“Hey, how’s Lorenzo?” Shari asked.
“The doctor said he’ll be all right,” Tia said coldly. “He took too many pills.”
Shari let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God he’ll be all right.”
“Yeah, this time,” Tia said angrily. “What if Serenity hadn’t found him? I should go and throw away every pill I find. How’s Serenity?”
Shari looked at the phone, then at Tony.
“You’re going to have to tell her,” he said.
Shari inhaled deeply.
“Tia,” she said, “when we pulled up in front of your house, the ambulance was just leaving.” Shari hesitated. “And Serenity wasn’t there.”
“Where was she?”
“We don’t know.”
Tony nudged Shari’s shoulder. “You have to tell her,” he said.
Tia could hear Tony in the background. “Tell me what?” she asked. “What is Tony talking about?”
“Well,” Shari said. She spoke slowly and with a tranquil tone; it was the same tone she used at work when a frustrated or agitated client called her looking for help. “Earlier today, Tony and I found a bunch of chat sites on the computer that Serenity and Cookie had been visiting.”
Tia’s mind went back to the day before when she and Serenity were going to visit her mother and Lorenzo had accused Serenity of talking to boys on the computer.
“Was Serenity talking to a boy?” Tia asked.
“Yeah, but it’s more than that.”
“What else, Shari?”
Shari could hear the tenseness in Tia’s voice. Her mouth had suddenly become extremely dry. “Well,” she said swallowing hard, “Cookie said Serenity made plans to meet the boy.”
“She did what?”
“Now try to stay calm, Tia. You already have one situation on your hands.”
“When was this supposed to happen?” Tia’s voice was hard and edgy.
“Today. That’s why we weren’t home. When I couldn’t reach you or Serenity, Tony thought we should go try to, you know, intercept the meeting.”
“And you didn’t find her?” The pitch of her voice rose.
“No, we didn’t.”
“Oh my God,” Tia moaned. Just when she thought God had heard her prayer and had given her an extra dose of strength, here was another battle. Was this the reason God had strengthened her? Not so she could make it through what she was already going through but to bring her through what was about to come. “I can’t do this. Not now, Lord!”
“We’ll be right over,” Shari said and hung up the phone.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Moments later, Shari, Tony, and Cookie were sitting in Tia’s living room. She was about to call the police when her cell phone rang.
Shari picked up Tia’s phone and answered it. “Hello?”
“I have something to tell you,” Homer said.
“Who is this?” Shari asked as Tia looked up quickly.
Homer hesitated before answering. “Who is this?”
Tia heard the familiar low pitch of the voice echoing from the phone. She grabbed the phone from Shari. “I thought I asked you not to call me anymore,” she said impatiently.
“Okay if that’s how you want it. It’s about your daughter but never mind. Good-bye.” Homer smiled. This time he had hung up on her.
A feeling of dread swept through Tia’s veins. “My daughter? Hello?” she yelled frantically. “Hello?”
“Who was that?” Shari asked.
“Homer,” Tia said as she tried to call him back. He had blocked his number before calling her so she began frantically searching for his number in her contacts list, forgetting that she had completely deleted him from her phone book.
“Homer?” Shari’s forehead creased. She looked at Tony. “Who’s Homer?”
Tony raised his eyebrows. “Our next-door neighbor,” he said.
Just then Tia’s phone rang again.
“Where’s my daughter?” she screamed into the phone.
“When can I see you?” Homer asked calmly.
“What are you talking about?” she yelled. “If you know something about my daughter, you better tell me right now or I’m calling the police!”
“Meet me at the motel and I’ll tell you.”
“I’m not meeting you anywhere. I’m calling the police!”
“Call them,” he said. “But I don’t know anything about your daughter.”
“Then why did you mention her name?” Tia asked as she choked back the emotions that threatened to send her into a fit of hysteria.
“Did I?” Homer asked. Then the line went dead.
Shari sat through the whole interaction with her mouth hanging open. Finally, she spoke. “Tia, what’s going?”
“He knows something about Serenity,” she said. Her hands were shaking so bad she could barely hold the phone steady while she called 9-1-1.
“Why would he have anything to do with Serenity?” Shari asked.
“Operator,” Tia said staring hard at Shari, “I need the police.” She turned her back to Shari and Tony and continued. “My daughter hasn’t come home, and I think my neighbor might be involved.”
Shari’s eyes grew wide. Her mouth opened again, but this time no words came out. Now she understood what was going on. She looked at her daughter who sat listening to it all. “Cookie,” she said, “go in the other room. I’ll be in there in a minute.”
As Cookie walked out of the living room, she noticed Serenity’s Hello Kitty hat sitting on the desk in the hallway. She picked it up and returned to the living room. “Ma,” she said holding the hat.
“What did your mother tell you to do, Cookie?” Tony said sternly.
“But it’s her hat,” Cookie said holding it up. “She said she was going to wear this hat when she went to meet him.”
Tony grabbed the hat from Cookie.
Tia was still on the telephone. “And why do you think your neighbor is involved, ma’am?” the 9-1-1 dispatcher asked.
“Because he just called me and said he had something to tell me about my daughter. But he hung up when I said I wouldn’t meet him.”
“Wait. So your neighbor asked you to meet him somewhere?”
“Yes! Yes! Why are you asking all these questions? Can you just send someone over to check his house?”
“Well, ma’am, we have to get as much information as we can. Has he ever threatened your daughter before?”
“No,” Tia said as she began weeping. “No. I told him I didn’t want him to call me anymore, and that’s when he told me he knew something about my daughter.”
“Okay, ma’am. What is your neighbor’s name and address?”
After Tia had given Homer’s name and address to the 9-1-1 operator, she was told a squad car would be dispatched to his address as well as hers. She hung up the phone, and Shari touched her shoulder.
“Tia, is that the man you’ve been—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said jerking her shoulder away from Shari’s touch. “Not now, Shari. I already know I’ve made a mistake. And I’m telling you, now is not the time for you to remind me of that.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Shari said. “What can we do?”
“You can not judge me,” Tia said rocking back and forth. “That’s what both of you can do!”
“We’re not here to judge you,” Tony said. “Like you said, this is not the time.” He held up the Hello Kitty hat. “Cookie just gave me Serenity’s hat. She said Serenity was going to wear it when she met the boy.”
Tia grabbed the hat. “Well, then, why is it here?” There was a faint sound of hope in her voice. “Does that mean she didn’t go?”
“I don’t know,” Tony sighed.
“Either she went and didn’t wear the hat,” Shari said. “Or she didn’t go at all.”
“Then where is she?” Tia cried out.
Tony placed his wife’s hand in his own, and then extended his other hand toward Tia. “Let’s pray,�
�� he said.
Shari held Tia’s hand firmly in her own as they lowered their heads and Tony began to pray.
“Father, in the name of Jesus we come to You.”
“Yes, Lord,” Shari whispered.
“Have mercy, Lord. Let Your grace be with Serenity right now, Father, and keep her safe from all harm wherever she is. Give Tia strength, Lord,” Tony squeezed her hand harder, “strength to make it through this situation. You said we can do all things through Christ which strengthens us, Lord. And because you said it, we believe it.”
“Yes, Lord,” Tia said through her tears, “I believe.”
“So let it be done,” Tony continued. “In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.”
“Amen,” Shari and Tia whispered in agreement.
Shari raised her hand and wiped the tears away from Tia’s face. “Remember, God is in control,” she said.
“I know,” Tia sniffed. “But where is Serenity?”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Twenty minutes later, two female police officers arrived at Tia’s house. She opened the door and immediately pointed to where Homer lived before noticing a squad car was already parked in front of his house.
“Ma’am, you called about your missing daughter?” one of the officers asked.
“Yes, yes,” Tia said continuing to point toward Homer’s house. “He knows something.”
“How long has she been missing?” the officer asked.
“Well, I dropped her back off at home,” Tia said wringing her hands, “and then I went to work. That was around two o’clock. She called me at work a few hours later to tell me her father had fallen and nobody’s seen her since.”
“We were out looking for her,” Tony said, “but obviously we didn’t find her.”
“And how are you two related to Mrs. Sparks?”
“We’re her friends,” Shari said, “and we also live in the last house next to Homer’s.”
“Did either of you see anything suspicious going on over there?”
“Well, it’s like my husband told you,” Shari said, “we were out looking for Serenity.”
“But we did find her hat here at home,” Tony added.
The officer looked at the hat. “What’s the significance of the hat?”
“My daughter said she was supposed to wear this hat when she went to meet a boy she met online.”
The officer addressed her next question to Tia. “I thought you said your neighbor might have something to do with your daughter’s disappearance.”
“That’s what he implied,” she said with a worried look on her face.
“But it’s possible your daughter might have gone to meet someone else?”
Tia placed both of her hands on the side of her head. She shook her head violently from side to side. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“What time did you get home, ma’am?” the police officer asked Tia.
“A little after eight o’clock,” she answered.
“So pretty much no one’s seen your daughter or heard from her in about six hours. Would you say that’s about right?”
“Yes,” Tia answered. “Yes.”
“What was she wearing?”
Tia thought back to the rush she’d been in to get to work. “I don’t know.” She became distraught again. “I can’t remember.”
“Didn’t you take her to that audition after church?” Shari asked.
“That’s right,” Tia perked up. “I did. And she had on a black chiffon dress with a white lace trim.” Suddenly, her shoulders slumped. “But I doubt she kept that on because it got torn when she fell.”
“She fell?” Shari asked.
Tia remembered the exact moment when Serenity had tumbled off the makeshift runway. She remembered the look of total devastation on Serenity’s face as she’d gotten back up and hobbled to the other end. As hard as she’d tried not to, Tia could also remember the look of dissatisfaction she’d worn on her face as she’d watched Serenity fall. “Yes,” Tia said sadly. “She fell.”
“She must have been pretty upset about that, huh?” the police officer asked as she continued taking notes.
“She was,” Tia said, feeling convicted by the fact that she’d done little to console Serenity before she’d rushed out of the house to get to work.
“Do you think she might have run away?”
Tia looked at the officer. “Of course not,” she said enraged by the question. “I just told the lady on the phone that my neighbor called saying he knew something about my daughter! Why would I think she ran away?”
“Try to stay calm, Tia,” Shari said, patting her knee. “They’re just trying to get all the information they need.”
“All the information they need,” Tia said, her anxiety escalating, “is right down the street.”
“And that’s why we have two officers talking to Mr. Woodard right now,” the police officer replied.
Chapter Forty
Serenity finally managed to free her wrists from the string Homer had tied them with. She quickly ran toward the washing machine below the window that was partially covered with newspaper. She climbed on top of the appliance and tried to raise the window. It didn’t budge.
She pushed it a second time and nothing happened. She saw that the lock to secure the window was missing, and just as she was about to try to push the window up for a third time, she looked down at the newspaper covering half of it and stopped.
The date on the newspaper was from a year ago, and there was a picture of a young girl on the front of it. Serenity stared hard at the picture. The girl had been in one of her classes last year, and Serenity remembered when she had suddenly stopped showing up at school.
According to the news, her classmate had been missing for several days, and then had mysteriously shown up at the front door of her house. She never returned to school after that, and Serenity never saw or heard anything else about her. To this day, she still didn’t know what had happened to her.
Although there was no heat in the basement, the palms of Serenity’s hands grew moist and a layer of sweat began to form underneath her shirt. Why did he have this piece of newspaper on the window? She began pushing up on the window for the third time, but it remained unmovable. Just then, she heard the doorbell ring and she stiffened.
Homer walked to the front door and looked through the peephole. He saw two male police officers standing on the other side of his door. He stood watching them as they rang the doorbell several times, and then began knocking loudly on the door. Finally, he decided to answer.
“Who is it?” he yelled from the other side of the door.
“Police officers.”
Homer opened the door slowly.
“Are you Homer Woodard?” one of the officers asked.
“I am.”
“We received a complaint from your neighbor, Tia Sparks, that you might have something to do with her missing daughter.”
Homer grunted. “Missing daughter? Don’t nobody want her daughter.”
The two police officers looked at each other. “Do you mind if we look through your house, sir?”
Homer had to maintain his composure. If ever there was a time for him not to show any emotion, this was it. He stepped to the side and bent over slightly. “Welcome,” he said as he waved them in with his left arm.
One of the officers searched the main floor while the other one asked to look in the basement.
“I can’t get that door open,” Homer said as he fingered the key in his pocket. “It hasn’t been opened in years. I think it’s been glued shut or cemented or something,” he said with ease.
The police officer looked at him. “How long have you lived here?”
“Almost three years,” Homer replied.
“And you’re telling me you’ve never been in your basement or tried to open this door?”
Homer wiped the sweat from his top lip. “Well, I tried to open it,” he lied, “but it just won’t open.”
&
nbsp; “So,” the officer said frowning, “you just left it like that?”
“That’s correct.” Homer let out a nervous chuckle. “Is that a crime?”
“No, it’s not a crime,” the officer said, pulling on the doorknob. “It’s just not believable.” He waved his partner over to him, then looked at Homer. “We’re going to need to open this door,” he said.
The second police officer went to the squad car to retrieve a crowbar.
Homer’s calm demeanor was quickly replaced by a growing level of apprehension. Once they opened that door and went downstairs that would be it. “What right do you have to mess up my property?” he blurted out.
“Well, if you would just open the door we wouldn’t have to do this, now, would we?”
“I told you, I can’t,” Homer said moving closer to the door.
The police officer put one hand on his gun holster and pointed to the sofa with his other hand. “Sit down,” he said sternly.
Homer sat down slowly as he watched the second police officer return and begin prying the basement door open with the crowbar. His eyes darted around the room as he gripped the edges of the sofa. The door hinges creaked under the pressure of being pried apart, and with each cracking sound Homer flinched, expecting to hear Serenity cry out at any moment.
Serenity heard the muffled voices and the sound of someone trying to open the basement door. Fearful of Homer’s return, she wiped her moist hands on the fabric of her pants and gave the window another push upward as hard as she could.
At the same time, the basement door cracked lightly and a sliver of light came racing down the stairs. She began pushing wildly on the window and felt the top ledge hit something. She ran her hand across the front of the window ledge and felt a nail partially sticking out. She quickly pulled it out and pushed on the window again. This time, it slid up, and she eased her slender body out through the opening. She ran wildly toward her house, screaming hysterically as she got closer.
The police officer stopped trying to pry the door open when he heard what sounded like a young girl screaming. His partner ran outside to investigate while he remained indoors with Homer.
A Sad Soul Can Kill You Page 16
