine, that product that he's shipping is real product. Not drugs." Monse tells her.

"Wow, Monse, you seem to know a lot about your dad and his job, but did you know your daddy also has an insta account? And guess what girl, he's been putting miles on that too."

"My dad is not a trafficker or a prophet!" She yells.

"How about a cowboy?" Jasmine gasps as she shows us a picture of her dad. I nodded, he looks good.

"What does that disturbing, yet joyful, photo have to do with anything?" Ruby points out.

"And if Monty's the head of the prophets, why would we take him down?" I added in, which isn't real since he's not a prophet!

"Because Monse wouldnt give up the D and neither would Monty." We all looked at her. The D? As in? "Daughter! His daughter!" Oh thank god. Should've let with that. "Man, y'all and your outlandish assumptions."

"So then what happened?"

"Next, Monty and his crew used the money they stole from Freeridge Savings while Monse was conveniently living out of town with her mother and Cesar was pretending to be heartbroken post-breakup."

"Jasmine, we're still broken up." Cesar calls out.

"Oh? Then what was that humpety-dump last night?" I dont like the sound this. We all looked confused. "Exhibit E!" She presses play. The moans of Cesar and Monse, in his room, grinding on each other. I gasp. Wait, if she has them on tape, what if she has me and Ruby? Oh no! I closed my eyes. Im keeping my blinds closed now.

"Stop! Turn that off! Turn it off!" Monse yells.

"Don't believe me know? I got the sheets and Im not above using a black light." Oh god please no.

"Oh god. Please dont." Cesar sighs.

"So after all was said and done, Monty used the money he stole to take down his oppressors in the gang so he could stop being a mule and start riding a horse. Ooh, by all estimations, somewhere upstate, on a farm, hmmm. And let you all skim a little cream off the top, which is why you had to clean it and why Jamal has those nice nee shoes." She shows us the video that she took minutes as we started the presentation. "In conclusion..." she pulls out her badge. "You are all under arrest! This is a citizens arrest. You have laundered stolen money and were accessories to a crime. You all have the right to shut the hell up and bend over while I frisk you. Ruby first."

"Thats not happening." I said as I looked at her. "We're not gonna be frisked."

"Hold up! If we're goin down, you're goin down with us." Jamal tells her.

"You taught us how to clean the money." Ruby jumps in. That is true!

"And where to but fake IDs!" I nodded.

"No I didnt. That wasn't me." Oh miss innocent huh? She shows us the next slide of her fake ID. "That was Mona." Ruby stands up.

"Well, you can tell that Mona that she's not the only one who knows how to use an iPhone." He pulls out his phone plays a voice recording of the video of Monse and Cesar. "This is child pornography, and Im citizen arresting you for being a peddler of it."

"Good job baby." I smiled.

"Ooo damn Ruby. I didn't think you had that in you." She sticks out her arms. "Okay baby truce."

"Can you just give is a minute?" We all huddled in a circle, leaving Jasmine out. "While we clearly need to set the story straight, I think we can use her." They all groan.

"Absolutely not! She got everything wrong!." I said as I nodded my head.

"Think about it, she can be an asset with her police connections."

"Are you kidding me?"

"We cant work with her. She's a shitshow. Detective work is all about instincts and her instincts stink!" Jasmine come and shoves us, joining our meeting.

"You're right, i have terrible instincts." She confesses. "I mean my initial instincts made me think Jamal found the Rollerworld money and switched it for the Freeridge Savings money to take down the Prophets, but I gave up on that theory when I read a police report of a witness the night of the Rollerworld heist who said there were four dudes. A guy named Ricky Galindo was fingered, but he was never confirmed, and he got away and then it said that they saw a guy that went by the name Chico, but didn't pin it in him since he was too tall and nice to fit the description." Thats all true! Thats what really happened!

"Lil Ricky and Diablo." Jamal whispered

"Yes! The guys who started the Santos! Yo, I looked them up when someone said they was dead, but I never found death certificates, and that makes me think that they left Freeridge and took the money too. Although i dont know that for sure."

"But you know they're alive?"

"If they're were dead, there'd be a record of it." We all looked at each other.

"Lil Ricky and Chico are really alive."

"So wheres those assholes?" I coughed. Monse looks down. "I mean, dudes, where's those dudes." She then mouths sorry.