Lisa shifted her head to the side, and before Frank could blink, he saw Simmy’s hand cover her mouth, muffling her protest. Frank expelled the air in his lungs, relieved that Simmy had finally done something right. He shook off his nerves.
“You don’t understand!”
The cry yanked Frank’s attention away from Lisa and Simmy. The intern was getting irate. Baptiste was either losing the connection, or the intern was severing it. Frank couldn’t tell, but he was nervous as hell. Simmy needed more time to develop some sort of an exit strategy.
Taking a cue from Baptiste, Frank studied the intern, searching for a shortcut into his mind. He was not the fake doctor from the hospital, and Frank found it increasingly difficult to believe that he was the guy from the hotel room. This was a child standing before him, maybe a little older than Simmy. He looked disheveled and completely out of his element. He looked like the type of kid that would sing in the Glee Club, not a professional killer. In fact, this kid, seemed exceedingly ordinary, easily lost in a crowd. Frank figured he and Baptiste could subdue him easily once Lisa was out of the way.
“He’ll kill her! I have to . . . I am sorry.” The intern pummeled the sides of his face with his hands, clearly frustrated by the turn of events.
“I can help ya, but you have got to tell me who ya talkin’ ’bout.”
“He’s a monster. He has my sister, and he’ll—” Suddenly, the intern looked in Lisa’s direction.
A panicked Frank looked with him, but to his amazement, he only saw Lisa. There was no sign of Simmy anywhere. Frank didn’t know what that meant, but seizing the moment, he decided to engage the intern himself.
“We won’t let that happen. My name is Frank. I know about monsters. My brother is a monster, and I have spent my entire adult life hiding from him.”
The intern locked eyes with him, and Frank instantly felt uneasy. Something was off.
“I learned something, though. We can’t run from our monsters. We gotta face them. It’s the only way to be free.”
“I’m afraid. I’m supposed to protect her. I promised. I promised, and . . .”
Frank continued trying to reason with him, inching his way toward him. “We can help you, but you have got to give us something. You’re just a kid. You can still have a life after this, but give us something. Who is it?”
He stood about three feet from him with Baptiste just behind him. He willed himself not to look directly at Lisa, but he could tell that she had moved a bit. She was not as close to the edge of the bed as she had been before. He wondered where Simmy had gone.
“No one can help me. I have to do this. She has to die.” The intern lifted the knife he held in his hand, and in one swift move, plunged it into the feather pillow, inches away from Lisa’s shoulder. Frank lunged forward, fist high in the air, cocked to swing at the intern. The intern ducked his punch, causing Frank to miss wildly. The momentum sent Frank colliding into the table.
Frank yelled as chunks of ice and water made their way inside his shirt. From the corner of his eye, he caught Simmy rising up from underneath the covers beside Lisa like a swamp monster in a lake. Both arms raised high in the air, Simmy threw his body over Lisa’s, acting as her human shield. Frank tried to jump to his feet, but all he saw were fists. The intern attacked him with reckless abandon.
“Stop or I’ll be forced to put ya down! Put ya hands up right now!” Detective Baptiste ordered. “Get down on the ground! Face down!” Detective Baptiste kept his gun aimed on the intern until he complied. Frank could hear the familiar clinking of cuffs.
Frank’s vision was blurry. Every part of his face hurt. Even parts of his body that he didn’t remember being hit ached. Tasting the blood in his mouth, he stood, staggering, trying to see, but all he could make out were colors—colors that did not mean anything.
“You had a gun?” Frank questioned. Frank stared in utter confusion in the area he thought Detective Baptiste to be in.
“I am a police officer, ya. Course I have a gun, now.”
“Why in the hell were you doing all that talking? You could have just pulled it from the beginning.”
“I told ya to wait. You made a different choice. Plus, drawing my weapon is a last resort, but I know you Americans think different than us backward island folk,” the detective stated, winking at Frank. “Where should I take him?”
“Stick him in a closet. Can’t do any harm there.”
Detective Baptiste chuckled. “No, really, where do ya want me to take him?”
“Guest room is fine. Down the hall, third door on the left.”
“All right, I will take him there and see what I can find out.”
“You do that.”
“Don’t be angry, Franklin. Gun isn’t always necessary.” Detective Baptiste dragged the intern out of the room and disappeared from Frank’s sight.
Frank mentally punched the shit out of Detective Baptiste before shuffling to Lisa’s side. This had to be one of the most asinine few weeks of his life. He was in way over his head in this thing. Lisa was slipping in and out of consciousness. She had slept during most of the activity, but her condition was getting worse by the minute. For some reason, Simmy was still sitting on his knees on the bed beside Lisa.
“Simmy, go get Dr. Ojirika.”
“I think OJ dipped out.”
Frank groaned. “How would you know? And he told you not to call him that.”
“I would split if I were him, and he ain’t here, Raheim.”
“Yes, he is, and I would appreciate it if you refrained from calling me that. If Ojirika is too difficult a word for you to pronounce, Doctor will do just fine.”
Simmy whirled around to find Dr. Ojirika standing in the doorway. Simmy responded to his rebuke as he walked by him to tend to Lisa. “My bad, yo. No problem. No need to get upset. He didn’t do it. The glove didn’t fit, yo.”
“Shut up, Simmy,” Frank spat. He wanted Dr. Ojirika to focus on Lisa. Until those antibiotics were in her system, she was not in the clear.
“I’m just sayin’ . . . it ain’t like he went to prison—no, wait. Never mind.”
“Simmy, go do something. Go find the security guards. I paid them good money to do nothing, apparently. Find them.”
Dr. Ojirika pulled his bag from underneath the bed where it had been pushed during the commotion. Frank watched him take out his supplies to check Lisa’s vitals.
“Cool. What do you want me to do when I find them?”
Frank cut his eyes at Simmy. “More than you did for me when one tree ninja started kicking my ass.”
Simmy turned his face up. “What, I’m supposed to get beat up, too? Nah, bruh. I don’t think so. You told me to protect Lisa. Nothing else matters. There wasn’t nothing in any of your speeches about being twin punching bags.”
Frank couldn’t help but laugh. Simmy drove him crazy. He was the little brother he never wanted. “Figure out what happened with the two that are missing and let me know.”
Simmy left the room. Frank returned his attention to Dr. Ojirika. “I need you to save her.”
Chapter 54
“What in the hell happened here?” Michelle tiptoed through the door of her childhood home, astonished by the mess she saw. The police had left the house in shambles. Michelle chose her steps carefully as she surveyed the damage. “Wow. Are you seeing this, Grayson?”
“Of course. Hard to miss. Think they found anything?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure what they would have been looking for.”
“Evidence.”
“Ahhh!” Michelle screamed, jumping back into Grayson, who quickly pulled her behind him. “Who’s there?”
“Not important right now,” the deep baritone responded.
“Where are you? Come out where we can see you,” Grayson requested.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Why not? What are you doing here?” Michelle inquired. She clung to Grayson for dear life. She could n
ot remember being more afraid. “You need to leave, whoever you are, or I’m calling the police. This is my mother’s house.”
“Looks like the police have been here and left with what they came to get.”
Michelle wanted to know what this stranger seemed to know. She was terrified but felt like Superwoman with Grayson, the Golden Gloves champ, to protect her. “Oh, yeah? And what was that?”
She and Grayson moved as one, slowly making their way toward to the faceless voice.
“Your mother will pay for what she did.”
“Who are you? And what do you know about her?”
“You’ll find out who I am soon enough.”
“How do you know my mother?” Michelle could not tell if they were getting any closer. It was difficult to navigate through the debris.
“I know you, too, Michelle.”
Michelle froze. She quit breathing and dared Grayson to take one. This was definitely not okay, and she was officially freaking out. She tried to search through the darkness, but it was too dark to see anything. The flashlight on her phone only lit so much, and none of it was this stranger.
“Grayson, let’s go,” Michelle whispered, pulling his arm back toward the front door.
“No need to fear me, Michelle. I would never hurt you.”
Using the light on her phone to chart her path, Michelle hurdled and dipped her way to the front door and into the car. Her nerves were so shot that she accidentally locked Grayson outside the car. He banged on the window for a good thirty seconds before Michelle realized what was going on.
They sat in silence for a minute, parked in the driveway. She could not force a word from her mouth until she saw a shadowy figure, whom she assumed belonged to the faceless stranger, disappear into the night.
“Did you recognize his voice?”
Michelle shook her head. She had no clue who that could be. She didn’t know of her mother having any friends, and she doubted that this person had good intentions. Nothing felt right about it. Why would he be lurking around her mother’s home at this hour?
“This is crazy. My mother’s house is a wreck. She is missing, and some random guy was in her house, and he clearly knows more about her than I do.”
“I don’t know what is going on, either, but you know you’re safe with me.”
Michelle knew that, but his words were of little comfort to her at the moment. She was not sure what, if anything, could calm her down. “He knew my name, Grayson. My name.”
“I know. Something is up, and we’ll get to the bottom of it. No worries.”
I hate you so much right now. I hate you so much right now, Michelle’s cell phone sang.
She looked at Grayson. “It’s Brianna.”
He motioned for her to answer it. Under the circumstances, she figured she better. “Hello, Brianna? What’s going on with Momma?”
Chapter 55
Sophie was relieved that her dad had been so willing to help her. She thought she had accounted for any missteps, but the police showing up at her home was proof that she had not. The Freemont Estate was the last place she had expected to be, but such was life. She sat on the couch in the sitting room, perusing through old photo albums. She could not bring herself to go to her old room yet. There were too many painful memories there, and she needed to stay focused on the task at hand. Besides, she didn’t think she could handle it given the current status of her relationship with the daughter she had given it all up for.
“Miss, are you sure I can’t get you nothing?” the sweet, elderly woman who had greeted her at the door asked her from behind, standing just inside the entrance to the room.
Sophie turned and inquired with as gentle a voice as she could muster, “Nan, you don’t recognize me?”
The wise woman smiled, dragging her feet across the carpet to the couch where Sophie sat watching her. Patting Sophie on the hand, she released even more of her smile, revealing the few teeth she’d lost over the years.
“Lucille Freemont, of course I remember you, but I figured I’d let ya come round in your own time.”
“I am not who I used to be, Nan. I don’t think you could be proud of . . . of who I have become. She is so far from who you desired me to be. So very far from her.”
Nan rubbed her calloused hands against Sophie’s cheek. “All I ever wanted was your happiness. Have you been happy, chile?”
“Sometimes.” Sophie fought back tears. “I have had happy moments, but I think that’s enough for me. I can’t ask for more than that at this point.”
Nan took a deep breath and, before shuffling back to her quarters, she said to Sophie, “Happiness is a choice. It is something you choose, Lucille. It does not happen on its own. No matter what life throws at you, you can always choose to smile.”
Sophie watched Nan make the long walk to the other side of the estate where she had lived all of Sophie’s life. Perhaps Nan was right; happiness was about the choices people made. What did that mean for her? More than twenty years had passed before she ventured to mend the relationship between herself and her parents. She missed her mother by an entire decade, and had this situation not come about, she probably would have missed her father and Nan, too. What had kept her from reaching out to them? It was a question she could not answer—or couldn’t bring herself to answer.
She placed the photo album on the coffee table just as her father came back into the room.
“Sophie, I made a few calls. Thankfully, your old man still has a few bridges he didn’t burn during his tenure as mayor of this city. I’m not going to ask you for any details. Plausible deniability. However, there is one thing I need to know, and I need you to be honest with me about this.”
“Of course, Daddy.”
“This man . . . was it that Leonard Lewis boy?”
“It was. You were right about him. I had no business running off to be with him.”
“I don’t know if you were wrong to leave, but . . . I am sorry for whatever he put you through. It is my duty as your father to protect you, and I sent you right into his arms. I have another question.”
Sophie prepared her lips to answer. She knew he would ask eventually. “What happened to the baby? Did you raise the child?”
“Dad—”
Ding, dong, ding, dong. The doorbell cut her off. Richard turned to leave to answer it.
“I gave Nan the rest of the weekend off, so I’ll need to get the door. Stay here. Don’t move, and I’ll be back directly.”
Sophie thought it was a peculiar hour for her father to have visitors. He never used to entertain company after eight in the evening, but the circumstances were extreme. Concessions would need to be made. Still, she worried some about who it might be. No one knew she was there, or even knew to come look for her there. Maybe she was overreacting and the visitor had nothing to do with her at all. She decided she could make better use of her time than worrying about nothing.
Sophie lay down on the couch, trying to relax her mind enough to come up with a plausible story to tell her father. The truth could lead to a family meeting she was not sure she wanted to have. It was good that her father helped her now, but she didn’t know if she was ready for him to be a part of her everyday life. If Michelle got wind of his whereabouts, Sophie would likely be forced to incorporate him.
Sophie was consumed by her thoughts when her father returned.
“Mom?”
Sophie’s eyes popped open, and she jumped up from the couch. “Brianna? What are you doing here?”
Peter emerged from around the corner. “Sophie, we need to talk.”
“Mom, we just left your house, and there were police everywhere,” Brianna stated as she walked around the couch to hug Sophie. “Peter said that you would probably be here.”
Sophie wrapped her arms around Brianna, squeezing her tight. “Everything will be fine.” Pointing toward Richard, who had taken up residence in the Lazy-Boy, Sophie offered, “Your grandfather is taking care of everything.”
/> Sophie tried to read Brianna’s eyes but couldn’t tell how she felt about him. She wasn’t overly excited, but she didn’t look horrified either.
“So, this is your child? My grandchild?”
Sophie shot a quick glance at her dad, hesitating before answering, “One of them.”
“One of them?” he asked, obviously surprised.
“I had twins. It’s a long story, Daddy.”
“I would imagine so.”
“Sophie, we need to talk, and it can’t wait. I don’t know what’s going on, but this needs to be said. Is there somewhere we can speak privately?” Peter asked.
He looked exasperated, but Sophie’s trouble far outweighed their relationship status, especially with regards to what had occurred over two decades ago, and Sophie did not have the energy for it. “Peter, we really cannot do this right now. I am in very serious trouble, and I can’t do this with you.”
Peter’s face grew stern. “Either we speak in private, or right now. I am not waiting, and you cannot dismiss me again.”
Sophie rolled her eyes in frustration. This was the opposite of what she needed when she had called him earlier. She didn’t have energy to fight about what was. “Peter, seriously? My daughter is here, my father . . . do we really need to have this conversation right now?”
Peter and Brianna made eye contact, and that perturbed Sophie even more.
“What in the hell is going on here? Why are you with my daughter?”
Peter glared at her. “She is my daughter, too.”
Sophie looked at Peter curiously. “What are you talking about?” Peter was out of his mind. “I buried her father.”
Peter did not back down. “I am her father, and I have the DNA test to prove it.”
Sophie’s legs wobbled. She could feel Brianna staring at her, but she couldn’t look at her. She could not believe it. It could not be true.
“Tell me you didn’t know, Mom. Tell me you didn’t know, and I’ll believe you.” Brianna’s plea sliced her heart like a machete.
Virtuous Deception 2 Page 33
