With a sigh, I close out the file, wondering how much farther she’ll spiral when I tell her that there’s nothing she can do to help her sister.
Chapter Ten
Cami’s once again pacing when I enter the conference room. It feels like a continuation from the conversation we had before I left on maternity leave.
A very sad and disappointing continuation. The box I’m carrying, filled with new school year supplies and a care kit I scored from Homeless Services, suddenly feels too heavy to carry.
I set it down on the conference table, and ask, “Hey, how are you doing, Cami?”
I keep my voice bright and cheery, but I can already see the answer to my question in her appearance. Not well.
Her skin is completely broken out, and she has dark circles under her eyes like she hasn’t slept in days. She’s wearing an oversized UNC hoodie, but I can tell she’s gotten even skinnier since we talked last. Her legs look like sticks, even though, according to her last check-in with the social worker who stood in for me over the summer, she’d found a part-time job at a local fast food chain.
“I’m dropping out,” she announces, barely glancing at the box of supplies I brought in for her. “I saved every penny I could from my summer gig, but it just isn’t enough. I’ve got to drop out and get a second job. That’s the only way I’m going to be able to save up enough money to get an apartment for Talia and me.”
My stomach sinks. “Cami, that’s not a good idea.”
“I knew you would say that!” Cami abruptly stops pacing and holds up her hands, as if trying to ward off my reasonable argument. “You think I should finish my degree. Just let my sister go into foster care. But you don’t know how it feels.”
She hugs herself, her shoulders hunching. “You don’t know how it feels to have somebody do things to you like that. I can’t let the system have her. I just can’t!”
My heart clenches with sadness for both her and her sister. Cami obviously cares so much about her half-sister even though they’ve never met. And considering her homeless circumstances, her advocacy has been nothing short of heroic. I admire her so, so much. But…
“Talia isn’t going into the system,” I tell her, ripping the Band-Aid as fast as I can.
Cami drops her arms, her whole body sagging with shock. “What?”
“I’m sorry.” I cross the room so that I can be within hugging distance as I tell her the heavily redacted version of the case worker’s story. “The social worker interviewed both your father and Talia, but she didn’t find any signs of abuse.”
“That’s because he coached her,” Cami insists. “He coached me the same way. Told me he’d kill my mom if I told anybody about our special time.”
Cami’s face contorts with pain and disgust. “That’s what he called what he did to me. Our special time. And when I talked to Talia, she said that’s what he called it too. I told her…” Cami shakes her head, her expression becoming mournful. “I told her she had to report him when the social worker came around, but I guess she was just too scared.”
I hold up a hand, a sour taste suddenly springing to my mouth. “What do you mean you talked to Talia? I thought you two had never met.”
“I mean, not before her mother died, but after that…yeah. I’m planning on raising her after they put our dad in jail. I didn’t want to be a complete stranger.” Cami folds her arms again. This time defensively. “Plus, her babysitter doesn’t keep that close of an eye on her when she takes her to the playground after school.”
“Oh, Cami…” I rub my forehead. “Please tell me none of these conversations took place after you asked me to have a social worker open a case file on Talia.”
Cami folds her arms even tighter and looks at the ground. “I had to let her know she wasn’t alone in this,” she mumbles. “That’s what I hated most when he would come over. The feeling that no one else cared about me. I mean, my mom was there, but she was always willing to look the other way if he gave her enough money for drugs.”
She looks back up at me. “That’s why I had to keep visiting her every day after school. Please believe me.”
I study her sharply for a few moments, looking for any sign of duplicity. But her logic makes sense from a victim’s standpoint, if not from a social worker’s. And though her father claims she’s only in this for the money, here she is after having saved up an entire summer, threatening to drop out because it wasn’t enough for a down payment on an apartment.
“I believe you,” I conclude in the end. “And I’m sure you only had the best intentions when you talked to your sister. But no one else is going to see it like that. If you talked to her, coached her in any way to make these claims against your father…”
“They’re not claims.” Cami’s eyes beg me to believe her. “He’s hurting her. I know he is. Not during the investigation probably. But definitely before and for sure now that they’ve cleared him.”
She unfolds her arms and points an accusing finger at me. “When did that happen, by the way? Where were you even?”
No, I’m not Too Nice Naima anymore. But it’s easy not to take offense at her accusing tone when I can see the kind of raw pain she’s in. “Out on maternity leave,” I answer gently. “But the case worker only informed him this morning of her findings, according to the notes.”
“This is bullshit. This is such bullshit. I have to go over there.”
Cami tries to push past me to the door, but I grab onto her arm. “Talking to your sister at the park is one thing. If you go over to her house, you’re going to give your father grounds to file a restraining order against you.”
“I don’t care!” Cami answers, trying to tug her thin arm out of my grip. “I can’t just leave her with him when I know what he’s going to do to her.”
“Okay, maybe you don’t care, but your next employer most definitely will if you have to explain why there’s an arrest on your record when they do a background check,” I answer, holding on to her arm as tight as I can. “You’ve worked so hard, Cami. You’ve withstood your own mother dying and given up all comforts to get this degree. But all your hard work and sacrifice won’t mean anything if you can’t get a job. And if you’re in jail, how are you going to support your little sister?”
Cami kicks at a chair and yanks her arm away. But I stay calm, setting the temperature, as I wait for my words to sink in through all that helpless rage.
I can tell I’ve reached her when her expression crumples from angry to despondent. “What can I do?” she asks me. “I’ve got to do something.”
I let out a sad breath and tell her the truth. “Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do now. Tomorrow morning, I’ll go to the head of the agency, and request for the case to be reopened, this time with another social worker assigned to it. I can cite a conflict of interest. Since the social worker who was put on the case attends the same church as your father. I might be able to argue bias.”
This is more than I should be telling any client about a case file totally outside of my department. But I’m rewarded for my lack of discretion, when Cami quickly nods. “Okay, okay. That sounds like a plan. He’ll leave her alone if he knows somebody is watching.”
“Great. So we’ve got a plan, but Cami…” I tilt my head to look her in the eye. “You can’t go anywhere near your sister. The best thing you can do is return to UNC next month, keep getting good grades and set yourself up to land a full-time job that will provide you with enough money to take care of you and your sister after you graduate.”
I spend an hour going over the new plan with Cami and receive her promise that she’ll stay away from her sister this time. We even discuss putting in an Amazon order for her books after she applies for her second to last semester of classes.
But I’m conflicted as I walk her out to the car with the box of supplies. I’ve given her enough hope to return to school for her senior year, but the chances of my request for a second inquiry being granted is slim at best.
/> Even if my boss, who was so concerned about Carlos Marino’s reputation that he assigned a sympathetic church friend to Talia’s case, does grant my request for a review…it’s not like I’ll be here to see it through. By this time a month from now I’ll be in the Dominican Republic. And I’ll just have to hope that whoever I’m replaced with takes Cami’s case as seriously as I do.
I know I’m totally right to get myself and my baby out of this situation with Stone, but as Cami drives away in her nineties’ era Acura, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m doing her a huge disservice. Not to mention Talia.
I’ve finally figured out a way to get out from under Stone’s thumb, but I couldn’t feel worse.
Which is why I answer my phone, that night when Cami calls, even though I’ve just gotten Garnet down to bed.
“Hello?” I say. “Are you alright?”
“No, I’m not alright. I’m not alright at all!” Cami’s voice comes back watery and broken, like she’s stopped sobbing just to answer my question. “I did something. Something so, so bad.”
Alarm bells don’t just go off—they blare inside my mind. But I force myself to stay on my Calm Social Worker setting as I ask, “Cami, are you safe? Are you in need of medical attention?”
“No, but…but…” she starts sobbing so hard I can barely understand the words coming out of her mouth. Something about her father…and Talia…and seeing something he was about to do on her computer.
Chapter Eleven
Twenty minutes after rushing out the front door, with an order to Aunt Mari not to take her nightly Lunesta pill yet, I’m standing in the front entrance of a mansion in Myers Park.
Trying not to vomit, as I look down at the completely naked man laid out in front of me.
“Is he dead? I think he’s dead,” Cami says beside me.
I respectfully have to disagree. Unlike Cami, I don’t think her father’s dead, I know he is.
There’s a kitchen knife with a worn wooden handle lodged where his heart would be. Perfect strike. And exactly zero signs of life. He lies completely still, and his skin has taken on a blue corpse pallor. There’s no doubt in my mind that his living spirit has left the building, even before I bend down to take his pulse.
And yep, he’s dead all right. Dead as a completely naked doornail.
“Please, tell me he’s not dead,” Cami pleads above me.
I gather my composure. Both of us completely losing it will only make the situation that much worse. “What happened?” I ask Cami, standing back up.
Her face crumples and her lips tremble. “I wasn’t trying to kill him. I just wanted him to stop him from hurting her.”
“But why were you even here?” I ask, cupping her shoulder. “After we agreed you’d stay clear?”
Cami looks away, lets out a huff of air.
“Cami, what aren’t you telling me?” I ask, alarm bells going off inside my head.
“I hacked his computer, okay?” she answers defiantly. “I’ve been watching him that way all summer. And he wasn’t doing anything suspicious. But when I went to check his feed after I got off my shift, I saw he’d accessed this forum on the dark web. He’d basically spent the whole day watching all these gross videos of father’s taking baths with their daughters, and I knew what he had planned, because that’s what he used to do to me. Bring me presents and show me videos of stuff he wanted to do during our special time.”
She lets out a shuddering breath. “I know I was supposed to wait, but I had such a bad feeling. So I came over here, used the key he keeps underneath the plant to let myself in and I went upstairs to hide in one of the guest rooms. I was just planning to…I don’t know, watch the hallway from, like, a crack in the door. But after hiding, I heard the sound of running water, and then he came out of the upstairs bathroom, dressed in nothing but a towel. I watched him…I watched him start walking toward Talia’s door. He had, like, this gross hard on because he was so excited.”
Cami visibly swallows and more tears pool in her eyes as she tells me, “He used to do that to me, too. Come visit me, when I was too sleepy to fight him off. So I pulled the knife and chased him down the stairs and cornered him at the door. I told him I was going to call the police. And you know what he said?”
Cami shakes her head, more tears streaming. “’Go right ahead. Nobody’s going to believe you. My social worker friend gave me the all clear, so everybody knows you’re a liar.’ That’s what he said. But I’m not a liar. I’m not, and I couldn’t let him hurt Talia again—oh my God, is he dead? Like, really dead?”
Yes, he’s dead. So, so dead. I should tell Cami that, then call the police to take a report. I know all the exact protocols to follow in this situation. But…I can’t bring myself to reach for my work phone.
God, I believe her. But her father was right. There’s no way the police will. And unfortunately, the fact that she hacked into his computer makes it even worse. I don’t have a law degree, but I can easily put together an argument that Cami, the computer science major, planted whatever the police found on his laptop.
I think of the sister who told the social worker that her father had never touched her inappropriately. “Is there any way your sister will corroborate the sexual abuse?”
Cami shakes her head. “I don’t know. It took me years to get up the courage to say anything. Even after he stopped messing with me.”
Ayayay…my mind works for something, anything that could solve this s-wordy situation. Maybe Talia would support her sister’s story. But it wasn’t guaranteed. She might even feel like everything that happened was her own fault.
And even if she did testify on her sister’s behalf, there was still no telling if a court would believe a homeless black girl over the man, the other social worker had called an “upstanding pillar of the community” in her report. Especially after he went on record, claiming that Cami had a history of mental problems and had attempted to blackmail him for money. Both claims were unsubstantiated, but I could easily see a jury deciding that Cami was the villain in this story.
No…the best-case scenario for this situation was Cami spending months to maybe the rest of her life in jail instead of completing her senior year at UNC, while her traumatized sister got cycled through the foster system.
I look at the body. Look at Camille…then call my Aunt Mari.
“Mija, where you at? I’m not going to be able to take care of the baby tomorrow if I don’t get a full night of beauty sleep.”
“Do you have Stone’s number? I need it.”
“Why don’t you have Stone’s number?” Aunt Mari asks. “He’s your boyfriend!”
“He’s not—” I start to argue, but then I stop myself and say, “I just don’t, Tia. Could you please give it to me? It’s an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency—oh wait, here he is. Just came in the door. Stone, mijo, Naima’s trying to get ahold of you. Says it’s some kind of emergency.”
A voice rumbles in the call’s background. Then Stone’s on the other end of the line, demanding, “Where are you? Tell me right fucking now.”
His imperious demand would have annoyed me just a few minutes ago. But now my heart floods with relief, hearing his voice. “I need your help,” I tell him. And I give the address without any argument.
It takes him even less time to get here than it did me.
I open the door and stand back with one arm wrapped around Cami’s shoulders. I expect him to come in hot like I did, throwing panicked questions before they all die in his throat.
But Stone’s eyes barely flicker when he steps inside the front entrance and sees the dead body lying on the floor.
He simply looks at it, looks at me, then asks, “You okay?”
“We’re fine,” I say, squeezing Cami’s shoulders. “But he isn’t.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Looks like a story.”
“Yes, it’s a story for real,” I answer, before giving him the short version of what happened.
&n
bsp; His eyes light on Cami when I’m done. “So you decided to just go ahead and knife your old man?”
“Stone, don’t…” I plead. Cami is no kind of emotional state to handle him right now.
“I didn’t mean to,” Cami whispers, her voice broken and sad. “I just wanted to stop him from hurting my sister.”
“Nah, you need to own that shit,” Stone answers coldly. “He came after your little sis, and you did what needed doing. Respect.”
Both Cami and I blink at him, probably both shocked that he not only believed her story without any follow up questions, but also gave her kudos for killing a man.
“Um, Cami, maybe you should go upstairs and check on Talia,” I say. “Stone and I need to talk about how best to handle this.”
“No, don’t go back upstairs. This scene’s already a DNA nightmare.” He points to the grand staircase, leading to the second level of the house. “Sit right there. And don’t touch any fucking thing else while the grown-ups figure this shit out.”
Cami doesn’t have to be told twice. She retreats exactly as instructed, taking a seat on the bottom stair, with her hands carefully placed on her knees.
As soon as she’s safely out of earshot, I lower my voice to say, “Thank you for coming. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Yeah, if you call the police with that thin story, Lil Miss UNC is looking at ten-to life, no parole, for being a crazy brat. Even if she had her reasons.”
I would have put it, like, any other way. But I have to admit that Stone’s assessment of the situation is chillingly spot on.
“Is there anything you can do to help her?”
“I can do more than help her,” Stone assures me. “I know guys that can have all this cleaned up before midnight. As long as Cami doesn’t rat anybody out, she can be back in How to Be Too Edumucated 101 tomorrow, like none of this shit ever happened.”
STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer: 50 Loving States, North Carolina Page 6
