by Rhonda Bowen
Jordan pushed up his sleeves as he walked across the room towards Garth. “There is no or.”
He watched Garth take him in. He evaluated his options then stepped back and moved towards the door.
“Whatever, I’m outta here anyway.” He pulled open the front door, glanced back at Naomi and said, “I’ll call you.”
As soon as the door closed, Latoya headed towards the stairs. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me. Try not to break anything.”
Jordan waited until Latoya left the room before he looked at Naomi. The woman he had planned to spend the rest of his life with stood a few feet away from him. Her arms wrapped around her body as she shook. He had been so sure about her. So sure that they were meant to be together. But now he wasn’t sure of anything at all. Each day seemed to prove that the woman he had proposed to, the one he thought he was in love with, didn’t really exist at all.
“Start talking, Naomi.”
He watched her run a hand through her wine tinted curls nervously. She was probably trying to pick through her lies, as she figured out which ones he knew and which ones she had managed to keep concealed.
“I came here because of Camille,” she finally said. “She... when I told you I didn’t know where she was...She’s here. She came here with her boyfriend, Andre. She’s swallowed pellets of cocaine to take back to New York. I just found out a couple days before and I came as soon as I could to see if I could find her...”
“Without saying a word to me.”
Naomi looked away. “I didn’t want to bother you with it... I just wanted to get her back and get back to New York as soon as possible.”
“And what else didn’t you want to bother me with Naomi?” he barked, as he stepped closer to her. “The fact that you have a brother who’s in prison? The fact that Camille is your niece, not your sister? The fact that you were previously married?”
Naomi shrank back, tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I should have told you but....”
“But you chose to lie to me instead,” Jordan spat. “After everything we’ve been through, Naomi. After four years of being together, after the break-up, even through all the wedding plans, you looked at me and you lied to me. What else was a lie, Naomi?”
“Nothing else, that’s everything,” she cried, tears ran down her cheeks.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Naomi nodded through her sobs “Yes.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
She froze, her eyes widened as she stared at him.
He trembled as he watched her disintegrate into panic before his eyes. What would he do if she said yes? What would he do if he found out that the woman he loved with his body, heart and soul had given herself to another man in the last twenty-four hours? Could he live?
“Well, did you?”
Naomi sobbed again, quiet wailing sounds that ripped his heart to shreds. He couldn’t take it. He didn’t want to know. But he had to. He couldn’t live past this moment without knowing the truth.
“Answer me!”
“No!” she screamed. “No! I didn’t sleep with him. Okay? Is that what you want to hear? Yes, I spent the night at his place. Yes, he kissed me and touched me but I swear, that was it.”
Jordan felt the moistness in his eyes as his heart shattered into a million pieces. Naomi had broken him. The woman he loved had bruised him beyond repair. Her words had given him no comfort, because in his heart he knew the truth.
“Maybe your body didn’t get there,” he said quietly. “But your mind already did. Were you ever really over him?”
“Yes,” Naomi croaked through her sobs. “I was...I am...it was a mistake....just...”
She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. Somehow, he understood the rest. He walked over and pulled her into his arms. She fell against his chest, her warm body fit into all the spaces that were just for her. She trembled against him. Jordan longed to hold her close, crush her in his arms, and keep her there forever. Instead, he kissed the top of her head gently as he drew in the scent of her then he pressed his lips to her ear.
“I don’t think I know who you are...” Jordan’s breath hitched in his throat. He could barely whisper the rest. “I can’t...I can’t marry you. This...us...it’s over.”
He heard her gasp, felt the air leave her body. Her hands tightened around him, but he pulled back and forced himself away even as he struggled to breathe. He couldn’t stand the thought of being without her. But right now, Jordan couldn’t be around her. It felt like she was sucking the life out of him. He eased her away and headed towards the door.
“Jordan!”
He opened the door and left.
Chapter Sixteen
“You have reached the voicemail of Garth Duhaney. Leave me a message and I’ll...”
Naomi hit the end button before she heard the rest of the prompt then dropped the phone onto her lap.
“Still no answer?”
“No.”
It had been four hours and seventeen unanswered calls to Garth since the man had walked out of Latoya’s home. Everything that he said was going to go down with Camille should have happened two hours ago. She should have heard from him then, but there was nothing. By this time, her chest should have been tightening in panic but she was too numb to feel anything. When Jordan had whispered those final words in her ear, something inside her died.
I can’t marry you.
Four years of togetherness, four years of promise, ended by those four words. He couldn’t marry her. Wasn’t that what she knew would have happened anyway? This was the inevitable end once everything came out. She should have been better prepared.
“...Naomi. Naomi!”
She barely registered Latoya until the woman yelled in her ear. She turned her head to look at her, and caught the look in her cousin’s eyes. It was a mix of pity and concern.
“What do you want to do?”
Naomi turned her head towards the car window and looked out at the people moving in and out of the airport doors. Checkered cabs taxied up to the doors to drop off more travellers even as others pushed luggage filled carts through the busy scene. Was her niece here? There was only one way to find out.
“Let’s go find her.”
They walked through the bustle, into the main doors towards the check in point. As they closed the distance, Naomi realized that getting past this level was going to be a challenge without tickets.
She had no choice. She stepped up to the counter.
The clerk smiled at her. “Welcome to Caribbean Airlines! Where will you be travelling today?”
“I have information on a possible drug smuggling operation happening today. I need to speak with someone.”
The smile melted off the woman’s face like a scoop of ice cream on hot concrete. Naomi saw her hand move under the counter. Moments later, two large men in uniform were standing behind her.
“Ma’am, can you come with us please?”
Sandwiched between the two men, Naomi made her way across the airport through a secured area, down several unmarked corridors past more uniformed individuals. The one who seemed to be in charge of all the talking flashed a key card over a security point. The previously red light on the door’s magnetic port turned green. He pulled it open.
“If you would just...”
The sound of a single wail like a police siren echoed across the small airport. It interrupted his statement. There seemed to be a sudden flurry of movement. Naomi whirled around and looked for the source. She heard the screaming start the same time she saw him.
“Andre!”
There was no way he could have heard her as he sprinted across the airport customs area.
A dog and three uniformed officers chased after him. It didn’t even seem like he heard the screams, which Naomi knew must have come from the woman face down on the floor while two officers held her firmly. Naomi felt the breath leave her body. It was her - it was Camille!
Her feet were already moving as she ran to where her
niece writhed on the floor. She could hear her wails. Naomi felt her grief even as one of the officers placed a knee on Camille’s back.
“Camille!”
She was halfway there when a hard force knocked her off her feet and landed her on the ground also. Before she knew what happened her own arms were being pinned painfully behind her.
“No, that’s my niece! Please...”
“You know that woman?” the officer asked roughly. He didn’t relax his grip on her in the slightest.
“Yes,” Naomi sobbed. Tears choked back her explanation and blinded her as she tried to see where they took Camille.
“You’re going to have to come with us then.”
She was hauled to her feet and guided in the same direction as Camille and Andre, who was now in cuffs and being held by two large officers. She tried to see her niece’s face, but she was ahead of her and practically being carried by the two officers.
“Camille! Camille!”
The woman didn’t look back. Within seconds, they were in a secured hallway with several doors on each side. Naomi had a feeling they were going to separate them. She had to see her niece first. Had to make sure she was okay.
She yanked free of the officer and ran towards the younger woman. She barrelled into her frame.
“Camille, it’s me. Look at me!”
The woman shrugged Naomi off and turned to look at her for the first time. She peppered Naomi with curses. “Get away from me! I don’t know you. Don’t try to bring me down with you.”
Shock froze Naomi’s features.
It wasn’t her niece.
Before another thought could form, she was harshly yanked away from the woman and unceremoniously deposited in a small room with nothing but a metal table, a chair and a mirrored glass window. Despite the furnishings, she paced the floor of the small space. Where was Camille? Why was Andre here without her? Had he...?
No, she refused think about that.
But what if he had? What if her niece lay dead somewhere?
Her throat began to close up. She banged on the window.
“I need to talk to someone,” she yelled. “Please! I know you can see me! I need to speak to someone now!”
Naomi banged on the glass some more. She even banged on the door. Nothing happened. No one came. She screamed and kicked over the chair. She shoved the table away and continued to bang. She had to find out what was going on. She wanted to talk to Andre. He knew what had happened to Camille and she needed to know. She also needed to put her hands around his neck and squeeze the life out of him for what he had done to her family.
She banged and screamed until her arms were sore. Then she slunk into a corner and closed her eyes, too tired to fight the tears that she had barely held at bay. They all poured out. She had failed. Really failed. And this time it hadn’t just destroyed her own life, but Camille’s as well.
She didn’t know how long she lay sobbing in the corner. Ten minutes? Maybe twenty. It seemed like forever before the door finally opened. She heard footsteps cross the floor. The chair was picked up and righted in its place. Energy spent, Naomi didn’t even look up. Unless they told her about Camille, she didn’t care.
“Naomi. Get up.”
Naomi didn’t think anything else could have surprised her that day, but Jordan proved her wrong. She sat up slowly, blinked to clear the grit from her eyes and her mind. She wasn’t sure if what she saw was real.
“Jordan? What are you doing here?”
“Camille is safe,” he ignored her question. “She’s been taken to a hospital and she’s receiving care to deal with everything she’s been through.”
“But, how...I just saw them get Andre...she wasn’t there.”
Jordan leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. “Camille got sick after she took the first pellet, but Andre forced her to take more. She couldn’t handle the full load so they used the other young woman you saw to carry the rest. Andre then sent Camille on a separate flight on her own while he went with this young woman. When I had Camille pulled off the flight, she told the authorities everything, ID’d Andre and the other smuggler and helped us take them all down.”
Naomi leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. So Camille was safe. Thank God. She sprung up as Jordan’s words registered.
“Wait, you had Camille pulled off the flight? Not Garth?”
Jordan’s eyes met hers for the first time since he had entered the room. They were dark and cold.
“Your friend, Garth, paid the customs officer to look the other way when Camille went through so that even though she looked sick as a dog, they let her on the flight,” he frowned.
“But he told me he was going to help her. Get her to safety.”
“And maybe he would have, after she arrived in New York, passed out the pellets, and he got his cut from making it happen.”
Naomi felt her stomach drop.
“He was in on it?” she whispered.
“Probably not at first,” Jordan ground out. “But somewhere along the way...”
Naomi closed her eyes and sobbed again. Sobbed for how wrong she had been for trusting Garth. How wrong she had been for not trusting Jordan, but how God had taken care of her niece anyway. Jordan remained quiet from his vantage point near the door. He didn’t leave, but he didn’t come any closer either.
“There are a couple of men here who will take you to the hospital to see her,” Jordan said. “After that, I’ve made arrangements for both of you to travel back tomorrow morning. I think your mother would prefer to have you all home sooner rather than later.”
Naomi sniffled and nodded. When he opened the door to leave, she had the frightening feeling that it would be the last time she saw him. She couldn’t let him leave like this. Not after everything he had done for Camille. For her.
She opened her mouth. “Jordan, thank you.”
But by the time she got the words out, he was gone.
Chapter Seventeen
Camille’s hospital room was in the west wing of the Community Hospital of Seventh-day Adventists in Port of Spain. Jordan must have pulled some more strings because she was in a spacious private room with its own balcony and a nice view of the hills through the window. At this end of the floor, it was quiet. In fact, the only sound Naomi heard as she sat at Camille’s bedside was the whirring of the fan overhead.
She stroked her niece’s hand as she took in the full view. She looked a little better than she had the last time she saw her, crumpled on the floor in the apartment above the bar. Still, the IV in her arm told Naomi that Camille wasn’t completely recovered. Yet, the look in her eyes was hopeful.
“You must be spitting mad at me right now,” Camille said, her voice quiet but laced with guilt.
Naomi sighed. “I am. But I’m more glad that you’re here. Alive. Safe. When I saw you in that room passed out...”
Naomi couldn’t finish, but the pressure of Camille’s hand as she squeezed Naomi’s told her that her niece understood the rest.
“I’ve been so stupid,” Camille said with a groan. She covered her face with her free hand. “I can’t believe I let Andre talk me into coming here with him.”
“I don’t understand,” Naomi shook her head as she stared at Camille. “You are so smart, so independent, so no-nonsense. How could you let Andre talk you into this?”
Camille shrugged and looked away. But Naomi didn’t miss the tears that welled up in her Camille’s eyes.
“I loved him,” she sniffled. “And he said he loved me. I thought he loved me. Until I got here and he told me what he wanted me to do.”
“Why didn’t you just take off?” Naomi asked.
Camille choked back a sob. “I couldn’t! Where would I go? I don’t know anyone here. And when a guy dressed in a policeman’s uniform came to the house to see Andre that first day, I knew, even if I did run, that I couldn’t even trust the police. Besides, Andre had my passport. I was trapped.”
“Mercy.�
� Naomi pressed her niece’s hand to her cheek as she thought of everything that could have happened to Camille.
“Naomi, I was so scared,” Camille said. “I thought I was going to die. When you showed up, I was so relieved. But then they caught you and I wasn’t sure whether you were dead or alive. And when I couldn’t swallow all the pellets, Andre started to get mad. He...”
She stopped then as sobs robbed her voice and tears ran in rivulets down her face.
Naomi looked out the huge window. “He hit you, didn’t he?”
She saw her niece nod out of the corner of her eye. “How did you know?”
Naomi sighed and turned her eyes on her niece. “Because we are more alike than we both realized.”
“I couldn’t believe he would do that to me,” Camille tried to wipe away the tears. “How could he do that to me when he said he loved me?”
“Because he didn’t love you, sweetheart,” Naomi stroked her niece’s hand. “Love wouldn’t hurt you like that. Love wouldn’t ask you to put yourself in danger like that.” She sighed. “Love would respect you and your choices instead of seeking after just what it wanted.”
“When I saw Garth, I thought for a minute that he would help me,” Camille said. “But he didn’t. He told me I would be okay, but then he left me to get on the plane, knowing what was going on. If it wasn’t for Jordan...”
“Yeah. I heard what he did for you.”
Camille squeezed Naomi’s hand, urging her to meet her eyes.
“He saved me.”
Naomi couldn’t stop the tears that rolled down her cheeks.
“I am so glad you brought him here. He’s a good man.”
Naomi nodded, not having the will to correct her niece. “The best kind.”
Later when Camille had drifted off to sleep, Naomi slipped out of the chair by the bedside and slid the glass doors to the balcony open. Outside, the early morning summer sunshine blazed down on the balcony. Its heat only slightly abated by the cool Caribbean breezes that floated by. Naomi took in a deep breath. She wished that the fresh air would be enough to blow away all the confusion in her life. All the mistakes she had made and continued to make. More than anything else, she just wanted a fresh start.
