In Your Arms

“I don’t know, Tom, that money is all I’m living off now.”

“I understand, Yvonne. Maybe it will come around again, but I doubt it. Anyway, I’ll call you when I have some news for you.”

“Wait a minute, Tom.”

“Yes, Yvonne.”

“Go ahead and draw up whatever you need. I’ll be there in an hour.”

Three weeks later, Yvonne got a call from Tom Mack, letting her know that the market dropped, and she had lost everything. With nowhere to go, she turned to Paris once again for help. He put her to work the next day as a courier. Yvonne’s lifestyle was saved, and for the next five years Yvonne made the occasional trip, picking up and delivering whatever Paris asked her to.

Yvonne never knew what she was carrying and had convinced herself that she didn’t care.

“Better if I don’t know.” Yvonne would always tell Paris. “If I knew what I was carrying, I’d probably be scared shitless.”

Her plan was simple. She would only do it until she turned thirty and then she could collect on her trust fund.

“What went wrong, Yvonne?” Marcus asked.

“I do

n’t know, Marcus.”

“Well what happened?”

“Paris sent me to Singapore. Everything was going fine. I picked up that bag and went back to my room. Then this man shows up at my door. He said that Paris sent him. That there was a change in plans and Paris wanted me to give him the bag and to meet him back in LA in a week. I told him that I needed to call Paris to confirm. Paris always said that if there was a change in plans, I would hear it from him. If it ever happened I should kill whoever told me any different before they killed me.

“He stopped me from calling. Said that things were going on that I had no knowledge of, and my calling would put too many people at risk. I said I was calling Paris anyway. He grabbed me; we wrestled around for a while. I’m pretty strong for a Mississippi country girl. Anyway, I broke away from him and ran into the bedroom. I got to my gun and I shot him.”

“You ever kill anyone before?”

“No. That was the first time I ever had to use it. Since I had to carry a gun, Paris made me learn how to use it. I was great on the range, but never thought that I would have to use it.”

“What happened then, Yvonne?”

“I freaked out and I grabbed the bag and got out of there. I went straight to the airport and caught a plane to Hawaii and went to the drop-off point, but nobody showed up. I was really scared by then, so I called Paris. But I didn’t mention anything about the man I shot. He said he didn’t know what was going on and told me to come home and bring the bag to him. When I got back to my condo, there was somebody waiting for me.”

“Did you shoot them too?”

“No, I jumped off the balcony and ran to my car and took Interstate 10 out of town. I just kept driving until I was too tired to drive any further. I stopped for a few hours in Picacho, Arizona to get some sleep; then I was gone again. I drove to El Paso Texas. I was going to cross into Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, but I didn’t want to use the fake ID and passport I had gotten from Paris, and I was in too much of a hurry when I left to get mine. So I went to FedEx and sent that box to Tyisha. And then I drove here.”

“How did I get involved in this?”

“Those two men were waiting for me in the parking lot the night we met in the store. I didn’t mean to get you involved, but they were at my car. You were the only way I could get away from there. I made arrangements for a new passport to get out of the country then I sent that package to you. I figured that it was kind of an insurance policy. I was set, but I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye to you.”

Marcus got up from the bed and paced back and forth thinking of a way out of their predicament. “Paris.”

“I was thinking about Africa.” Yvonne said.

“No, Paris is the key to it all. We’ll go to LA and I’ll return the bag. They shouldn’t bother you after that.”

“Are you crazy? For all I know Paris may kill me on sight and take the bag off my dead body.”

“True, but we got to convince him that it’s in his best interest to leave you alone.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“Yvonne, I’m a lawyer. I’m a very good negotiator.”