by Mychea
“How could you accuse your own grandchild of such a thing? I know my child and she would not do this.”
Cynthia looked at Naima as if she were delusional. She loved her child but naivety should only go but so far.
“Excuse me Missy, you mind your manners. I am not a liar and I’m still your mother.”
“Mother or no mother, I’m not minding any manners, you are accusing my child of murder and I will not stand for it!”
“I told you, I saw it with my own eyes.”
Naima narrowed her eyes in anger, “You’re going to stand here and tell me you watched Namiyah murder Emeri and didn’t do anything to prevent it? I don’t believe you. That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“I mean, I walked in when she was coming out –”
Naima held her hand up, “Just stop ok. Where is Namiyah?” No sooner had the words left her mouth, did she hear sirens out front. Her eyes widened in horror, “You called the police already?
You are just letting them take my child without knowing what’s going on first?” Naima felt betrayed, now she couldn’t trust her own mother. Abruptly turning to walk as quickly as she could through the house, she tried her best to locate Namiyah. There was no sign of her anywhere. The four other kids were playing in the basement as if all was right in the world. She headed up the stairs and was met by a forlorn Kaden.
“It’s true isn’t it?” she asked him without going up to see for herself. “Emeri’s dead isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
Copyright © 2010 Mychea
143
Vengeance
Mychea
“Momma thinks it was Namiyah. The police are entering as we speak.”
“Well, where is she?”
Naima shrugged with tears in her eyes, “I don’t know, probably somewhere running scared. I don’t think she did it. I don’t care what my mother says.” Tears ran down her face and all Kaden could do was pull her into his arms and hold her close as the police and detectives began making their way up their stairs.
“Can you folks please follow us downstairs?” One of the officers asked.
“Sure.” Kaden responded since Naima was past the point of any verbal communication at that moment.
Watching as they wheeled Emeri’s body out with a while sheet over her, Naima was horrified.
Her crazy, deranged half sister was dead, Namiyah was nowhere to be found, her Dad had recently passed away, Chris had killed Haven, Damir had committed suicide, and on top of all that, now she couldn’t trust her own mother. Where was the world she was used to living in? It seemed like every time Emeri surfaced, crazy stuff went down, every time. Well now, she wouldn’t be resurfacing would she?
Kaden could tell that Naima was at a total loss for what to do. He had never seen her so frazzled in all his life and where the hell was Namiyah? Hard to prove your innocence if you’re not here to defend yourself and on the run.
“Can any of you folks tell me what happened here today?”
“I sure can, I walked in on my granddaughter exiting the bathroom with a machete in hand.
When I looked behind her, I saw Emeri’s body lying there.”
Naima turned to her mother and narrowed her eyes. She could not believe that her own mother would give up on her grandbaby so easily.
“Officer, there is no guarantee Namiyah did this. My mother didn’t actually see or hear her do anything. She just saw her coming out of the bathroom.”
“Well Ma’am, where is the girl?” One of the officers asked.
“We’re not entirely sure. She ran off before you arrived.”
“So we have a run away on our hands and a potential murder suspect.”
“My child is not a murder suspect. What happened to innocent ‘till proven guilty?” Naima yelled, “What in the hell is going on here? Momma you have lost your mind if you think I’m going to stand for this! Because of you Namiyah is somewhere running scared.”
Copyright © 2010 Mychea
144
Vengeance
Mychea
“Ma’am, please calm down. Do you have a recent photo of your daughter so we can issue an Amber Alert? We have to make it our priority to find her as soon as possible.”
“I have one in my purse form when she took school pictures this year.”
“Good, we’ll take that and have it broadcast on all the major networks within minutes.
Hopefully we should be able to pick her up by the end of the night.”
Giving the officer the photo of Namiyah, Naima turned into Kaden’s waiting arms.
Smoothing her hair gently with his hand, Kaden didn’t know what to think. In his heart, he didn’t believe Namiyah was capable of murdering anyone, even her most loathed Aunt, but the circumstantial evidence against her was very incriminating. Instead of staying to fight her battle, as was her norm, she had run and no matter how he tried to twist and turn it, running screamed of guilt, because running wasn’t Namiyah’s style.
With his wife crying in his arms, Kaden had never felt so defenseless in his life; this was a situation that he could not control there was absolutely nothing he could do but wait it out with everyone else.
“What are we going to do?” Naima said into his chest.
Looking down into liquid hazel eyes, he responded, “I have no idea. We have to cooperate with the authorities, which mean we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
“But our baby girl is out there all alone. Who knows what kind of crazies exist in the world.”
“Mocha, you can’t think like that. You have to hope for the best.”
Wiping her face on his shirt, “There is no best and we need to leave this house. I cannot be somewhere where my child has already been tried and convicted, as she has been in this place.
Let’s grab the kids and go home. The police can update us from there, but I cannot stand to be around my mother for a moment longer.”
“Ok Baby, anything you want. I’ll get the kids and pack up all their stuff, you can wait in the car.”
After Naima and Kaden left with the children; even though Cynthia's house was filled with police, she went into the basement to Kenneth's liquor cabinet and had her first drink in life.
Gagging a little on the potent liquor, she was ashamed of herself and her actions today. Naima had been right, she hadn't given Namiyah a chance to explain herself. Cynthia knew now that because of that she and Naima's relationship would never be the same.
Copyright © 2010 Mychea
145
Vengeance
Mychea
When Cynthia had seen Namiyah standing there in front of Emeri's lifeless body with one of Kenneth's old machete's in hand, something inside of her had snapped. She had gone off on a tangent.
Grabbing the bottle of whiskey that she had taken out, Cynthia poured herself another glass.
Tears began a slow steady decent down her face. She wasn't prone to crying, but lately tears were always sitting right below the surface. Life had thrown this family so many fast hard curve balls lately; even she didn't know how to handle this situation. Now because of her poor decision making her granddaughter was on the run. Cynthia prayed that Naima would be ok.
Finishing off the rest of the whiskey, Cynthia went upstairs to Emeri's room. It was a mess, someone had taken great care to make sure everything in the room was practically destroyed.
Sighing as she began the process of trying to sort through the chaotic mess, she surprisingly felt no particular way about Emeri's death. She wasn't sad, hurt or angry. She just was.
Cynthia found it hard to believe that Emeri had only been in their lives for a little over five years and no matter how she tried to work with that child; Emeri was always dead set on doing the wrong thing.
Reaching under the bed to pull everything out, Cynthia was shocked to see a book about creative ways to start a fire. "Why would Emeri have a book about starting fires?" Cynthia thought, unless, she gasped out loud, Emeri
was the one responsible for Kenneth and Camille's death. So, Coleen had been right the day of Kenneth's funeral after all.
Namiyah had no idea where she was going. She just knew that she had to get away from Gram’s house before the police arrived. She didn’t know her Gram anymore, that lady back at the house had to have been an imposter, because her Gram would have never been so cold to her and treated her that way. Granted she had gone to Emeri’s room with the intent to harm her, but someone had beaten her to the punch. Now her Gram’s wanted her to pay for a crime that she didn’t commit.
With no money, she didn’t know what to do. She knew her mom was probably worried sick about her and searching for her, but there was no way she could go back, not while Gram’s was trying to send her to jail.
Copyright © 2010 Mychea
146
Vengeance
Mychea
Taking to the highway, she thought about hitchhiking, but quickly chose not to do that. She was aware of too many stories where hitchhikers’ bodies turned up on the side of the road, or they ended up missing entirely never to be seen or heard from again.
Namiyah wondered how long she could survive without food and water. With no warning, tears began to streak down her face. This was not the way she had planned for things to go. She wasn’t supposed to lose her home life and all her friends; it’s a good thing Emeri was already dead, because if she wasn’t Namiyah would be tempted to kill her now. Life hadn’t been the same since she appeared in it and it wouldn’t be the same now that she was out of it.
Looking up, Namiyah cracked her first smile of the afternoon; up the road she could see a sign for Walmart. She would be able to find some clothes and food that she could stash until she figured out what she was going to do. Sending up a salute to the sky, she said good-bye to the girl everyone knew as Namiyah. Miyah had a nice ring to it; she would use that instead, so she could keep part of herself and still not, out with the old, in with the new.
Copyright © 2010 Mychea
147
Vengeance
Mychea
Epilogue
Gazing at Namiyah’s picture with tears in her eyes, Naima couldn’t believe that today was the one year anniversary of Emeri being killed and Namiyah going missing. She missed her baby girl so much. The authorities still had her listed as a missing person, but she was also a fugitive, they had went ahead and decide to charge her with murder in the first degree as well.
Shaking her head, she could not wrap her brain around so many things. She and her mother’s relationship had deteriorated, as much as she wanted to, she could not forgive her for accusing Namiyah without hearing her side of the story first. “She scared my poor baby,” Naima thought,
“that’s why she ran.” To this day she still believed in Namiyah’s innocence and believed that she was still alive. God had not told her otherwise, so she knew Namiyah was out there somewhere and one day she and her baby girl would be reunited.
Miyah could see her looking at the photo frame and crying. Her mother didn’t know she stopped by every once in a while to check on her family. What she would give to go in and hug her mom.
It had been a full year since she had been able to talk to her and hear her voice, touch her. She felt the tears and gently brushed them to the side. She knew she couldn’t go home until she proved her innocence. “One day soon Mommy, I promise.” She said softly before disappearing into the darkness.
Be on the lookout for the climatic ending to the Vaughn family trilogy…
….COMING SUMMER 2011
Copyright © 2010 Mychea
148
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
