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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2022 by Kellye Garrett

  Cover design by Kirin Diemont

  Cover photographs: Arcangel / Martin Bredice (background); Getty Images / Serge (necklace); Shutterstock (broken glass)

  Cover copyright © 2022 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First ebook edition: March 2022

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  ISBN 9780316256872

  E3-20220110-DA-NF-ORI

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Posted June 4, 2019

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Posted May 20, 2019

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Instagram Live April 18, 2019

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Instagram Live January 16, 2018

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Posted May 20, 2017

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Instagram Live March 1, 2017

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Instagram Live November 10, 2016

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Posted June 30, 2016

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More

  About the Author

  Also by Kellye Garrett

  To my sisters, Doni and Nikki. I love you even when I hate you and I know the feeling is mutual.

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  Tap here to learn more.

  One

  I found out my sister was back in New York from Instagram. I found out she’d died from the New York Daily News.

  Her post was just as attention seeking as their headline. Hers came at midnight. Look back at it. #birthday #25 #grownfolksbusiness #home #nyc—all over a behind-the-back shot of her in nothing more than a black slip dress and no bra.

  The article came less than twelve hours later. FORMER REALITY STAR DESIREE PIERCE FOUND DEAD IN LINGERIE IN BRONX WITH COCAINE AND NO SHOES.

  I’d come straight here—to where they found her—as soon as I’d seen it.

  Why? I don’t know. Maybe to confirm it was real. Maybe to hope it was not. Maybe to get one last glimpse of her even though I knew her body was long gone. Whatever the reason, I’d arrived at this particular playground in the Bronx on autopilot. The place my sister had come just hours before. It looked how I felt—all reds and blues and worn down. It would never be accused of being the happiest place on Earth.

  FORMER REALITY STAR DESIREE PIERCE FOUND DEAD IN LINGERIE IN BRONX WITH COCAINE AND NO SHOES.

  I hated it. For what it said. For what it represented. For what it really meant.

  My left wrist itched. I rubbed it, desperate for the feeling—my feelings—to go away.

  “You okay?”

  The voice was male, melodic, and a stark reminder I only felt alone. I was not, surrounded by police and gawkers and at least one TV reporter—all standing on opposite sides of the crime tape like it was an eighth-grade dance.

  Was I okay? Not in the slightest. I hadn’t seen my little sister in two years. Now I never would. I wanted to ignore the question, just like I ignored the trickle of sweat rolling down my cheek. It felt better than tears.

  “I’m fine,” I finally said automatically, not even giving the man a glance.

  FORMER REALITY STAR DESIREE PIERCE FOUND DEAD IN LINGERIE IN BRONX WITH COCAINE AND NO SHOES.

  Desiree would have hated the headline too, the use of the word “former” as much as the use of the word “dead.” And the mention of what she wore, but not who, would’ve annoyed her more than calling out the cocaine, though last time we’d actually spoken she claimed she’d stopped using. I hadn’t believed her. This was probably the first time I wasn’t happy to be proven right.

  “You sure you’re okay?” The same voice again. I finally looked up from my phone to see who was talking. He was Black. Tall. Smiling like he knew the effect his face had on women. Not me. At least not today, or for the last couple of years if I was being honest.

  I nodded. Unfortunately, he took it as a sign to continue. “You know her?”

  Only well enough to have predicted this scenario. Both in nightmares (“You’re gonna overdose one day”) and in daydreams (“You’re gonna overdose one day—I’ll be there when you wake up to say I told you so”). I’d played it out dozens of times, in dozens of ways, for years before I’d cut her off. And yet, despite telling her this was going to happen, I still wasn’t the least bit prepared. Did I know her?

  “Not as well as I should have.”

  “She was famous,” he said. “Well, kinda. Mel Pierce’s prized daughter. You know him? Notorious music exec. I’m sure you heard the story about the window.”

  I sure had.

  I nodded again but didn’t say anything, hoping he’d get the hint. Prized daughter. He looked just as out of place in this neighborhood as Desiree must’ve been, wearing a black-on-black suit in 90-degree weather while standing next to a jungle gym. “They found her about five a.m. Cops think it’s an—”

  “Overdose. I know.” Cutting him off, I gestured to my phone. “I read the Daily News.”

  Five times, in fact. Once at the bodega. I’d stopped by on my way to class for a Snapple and instead got a Google Alert. Three more times on the trip over. Twice on the 1. Once more after my bike and I got off at 168th to finish the trip. The final time right before he’d interrupted me.

  “You kinda look like her, you know,” he said, then abruptly closed his mouth as if realizing his faux pas, comparing a stranger to someone who’d just died. “Maybe it’s the freckles.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, but I never saw it myself. We were technically half sisters, after all. If anything, I was the barefaced Before to her perfectly made-over After. I didn’t respond, just let him stare at me as a woman with box braids pushed past us, anxious to gawk and report back to her friends like an NBC 4 reporter. The crowd was surprising. A dead Black woman wasn’t normally anything to crow about. Not here. Not anywhere, really. Except Desiree Pierce wasn’t just any Black woman. She was Mel Pierce’s prized daughter. Just like the man had said.

  The man who now stuck out his hand. “Stuart Jones.”

  He’d said his name like I should recognize it. When I didn’t respond, he spoke again. “I’m the crime reporter. For the News.”

  He gestured to my phone. And just like that, I wanted to talk to him. “Aww,” I said. Then, raising both brows, “You write headlines as well as articles?”

  His hazel eyes widened. “No. That one…was a bit much.”

  My phone rang. I recognized the number and ignored it.

  “Yeah. Just a bit.” I gave him a tight smile. “Wonder if they would have went the ‘bit much’ route if it was a Kardashian. Any white girl, really.”

  “I doubt it,” he said, and for the first time his smile seemed genuine. “Can I quote you on that? For an article, Miss…”

  I shook my head. He tried to step closer, but my Schwinn blocked his path. “Don’t tell me you’re a Mrs.…”

  I was not. But still. I didn’t answer the question, instead opting for “Lena. Lena Scott.”

  It was my turn to see if he recognized the name. He didn’t. Thank God.

  I smiled in relief, but he didn’t know that. He assumed it was for him. “Ms. Scott”—another grin—“wondering if you can help me out. It’s for a follow-up. I’m interested in what the natives have to say.”

  “I’m not native.” I’d grown up in Jersey and only moved to the city a year ago, when I’d started classes at Columbia.

  “That’s okay.” He flashed that smile again. “I’m still interested.”

  I pulled my bike closer, then crossed
my arms to cover the hot-pink I USED TO BE A PEOPLE PERSON…THEN PEOPLE RUINED IT FOR ME written on my fitted black T-shirt. A double barrier. “I’m not.”

  Box Braids returned, practically pushing me out of the way. “You can talk to me, cutie. I’m Toni White. That’s with an i.”

  “I’d love to, Miss White.” Guess he wasn’t as concerned about her marital status as he’d been about mine. “Did you know Desiree Pierce?”

  “Of course! I loved her. I watched her every week on that girl’s show,” Toni said. “NYZ. She didn’t have any goddamn sense.”

  Editing. It’s called editing, Toni with an i. But I swallowed my flip retort.

  Toni continued. “But I loved that about her.”

  I’d loved other things: her humor, her ability to talk to anyone, her glass-half-full attitude. The problem was that it was usually a glass half full of vodka. It was why I had decided to love it all from a distance.

  “She had so much potential,” Toni said, and at least that was true. She sucked in a breath, as if trying to keep it together, and started sniffling. I looked up to see if she’d actually cry. Her eyes were as dry as my sex life. I looked back down. “She was beautiful. Too beautiful to die,” Toni finally said through attempted sobs. As if ugly people got first dibs on tragedy. “Too beautiful to be assaulted like that.”

  My eyes jumped to Stuart, the throbbing in my wrist back with a vengeance. “She was raped?” I could barely get the words out.

  Stuart shook his head and the throbbing stopped. “No signs of sexual trauma.”

  “No rape?” Toni sounded disappointed. “But I heard she didn’t have on any panties.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Desiree had been known to go commando, considering it a lifestyle choice.

  “She didn’t,” Stuart said, casually, like he was discussing the weather. “My source at the precinct is saying there was bruising on her legs but nothing to indicate foul play. They don’t know how she got here, but they’re working on it. So am I.”

  He watched me as he spoke, his chest puffed out like he was Superman sent to save the day. But it was too late. My sister was already gone.

  “She musta been really needing a hit to come all the way up here.” That was Toni again, working my nerves like a street corner.

  “You know that’s some bullshit.” I shook my head as I cut in. “There are better places to get coke in the city. So I’ve heard.” From Desiree, in fact. “She didn’t come up here to score drugs. Not if she had been in Manhattan.”

  I stared her down like a bully in fifth grade, and she didn’t say anything. Just looked away. And for the first time that day, I wanted to smile. So I kept at it. “She was last seen in Manhattan?”

  Stuart nodded. “SoHo. Omni hotel rooftop.”

  “Latest hot spot?” I said.

  “Yeah. You haven’t been?”

  “As a rule, I don’t travel below 110th. Look, if a reality star”—I made sure not to use the word “former”—“with a rich father is going to get her hands on some coke, it would be at the hottest spot in Manhattan. Right?”

  A miffed Toni grabbed Stuart’s arm. “Police said she overdosed,” she said. “If she didn’t come up here for drugs, then why? A girl like that don’t belong in the Bronx.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” said Stuart, star reporter. “How did a woman like Desiree Pierce end up dead in a park above the Major Deegan Expressway?”

  I could have told them both. I’d known from the moment I saw the headline.

  She’d been coming to see me.

  POSTED JUNE 4, 2019,

  11:08 p.m. Eastern @TheDesireePierce212

  The cell’s camera turns on to find Desiree Pierce in selfie position, left arm fully extended and raised just enough to make her look up at the screen. She turns her face slightly to the left. Pauses, then faces right. All in search of the perfect light.

  Her brown face is beautiful and freckled. Her hair is long and pitch-black, in the kind of beach waves that most Black women get from Bantu knots. Her diamond necklace catches the light.

  Behind her are the tasteful yet stark decorations of a hotel suite that’s littered with clothes, shoes, and cups. Desiree turns again, stops, then moves a few centimeters to the left.

  She smiles, showing off perfectly aligned white teeth.

  Someone unseen takes in a long sniffle. Desiree’s too busy smiling to notice.

  “Freck, can you get your beautiful-ass face out of the camera for once?” The voice is female and teasing. It’s impossible to tell where it comes from.

  Desiree pretends to roll her eyes. “Let the record show the birthday girl is the first one ready.”

  The voice again. “That’s ’cause you don’t have to do all the shit I do! Your skin is perfect.”

  Desiree shrugs, pretends to look demure. “Black don’t crack.”

  A second later she’s finally joined by Erin Ambrose. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Surgically enhanced lips. She crowds into the frame. “I don’t crack either.”

  “Yeah, you just do everything else.”

  “No comment.” Erin holds up a white mug with OMNI printed on it in thick black letters. She raises it in mock salute. “To Desiree Pierce on the occasion of her twenty-fifth birthday. A toast.”

  Desiree does the same with her free arm, holding another hotel mug. She tips it just enough to show what’s inside. It’s filled with a clear liquid. “A toast…with water.”

  Erin nods. “That’s definitely water.”

  “It is!”

  “Right.” Erin nods double time. “We’re good clean girls who don’t drink, don’t do drugs, and sure as hell don’t fucking curse. So that is definitely not vodka.”

  “It’s not.” Desiree chugs it, then flashes the empty mug. “See!”

  It takes just a moment for Erin to roll her eyes. “Like you’ve never done that with vodka.”

  They both laugh as Desiree speaks. “My family might be watching this!”

  “I thought I was your family!”

  “You are. Just like a sister.”

  They finally clink mugs. Erin talks to Desiree while looking dead at the lens. “Happy birthday, bitch.”

  Two

  Gram died five years ago in February, a stroke as sudden as it was painful—for her and everyone who loved her. And that truly was everyone. Gram always lit up the room. Especially for me, as she was the only grandparent I knew. My mom’s parents died when I was a baby, and my paternal grandfather was never in the picture.

  But if you could have only one grandparent, Phyllis Pierce was perfect. I wouldn’t have gotten through her funeral without Desiree. We moved in tandem all day, only separating to go to the bathroom and even then just long enough to flush. I remember her doing my makeup, loading us both up on waterproof mascara and a healthy dose of setting spray.

  My mother, on the other hand, had let me cry for half a day before informing me I needed to get it together. Phyllis Pierce and Olivia Scott had never been close, but that wasn’t why she told me that. It was just my mother’s way. We’d even joke about it, say she was putting on the Super Black Woman cape. You handle your business, and only then do you turn back into the ordinary girl who’s allowed to cry. And there was indeed work to be done, a funeral to help plan.

  So when my mom lost her battle with breast cancer three months later, I knew what to do, how to behave.

  My mom had known her diagnosis for a whole year but hadn’t told me. She knew I was enjoying my first job—as a project coordinator in DC—and she didn’t want her diagnosis to be the end of my new life. She planned to survive cancer like she’d survived everything else, waiting until she was on her literal deathbed to tell me.

  Even once she passed, the tears didn’t come right away. Scotts weren’t criers. I hated it, how it made me feel, how it made me look, turning my nose as red as Rudolph’s. Besides, I was too busy with arrangements.

  I’d been surprised when Desiree told me Mel planned to pay for everything. He’d left my mom and me going on twenty years at that point. We hadn’t even been in the same room since before I graduated high school. My mom hadn’t wanted his money when she was alive and she sure as hell wouldn’t want it now. So I politely begged off, pointing at her insurance, and hid behind my Super Black Woman cape.

  Unlike the Angry Black Woman label so many tried to make us wear, Strong or Super Black Woman was one we often gave ourselves. We wore it as proudly as a designer brand. It protected us from a lot of shit—earning sixty-three cents for every dollar that went to our white, male counterparts, or raising children not able to step outside without risking their lives. I don’t know if it was always a good thing, but it was most certainly our thing, passed down by both nurture and nature from generation to generation, like a recipe for sweet potato pie.