Array Ashley - The Last Chapter

“That’s what I heard. The bitch is bad news, bro. The way you were wife’n her before you went in, she should have been the one by your side through it all. She didn’t stand tall, my nigga. Before the ink on the indictment papers dried, she got ghost on you. Fuck her, fam. It ain’t worth the headache. You’re out, and it’s time to move forward.”

Mecca’s advice would have resounded loud and clear if had been any other woman besides Miamor, but she was like an infection of the heart. Letting go would not be so easy.

Knowing that Mecca was too callous to understand the connection he shared with Miamor, he changed the subject. “When Zyir arrives, it’s back to business. Until then, I’m going to lay low and get my mind right. I have a couple of loose ends to clip before the shipment arrives,” he said.

Mecca nodded. “Your car will be delivered tomorrow morning.”

Carter exited the car and made his way up to Miamor’s condo. Although he had a key to her place, he knocked politely, not wanting to intrude. When he didn’t get an answer, he opened the door anyway and stepped inside. He immediately knew that she had not been there lately. The smell of rotting food permeated through the condo, and she had twenty new messages on her answering machine. As he moved through the apartment, his suspicions arose.

Where are you, ma? he asked as he inventoried her bedroom. Her closets and dressers were still filled with clothes. He knew that she didn’t leave town, because she would never leave her possessions behind. As he collapsed onto her bed, his gut twisted in premonition. He had a feeling that her disappearance was not coincidental, and he was determined to find out exactly where she had gone.

But first, he had a message to deliver. Josiah Garza was about to reach out from behind the prison walls and seek vengeance for an unspeakable crime committed against him many years ago.

Leena’s words haunted Mecca: God is the only one who can take the burden away, the guilt. You need to talk to Him.

He knew that she was right. He had never been a religious man, but the crimes that he had committed against his own family were torturing him. If there really is a God, I need Him to take the pain away, Mecca thought.

Although he had no regrets about killing Miamor, he did hate himself because he knew that by doing so, he had taken away someone who had meant the world to his brother. Carter was all he had left, and he feared that if the truth were ever revealed, he would have no one. For the first time in his life, Mecca felt remorse for things that he had done that hurt other people.

Even he had to admit that if he had not murdered Miamor’s sister, then she would have never come after his family. He had lived his life recklessly, without regard for others. Any way he tried to spin the situation, everything, all of the chaos and misery, led back to him. He had been the spark of it all. Mecca was the root of all evil. Bullets had been the answer to all of his problems, and now all of the lives he had taken were coming back to haunt him. He could barely sleep at night because he was afraid to close his eyes. If he could make amends, he would, but there was no reversing the things he had done.

As he sat in front of the Catholic Church, he knew that there was only one thing left to do: give his burdens to God and hope that his soul was capable of being cleansed. He wasn’t a Catholic, but knew that he could never confess his wrongdoings to a black minister. His business would travel through Miami’s gossip grapevine for sure. So, he chose a place where he could be low key. Confessing to a white man in a white church, he was confident that the conversation would go no further than the four walls of the cathedral.

As he stepped out of the car, he felt his gun on his hip. As many people as he had murdered, it would be foolish to leave it behind. But he removed it from his waistline anyway and placed it beneath his car seat. Despite the fact that his conscience screamed for him to stay strapped, he did not want to carry the weapon inside of the church. He took a deep breath as he headed for the entrance, feeling as though his judgment day had arrived.

Carter walked side by side with the priest of St. Jude Catholic Church as he explained the concept of forgiveness and redemption. Carter had spent the past hour speaking with the old man at the request of Garza. Garza wanted to know if the priest displayed any remorse for the children he had betrayed in his past, and Carter followed his directions precisely. He was given specific instructions: “If the priest shows remorse, kill him quickly. If not, then a slow death will be better suited,” Garza had said.

“Have you ever done something that you are not proud of, Father?” Carter asked as they sat down near the front of the church.

“Son, no man is without sin. There are things that I have done in my past that God will hold me accountable for,” the priest replied as he became slightly emotional. “Some things that I have done I can never take back.”

“Father, I’m here to hold you accountable for those actions,” Carter stated in a low, serious tone. “Josiah Garza sent me.”

The old white man’s eyes widened in paralyzing fear as he allowed the emotion in his eyes to fall down his wrinkled cheeks. He knew exactly who Carter spoke of, and his mind flashed back to the acts of molestation he had committed against Garza when he was only a small boy. It was then that he realized that today would be his last day on this earth. The priest began to weep as he leaned forward, resting his head on Carter’s shoulder.

Carter didn’t speak as he closed his eyes. He removed his.38 pistol from the jacket of his Brooks Brothers suit and placed the barrel directly against the priest’s chest. He allowed the old man to weep on his shoulder as he pulled the trigger, sending a bullet piercing through his heart.

“Forgive me, Father,” Carter whispered.

Even the dull sound of the silenced bullet echoed slightly against the walls of the cathedral. Carter caught the old man’s body as gravity took it to the floor, and he laid him down to rest behind one of the church pews. The old man’s eyes stared up into space, and Carter closed them. It wasn’t a task that Carter had wanted to do, but he had given his word. The old man had it coming to him for all of the abuse he had inflicted on the young boys of his parish over the years.

The clanking sound of the doors opening startled Carter.

“Fuck,” he whispered, knowing that he could never make it to the back door without being seen. He made sure that the priest’s body was out of sight, and then slid into the confessional. He hoped that the intruder would come and go quickly, without throwing a wrench in his program. He had planned to execute the priest quietly, without interruption. Carter did not want to have to hurt an innocent bystander for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tension in his body was so high that he could hear his own heartbeat.

The other side of the confessional opened and Carter prepared himself to take another life. He saw the shadow of a man sit across from him on the other side of the lattice. Carter pointed the gun to the center of the shadow’s face, but the voice that he heard come from the other side stopped him from shooting. He froze as he listened to a confession that he was never meant to hear.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Mecca stated. “I don’t know how this usually works, but I’m just gonna speak my piece. I feel like this is the only place where I can admit the truth without being judged. I know I’m not a good man. I’ve known it all along… ever since I was a kid. There was always something evil living inside of me, but I kept it dormant for a long time, until the day I killed my twin brother. I have a lot of blood on my hands, Father, but the blood of my brother I can’t seem to wash away. It’s like I see it on my hands all day.” Mecca lowered his head into his hands. Even admitting his sins behind the protection of anonymity was hard.