Betrayal: Where are our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 6 of 9

by Gary Sapp

end.

  What he did see was an unexpected pained look on her forehead.

  “Grace, what is it?” He asked her gently as if his voice raised any louder she might crack in its wake. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry, Chris. With everything that’s going on—especially what you’ve shown me tonight—I’d completely forgot to fill you in on a very vital detail that will be important to you.”

  “Shoot,”

  “We assigned two Peacekeepers to case the woman your ex-wife hired to find your step daughter.”

  “Roxanne?” Chris heard his own voice take on a darker tone. Was there anything that a House in Chains didn’t have their hands in? “She has nothing to do with 411 or Deliverance or anything else that has to do with your people’s business. Leave her alone…oh no, what’s happened Grace? What have the Peacekeeper’s done to her?”

  Chris hadn’t realized that he’d grabbed a hold of both of her lean but toned arms. He eased his grip…just a little.

  “For once, it isn’t about us, Chris. From the information I’ve been able to gather, Roxanne blames your friend, Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree for the death of her sister Yolanda Battle. Tonight, she…” An old school pager lit up red on Grace’s hip interrupted their conversation. “We have to move now, Chris. We’ve got to get out of here.” He put the squeeze on her arms once again. “Why, Grace? What in the hell has happened now?”

  “My sources have informed me that the others are moving quicker that even I anticipated.” She said with a calmness that defied logic. “They’re going to kill Xavier within the next few hours.”

  Chris released her and followed her to his front door. They agree that it would be safer for the both of them if they ride in her car instead of his. She’ll drive. She knows the way to wherever in the hell they are going, which will save valuable time. Anyway, the extra time that will buy him will help him feel better about getting behind the wheel after his binge last night.

  They also agreed to work out any remaining details as they go along, which will be alien two normally very detailed and organized individuals. Well, at least they broke camp before Agent Blue arrived. She must have more than her share of loose ends to tie up as well. It would have been hell trying to explain all of this to his partner anyway.

  Chris swung his front door open and beckoned Grace Edwards to exit the premises first.

  But to his chagrin, Special Agent Tabitha Blue was standing in the doorway with her hands planted on her hips.

  Xavier

  Xavier Prince saw his father.

  The old man was seated on Xavier’s couch.

  Dad? You shouldn’t be here, Xavier thought. He was dead.

  And this version of his father looked younger that the day that he’d died in the traffic accident when both he and Chris were teenagers.

  Isaac Prince saw his son out the corner of his eye, flashed a wondrous grin, got to his feet, stood face level to get a long look at his boy all grown up and planted a bear hug on him that neither man would soon forget.

  Xavier felt tears biting at the corner of his eyes and he did not fight them and hugged his father back.

  When his father released him the old man had did just that: He’d looked as if he’d aged 20 years. Standing before Xavier Prince now was a man who would’ve likely been his father’s age if he’d lived until this year.

  His father wrapped his heavy arms around his petite son and said, “I’m so proud of everything that you’ve accomplished in your life, Xavier.” He caressed his son’s cheeks which were still wet from tears with his thick fingers.

  Xavier fought to compose himself, but he was so damned happy to see his father again after so long. No dream had ever been so powerful. No vision ever this potent.

  “Dad, I shadowed your footsteps because I admired you so much and I hoped…” He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I hoped to expand on the legacy that you’d built with a House in Chains.”

  “I know, son,” Isaac Prince said, cupping his son’s face with both hands. There was strength and a sense of safety to be in his father’s grasp, even when Xavier had angered him with his juvenile ways back then. “I also know that it wasn’t easy for you. I know you followed my footsteps because your brother Christopher wouldn’t.”

  Somewhere Xavier’s song began to play.

  Xavier looked to his left, then to his right and finally behind him, but failed to hear where the melody of Death is in the Air Tonight was coming from.

  Xavier did hear his boys sweep through the living room in a youthful rush of legs and a cloud of laughter and teasing. He caught his youngest by the collar, preparing to chastise them for not speaking to any adult, yet alone their grandfather who was standing there in the living room.

  But Isaac Prince had turned into a pile of dust.

  He kneeled over the pile and let his fingers run through the sand that was once his father—and shook his head once and again. Had he imagined that he’d seen Isaac? Had he dreamed it? Was he still dreaming?

  When Xavier stood again his oldest son had stopped his running about long enough to say, “Why don’t you put your work aside long enough for a few minutes and come outside and toss the football around a bit before the game comes on.”

  Xavier felt the muscles supporting the frown on his face relaxing. He laid the briefcase (that he hadn’t remembered holding before now) down on the couch where his father had been sitting before.

  And he also wondered was that really his oldest boy who’d asked about the game of catch because he looked more like his younger son would have a few years from now.

  Whichever one of his sons it might have been needed to turn the volume of the radio down…

  …but his sons, like most kids their age, adored hip-hop. They wouldn’t be listening to an instrumental—especially a track as monotone as Death is in the Air Tonight.

  His boys called to him again. He heard them even over the song. So he let his happy face return and angled to his bedroom to fetch a pair of sneakers before it got dark outside.

  Candlelight greeted him when he closed his bedroom door behind him. Wasn’t it the late afternoon only seconds ago? He shook the latest oddity away and started to open his closet when a whiff of perfume caught his senses with a pleasant surprise.

  He turned back to where the bed should be (how could he be sure of anything at this point), and saw Grace Edwards lying across the length of the bed. She was older than when he last saw her, perhaps middle aged, but her tight figure, soft brown skin, and beautiful face still remained intact.

  She wore a huge diamond wedding band on the appropriate finger, a tight smile and nothing else. He returned his wife’s smile with one of his own. He heard her ask him to come to bed and join her. Xavier looked back over his shoulder where his children might or might not have been waiting in the yard for him to come out and play with them. Yet, a peek at the window sill verified that it was indeed dark outside and they would be in the house fooling around in their rooms before it officially bedtime.

  Xavier aloud himself a quick laugh. He fumbled with his tie, kicked off his loafers, and inched towards his wife slowly until their lips touched at long last.

  A Death in the air tonight blared louder and louder but Grace seemed oblivious to it at least. It was nearly deafening to his ears but he could hear her moans of pleasure after he entered her.

  The music be damned.

  He would not let it steal this moment of pleasure from him and the woman who loved him so.

  And with each thrust the music lessened and his wife’s shrieks of pleasure grew louder.

  They climaxed simultaneously and he heard Grace Edwards Prince scream out his name—

  And then Xavier awoke with someone unfamiliar calling his name.

  “Get up, sir.” And the voice was more insistent. “Get. Up. Xavier Prince if you want to live, sir.”

  Xavier sat up as if he were shot out of a canon in a cold, uncomfortable sweat resting on his temple.
/>   The memory of the dream was vivid in his thoughts…but the recollection of what he was doing before he dozed off might have proven more useful to him. Yes, he’d been listening to a brilliant instrumental with a deliciously dark melody to it that someone had sent to him as a gift. It was no denying that it was the same composition that he’d heard when he and Brother Chris had their last conversation together in the church’s bathroom.

  It was also the same song that had played like his personal theme song during the three phases of his dream when he saw his father alive, his boys altered and made love to the wife version of Grace Edwards.

  “We have to get you out of here now.”

  “What?” Xavier said. And when one of his personal security details grabbed him by the shoulder he did not flinch. “Take your hands off of me. I’m not going anywhere with you until somebody explains what in the hell is going on here.”

  Two younger men eyed each other anxiously. The one on the left looked as if he’d played a game of Russian roulette and loss the other could have been a firecracker on the Fourth of July he was moving about so much.

  Gunshots peeled off in the distance of the compound. Xavier stood then. The Russian leaned over and cleared his throat.

  “Ms. Edwards assigned us directly to the task of protecting you, sir. We need you to trust us as you would trust her. They are ready to execute an assassination attempt on your life, sir. We have to move you to a preordained place of safety and we have to do it right now.”

  Firecracker hopped around, took