The First Warning
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 — 9:18 AM
Summer had only been here three days, and Jermaine was already starting to lose track of what day it was.
He woke up late.
Again.
The room was warm, sunlight cutting through the blinds while his phone vibrated somewhere beneath his pillow.
He found it.
Three missed calls from Rome.
Six Instagram notifications.
A Facebook tag from somebody he barely remembered going to school with.
And a message from Monique reminding him that their graduation pictures were going up later.
Jermaine smiled.
He hadn't even gotten out of bed before his phone started filling with summer.
Downstairs, he could hear Nasir talking.
Not laughing.
Talking.
Jermaine slowed as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
His father's voice was low.
"That's not what I asked."
A pause.
"I asked who knew."
Jermaine stopped.
Nasir turned.
The conversation ended immediately.
"Morning," Nasir said.
Jermaine looked toward the phone in his father's hand.
"Morning."
Nasir slipped it into his pocket.
"You sleep good?"
"Yeah."
"Hungry?"
"Always."
Nasir smiled.
"Then you're doing all right."
Jermaine walked toward the kitchen.
His father followed.
Nothing about the conversation remained on Nasir's face.
But Jermaine noticed.
His father seemed distracted.
10:06 AM
Bishop sat behind a laptop inside one of the Crown's quieter offices, staring at a spreadsheet that should have been boring.
It wasn't.
She had pulled information from three separate businesses.
Different owners.
Different employees.
Different reporting schedules.
The numbers were clean.
Too clean.
Bishop leaned back.
Then opened another file.
The same pattern.
She checked the access log.
Her expression changed.
Someone had opened a report yesterday.
A report that wasn't supposed to be available to them.
She checked the credentials.
Nothing obvious.
No stolen password.
No unfamiliar username.
Just access.
Bishop picked up her phone.
"Melo."
A few seconds passed.
"What's up?"
"I need you to get Nasir."
"What happened?"
"I don't know yet."
That made him stop.
"That's not an answer."
"I know."
She looked at the screen again.
"Somebody got into a file they shouldn't have been able to see."
Melo's voice dropped.
"Which file?"
"Financial reporting."
Silence.
"Send it."
"I already did."
11:32 AM
Nasir sat across from Bishop.
Melo stood beside the window.
The blinds were half-open, letting narrow strips of sunlight cut across the room.
Bishop turned the laptop toward them.
"Nothing was taken."
Melo frowned.
"Then what's the problem?"
"Someone looked."
Nasir studied the screen.
"Could be an employee."
"I checked."
"Contractor?"
"Checked that too."
"Someone with access to the building?"
"Possibly."
Bishop clicked through another page.
"But whoever it was knew exactly where to look."
Nasir's eyes narrowed.
"How sure are you?"
"Enough to bring it to you."
Melo folded his arms.
"What are they looking for?"
Bishop shook her head.
"I don't know."
Nasir remained quiet.
That was the part he didn't like.
Not the missing information.
The intention behind it.
Someone wasn't making noise.
They were learning.
"Keep digging," Nasir said.
Bishop nodded.
"And don't tell anybody yet."
Melo looked toward him.
"Not even the others?"
"Not until we know what we're dealing with."
Bishop closed the laptop.
"There's one more thing."
Nasir looked up.
"With Juneteenth coming up, I've been hearing questions."
"What kind?"
"About the celebration."
Melo's expression hardened slightly.
"From who?"
"Different people. Nothing direct."
Nasir leaned back.
"What exactly are they asking?"
"Location. Timing. Who's expected to attend."
The room went quiet.
Juneteenth wasn't another event on the calendar.
It was one of the biggest community gatherings of the summer.
Families.
Local businesses.
Churches.
Young people.
Old heads.
Politicians.
Everybody.
Too many people in one place.
Too much movement to control completely.
Nasir looked at Melo.
"Keep the event moving."
Melo nodded.
"But?"
Nasir's eyes stayed on the table.
"Change what needs changing."
1:14 PM
Jermaine found his father outside.
Nasir was sitting on the front steps with a cup of coffee.
"You good?" Jermaine asked.
Nasir looked over.
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
"Why?"
"You've been acting weird all morning."
Nasir laughed softly.
"Acting weird?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe I'm tired."
"You don't sleep anyway."
"Exactly."
Jermaine sat beside him.
For a few seconds, neither spoke.
Cars passed down the street.
Somebody was playing music from an open window.
A woman across the block yelled for her kid to come inside.
Normal.
Jermaine looked at his father.
"You doing something for Juneteenth?"
Nasir nodded.
"Helping out."
"You always helping out."
"That's what I do."
Jermaine smiled.
"You ever gonna relax?"
"I'm relaxing right now."
"You got coffee and you're staring at the street."
"That's relaxation."
Jermaine laughed.
Nasir looked at his son.
For a second, the weight behind his eyes disappeared.
"You got plans today?"
"Rome wants to hoop."
"Where?"
"Probably SSU."
Nasir nodded.
"Good."
Jermaine stood.
"You coming?"
"Nah. I got some things to handle."
Jermaine paused.
"Work?"
"Something like that."
It was a lie.
A small one.
The kind Nasir had gotten good at telling.
Jermaine didn't question it.
"Bet."
He started walking away.
"Jermaine."
He turned.
"Yeah?"
Nasir looked at him for a moment.
"Be careful out there."
Jermaine smiled.
"I always am."
Nasir watched him leave.
He waited until the door closed.
Then his phone rang.
Melo.
Nasir answered.
"Yeah?"
Melo didn't waste time.
"Bishop found another access point."
Nasir's face hardened.
"Where?"
"Same network."
Nasir stood.
"Tell her to stop looking for what they took."
A pause.
"Start finding out what they know."
4:47 PM
Jermaine, Rome, and Monique sat on the bleachers outside SSU after playing for nearly two hours.
Rome was exhausted.
"I told y'all," he said between breaths. "I ain't playing nobody over six-four again."
Jermaine laughed.
"You were talking crazy five minutes ago."
"I was talking crazy before I got tired."
Monique shook her head.
"That's probably the most honest thing you've said all day."
Jermaine looked across the court.
Summer had officially started.
No teachers.
No bells.
No graduation rehearsals.
Just basketball, friends, and nowhere they had to be tomorrow morning.
His phone buzzed.
Another Instagram notification.
Another graduation picture.
Another piece of the old life becoming something to look back on.
Jermaine smiled.
He didn't know that somewhere across Brooklyn, his father's people were quietly changing plans.
He didn't know that someone had begun asking questions.
He didn't know that information was already moving through places it shouldn't.
For Jermaine, summer had barely begun.
For Nasir, the rules had already changed.
And neither of them knew how close those two realities were getting.