Corey tapped off his wet shoes on the doormat and shook Otis’s hand. “I’m sorry for dropping in without calling ahead. If this is a bad time-”
“Nonsense,” Otis said, ushering Corey inside. “My door is always open to you, son. It always has been and always will be.”
Corey followed Otis into the living room. As always, the interior of the house was as orderly as the outside, everything in its precise place, a habit held over from Otis’s years in the army. The aromas of spaghetti sauce and garlic bread spiced the air. Corey hadn’t eaten all day and felt a pang of hunger, but he was so keyed up he doubted he could keep anything in his stomach.
“Please have a seat,” Otis said. “Would you like supper? I prepared my world-famous spaghetti and meatballs.”
“No, thanks. Smells good, though.”
Otis pushed up his wire-rim glasses on his nose and scrutinized him. “How about a drink then? You look as if you could use a strong one.”
You don’t know the half of it, man.
“A drink would be great.” Corey moved to the sofa, looked around. “By the way, is Anita here?”
Otis paused at the kitchen doorway. “Mrs. Trice is at the church this evening, facilitating a women’s auxiliary meeting.”
Nodding, Corey sat on the couch. Otis’s wife was a good woman, trustworthy to a fault, but Corey had been hoping to talk to Otis in private.
Otis returned from the kitchen and handed him a tumbler full of ice cubes and a quarter-inch of an amber beverage. Corey sniffed it; the strong odor opened his nostrils.
“Whiskey?” Corey asked.
“Crown Royal,” Otis said with a sheepish smile. “I thought it might help you relax.”
“Thanks.” Corey took a small sip. The liquor slid down his throat like simmering lava, warmed his heart, and spread outward through his bloodstream, burning much of the tension out of his muscles.
Otis eased into a nearby armchair. His Buddha-calm gaze rested on Corey, brown eyes glimmering behind his lenses.
“So, Brother Webb, how may I be of service?”
“Don’t you have to be at Bible study tonight?” Corey asked. “I’m not sure there’s time for me to get into this with you.”
“My assistant pastors are immensely capable of filling in for me.” Otis smiled. “You and I can hold a church service of our own here in this living room, if need be.”
Corey smiled sourly. “For certain legal reasons, I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to go into details. I’m sorry, but the less you know, the better.”
A frown creased Otis’s features.
“But I haven’t done anything wrong,” Corey said quickly. “Well. . put it this way, the questionable things I’ve done the past couple of days, I’ve had a good reason for them. It’s complicated.”
Otis stroked his beard. “What do you need, son?”
Corey placed the whiskey on a coaster on an end table and stared at the rug under his feet. His head felt as if a ten-pound stone lay across the back of his neck.
Finally, he looked up and met Otis’s patient gaze.
“I really hate to ask you this, but I need to borrow your car,” Corey said. “And money, too. . whatever you can spare.”
39
When Leon tore into the bedroom, Simone immediately knew she was in trouble.
As she pushed away from the wall, where she had been pulling vainly at the boards on the window, he came at her like a cyclone. Shadow swirled around him, but could not hide his drastically altered appearance. He was clean-shaven, the beard shorn away. Bald-headed, no more dreadlocks. Instead of the tattered denim overalls and T-shirt, he wore what looked like a police officer or security guard’s uniform, right down to the walkie-talkie and gun nested in a utility belt.
She had no idea why he was wearing this costume-but those predatory eyes of his were the same. They flashed with fury.
“Come here, fuckin’ wifey bitch,” he said in a jagged voice.
Terror spiking her heart, she lunged for the mattress to dig the pipe from underneath, but he moved spider-quick and seized her arm in an iron grip. He flung her across the room. She crashed against the wall, her sore shoulder absorbing the crushing impact, and the pain dropped her to her knees.
Dizziness and confusion spun through her. What had happened between him and Corey? Why weren’t they being set free?
Leon charged her again. She tried to scramble away, but he grabbed her around the waist, smoky breath hot against her neck. He tugged at her sweatpants, and the realization of what he was going to do shot through her like a burst of chilled air.
Rape, oh, God, he’s going to rape me.
As he snatched her pants down, the fabric got knotted around her thighs. She swung back and forth wildly, got free, and pitched forward, her hands driving into her belly as she slammed against the floor, plunging a sword of pain so deep into her tender abdomen that she couldn’t get enough breath to scream.
Grunting, Leon climbed her body like a ladder. One of his hands grabbed a fistful of her hair and mashed her face against the floor. His other hand yanked down her underwear.
“Fuckin betray me, home boy, I’m gonna get me a piece of wifey, see how you like that.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, couldn’t process his furious ranting. She heard his zipper unfurling. His fingernails dug into her buttocks like meat hooks.
In a far off, detached segment of her mind, she saw how it would unfold. He would fuck here right there on the dirty floor of an empty house, slobbering and cursing, hammering into her with punishing force, and she would never be the same afterward. She had treated many, many rape victims, had seen them struggle to regain a sense of dignity and, most of all, battle to overcome the fear. Some of them healed, but some of them did not, were scarred forever, prisoners of their past, and she could not know into which group she would fall-no one could, until it happened to them. .
No.
Blood boiling in her head, she gritted her teeth and put everything she had into rolling over. He was so strong, with the strength of the possessed, that it was like getting from underneath a crushing weight.
She squirmed. Shrieked. Wriggled.
Leon grunted, hand palming her hip, his hardness pressing insistently against her thigh.
No!
Finally, she tore free. She jerked her knee upward and felt a satisfying impact with his testicles. He let out a bleat of pain.
She log-rolled away, winding up on her back. Dizziness swayed through her as she sat up. Her panties and sweatpants were tangled around her legs. Frantic, she tugged them up, shimmying her legs and hips, while beside her, Leon was bent over, wracked with dry heaves.
That’s what you get, asshole, a savage voice whispered in her mind.
As she got her panties and pants around her again, he reached for her. She clenched her hands into fists and swung them in a wide arc.
He ducked, dodging the blow. Her hands whacked against the floor, the attempt leaving her upper body twisted, and he quickly took advantage and dragged her toward him by her foot.
As she tried to pull away, he clamped his teeth over her ankle and bit her.
She screamed. Out of reflex, she drew back her other leg and kicked at his head. Her heel smashed into his chin, his head snapping back as if by whiplash. He let her go.
Using her elbows and knees, she crawled toward the mattress. She heard a tortured sound, realized it came from her. She was screaming, cursing.
Behind her, Leon was babbling incoherently, too.
She dug under the mattress, and for a terrifying instant, couldn’t find the pipe, became certain that Leon somehow had taken it away, but then her fingers closed around it, the metal cool and heavy.
She whirled around just as Leon was lunging at her. She swung the pipe at him like a baseball bat. It whacked against his temple with a hollow, ringing sound. He tumbled backward, an almost erotic sigh escaping his lips.
She gathered her legs u
nder her and pushed to her feet, ignoring the pulsing agony in her ankle.
“I’ll beat your ass like your mama used to beat you!” she screamed. “Get the fuck away from me!”
He lay sprawled on his back, chest rising and falling slowly. Was he unconscious? She looked to the door, remembering that it locked from the outside. If she could get to it. .
But then Leon groaned, sat up. He gingerly touched his head.
Bosom heaving, she hefted the pipe over her shoulder, ready to swing again. Keeping his eyes averted from her, he unsnapped the pistol from the holster and withdrew it.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said in a paper-thin voice, as if he’d read her mind.
Grinding her teeth, she stared at the gun, wishing she had something more substantial than a pipe with which to defend herself. Leon weighed the pistol in his hand as if considering what to do with it, and she had the crazy notion-maybe it was wishful thinking-that he was going to put the muzzle to his head and pull the trigger.
She licked her chapped lips. “I don’t. . I don’t want to fight you, Leon. I just want my daughter back. . I–I just want to go home.”
He didn’t look at her, but his finger crept toward the trigger.
“Drop it,” he whispered.
She hesitated for a moment, and tossed the pipe onto the floor.
He picked it up and tucked away the pistol. Without another word, and without glancing at her, he got up and walked to the door. His shoulders were slumped, his normally quick gait a slow shuffle, and she had the sudden impression that if he somehow lived to be an old man, he would look just like that, defeated by a long life of crime.
He closed the door and locked her inside.
She turned away-and her stomach suddenly convulsed. She doubled over and threw up onto the floor.
When she was done, she wiped her lips with the edge of her T-shirt and pulled the mattress across the mess. She carefully stretched out on top of it, her body mapped with a hundred assorted aches and pains.
Staring at the shadowed ceiling, she knew she had won a small victory. But the war was far from over.
40
In the quiet living room, Otis held Corey in his bespectacled gaze.
“You request money, and the use of my vehicle,” Otis said. It wasn’t a question.
“I know how crazy it sounds,” Corey said. “But you’re the only one I can turn to.”
“Is there anything else you require?” Otis asked, as if Corey had not already requested enough.
Corey shook his head.
Otis fingered his beard. “You undoubtedly realize, Brother Webb, that I have considerable concern regarding the, ah. . circumstances surrounding this unusual visit.”
“Of course, sure,” Corey said. “And I promise I’ll explain everything, after it’s over. You have my word, Reverend.”
With a thoughtful grunt, Otis got up from his armchair, went down the hallway to his bedroom, and came back and gave Corey two hundred dollars cash and the key to his Chevy Silverado.
“Thank you,” Corey said. “Thank you so much.”
“Where is your car?” Otis asked.
“It’s parked around the corner.”
“I suggest that you garage it here as well.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Corey said. “The cops’ll be looking for it.”
Sitting across from him again, Otis folded his hands across his stomach. “I don’t know anything about that, sir. All I know is that Mr. Corey Webb, who is like a son to me, visited me this evening distraught about a predicament that he declined to describe in detail. I’ve known Mr. Webb for sixteen years and trust him to be an honorable man, therefore, as you would expect, when he requested a favor, I offered him a small amount of money and the use of my vehicle. I also asked him to garage his own vehicle on my property, as I had the space available. I do not know where Mr. Webb went after he departed my residence, and I did not inquire. But as I stated, Mr. Webb is a man of esteemed character who has earned a sterling reputation in his community, and I can therefore only assume that whatever the nature of his situation, he is assiduously engaged in activity that will lift the light of suspicion off his hard-earned good name.”
Corey smiled. “Wow. I couldn’t have made up anything better than that myself. That sounds perfect.”
“The truth tends to have that quality,” Otis said.
Corey left the house to return to his car. As he dashed through the rain, he heard a siren warbling in the distance, and a cold finger of fear slid down his spine. He reached the BMW and waited inside for a minute, foot poised on the gas pedal, ready to blast away from the curb if he saw flashing beacons.
The siren faded somewhere far away. He dragged his hand down his sweat-filmed face. If this continued much longer, he was going to wind up a basket case.
He veered around the corner as Otis was backing his truck out of the garage and onto the street in front of his house. Corey nosed the sedan into the vacated parking spot.
They met at the garage door and shook hands.
“Thank you so much, for everything,” Corey said. “You don’t realize how much you’ve helped me. I promise to pay you back as soon as I can.”
“Do not concern yourself about that, son,” Otis said.
“To put your mind at ease, I’m innocent-for this thing, anyway. You’ll see.”
Otis’s eyes glinted. “None of us is innocent, Brother Webb. We’ve all of us sinned every day, every one of us. But do we seek forgiveness for our sins? That is the question I submit to you.”
His incisive gaze cut to the depths of Corey’s soul, and Corey had the unsettling feeling that Otis knew everything he had done-every terrible, secretive deed. Corey turned away and gazed into the rain-swept evening.
“Listen,” Corey said, still not meeting his eyes, “when I first moved in with you, I never told you about what happened in Detroit. You knew I was in trouble, of course, but you didn’t know how deep. I-”
“I simply offered you a fresh start,” Otis interrupted. “The same as was once given to me when I encountered ‘deep trouble’ in the jungles of Cambodia. You don’t owe me an accounting of your past misadventures.”
Corey glanced at him. “But I have to tell this to someone. I’ve been carrying this around for years.”
“Confess it after you’ve come to terms with my question. Do we seek forgiveness?”
“You know I’ve never been religious, Reverend.”
“Forgiveness may not always begin with us petitioning God for His mercy. It may begin with us. Right here.” He tapped his heart with a thick finger. “Sometimes, we must forgive ourselves for our sinful acts before we are capable of accepting absolution from others.”
“I do believe church is now in session.”
“You know I can never resist a little preaching.” Otis clasped his hand again and gripped his shoulder. “Be blessed, Brother Webb. I’ll be praying for you.”
41
Sitting on the mattress with a wad of tissue she dampened with a dribble of the water from the bottle, Simone did her best to clean the bite wound on her ankle. Leon’s teeth had punctured the skin and drawn blood. She could only hope that it didn’t get infected.
What the hell had come over him? What did he mean about Corey betraying him? What had happened at the mall?
Most of all, she wanted to know when they would be released. Or would they now?
Ink-black shadows had pooled in the bedroom. It was still drizzling outside, the clouds dark and thick. She guessed that it was midevening by then.
Her need to see Jada had become an ache in her breast. If she had only knocked Leon out. .
She flung the tissue aside. What good did it do to worry about it? She had surrendered the pipe, her weapon of last resort. Now, she had nothing.
Head bowed between her knees, she dug her fingers into her hair, as if she could massage her brain cells. She ran the situation through her mind over and ove
r, but came up with nothing, no way out. So long as she was handcuffed, and Leon had a gun, and his partner guarded Jada, she was at his mercy.
Her sense of powerlessness nearly surpassed her fear. She’d been raised to be an independent woman, fully capable of fending for herself in a hard world. Even though she’d been married for a decade, she retained a degree of self-sufficiency, and never let herself lean too heavily on Corey for things that she could do on her own. At least, that was how she had long viewed herself. But maybe she had come to rely on her husband more than she had realized.
Maybe her mistake was that, deep down, she’d trusted Corey to somehow pull them out of this, that she’d given up her own power in hopes of a rescue.
She snapped up as footsteps neared the doorway. By the time Leon came inside, she had gotten on her feet, jaws and hands clenched.
“Stay away from me,” she said.
Leon said nothing. He carried what appeared to be some sort of small, camping lamp. Eyes downcast, avoiding her glare, he placed the lamp near the mattress and sat on the floor beside it.
He switched it on. Soft golden light filled the room, pushing back the shadows.
She studied him carefully. A nasty purple bruise marked his temple; she could not resist feeling a spark of pride. Silent, gazing blankly at the wall, legs drawn up to his chest, shoulders rising and falling slowly, Leon appeared to be a defeated man.
She’d recognized in him the classic signs of hyperactivity, a symptom of bipolar disorder. He had been manic since yesterday, at least. Perhaps he had plunged into a depressive state.
But she was hesitant to draw that assessment. She’d also spotted in him the qualities of a psychopath, and psychopaths were nothing if not skilled at manipulating perception.
She slowly sat on the mattress, keeping several feet between them. He was quiet, looking into the shadows beyond the lamplight. Then he finally spoke.
“My mama. . she used to beat me,” he said, in an uncharacteristically soft, measured tone. “She said I looked and acted just like my daddy, and she hated the ground that man walked on and the air he breathed.”
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