Firestone by Claudia Hall Christian Page B

stuck in all of that mess outside. He’s already issuing
orders. The Denver Police are closing the building to anyone
without pressing business inside. You ready?”
    “ To fight for my son?”
Jeraine asked. “Yes.”
    “ Can you handle the
stairs?” Scary Andy asked. “It’s the most private way into the
courtrooms.”
    Jeraine nodded.
    “ Then let’s go,” Scary
Andy said.
    Scary Andy opened the door to the stairs and
took off. For a big man, he was remarkably fast. Jeraine looked at
Schmidty, and Schmidty nodded. Jeraine took the stairs three at a
time toward the courtrooms.

Chapter Two
Hundred and Eighty-four
At the courthouse
     
    Monday morning — 9:35 a.m.
     
    Tanesha bristled when the
bailiff called the mother of Jeraine’s other child. Tanesha hated the
woman. She knew her hatred was inappropriate and a stupid waste of
time. Fin had told her so last night. It didn’t stop Tanesha from
hating her. This woman had stolen Tanesha’s spot as the mother of Jeraine’s first
child.
    Yes, Tanesha knew that it was first and
foremost Jeraine’s fault.
    Yes, Tanesha knew the girl
was not worth her
energy or effort.
    Yes, Tanesha knew that hatred was not good
for her health or her peace of mind.
    She still hated the woman.
    She remembered exactly where she was when
she’d learned that Jeraine’s first child had been born. She had
been standing in the visitor line at Cañon City. She’d turned
twenty-one just six days before. As a birthday present, her gran
decided to tell her about her father. Prior to her twenty-first
birthday, Tanesha had no idea her father was alive or wasn’t just
one of her mother’s many johns. After her gran set her straight,
Tanesha was able to book an appointment to see her father the very
next Saturday.
    In the six intervening days, she’d read
everything she could about her father and the murder he’d
committed. She’d even visited her mother to ask her. Her mother had
been high, and unable to speak coherently. Yvonne had been like
that a lot then. The day before Tanesha stood in the visitor’s
line, she’d told her mother to clean up her act or she wouldn’t
spend time with her. The broken look on her mother’s face had
spurred her, kept her fortified and patient in the cold on that
day. She’d probably killed her mother; why not kill her father
too?
    Heather had driven her to Cañon City. She
wasn’t supposed to tell Jill and Sandy, but of course, they were
sitting in the back seat of Heather’s car when she picked Tanesha
up from her gran’s. Tanesha had made her girlfriends stay in the
car. Tanesha was going to meet her poor excuse of a father on her
own.
    There she was, standing in
that line, when she heard that Jeraine was a father. She turned to
look. She didn’t want to. If it had been any other day, she would
have looked away, but there on the television screen was a picture
of Jeraine and that
woman . The announcer yammered on about
R&B star Jeraine Wilson’s new baby. The girl had gone to see
Jeraine in concert for her eighteenth birthday.
    “ Went to a concert, left
with a baby. Not a bad deal.” Tanesha could still hear the radio
personality’s wretched laugh. “Happy Birthday, girl, you’re having
Jeraine’s baby.”
    Even all these years
later, Tanesha’s heart stopped at the memory. She gave Jeraine a
dark look and watched Miss Thing saunter up to the witness stand. When the young
woman raised her hand to swear in, Tanesha grabbed her purse. She
was in the hallway before the woman started giving her
testimony.
    Because the judge had limited the court
access to people directly involved in the custody hearing,
Tanesha’s girls weren’t with her. She felt like she was about to
cry. She glanced at one of the guys Jeraine had hired as
bodyguards. He nodded to her. The man followed her as she walked
quickly to the bathroom. She found a stall and dropped her head
into her hands.
    For the first time in a very long time, she
wished she’d never come