Jonah entered from the kitchen with his plate in hand. He set the plate on the coffee table and sat beside me. Addison was on my other side, which was exactly where I needed her to be.
Jonah took a deep breath and scanned each of our sorrow-filled faces.
“Wayne Gilbert Black was a thirty-five-year-old sociopath. The building you were found in was where he lived. He was the building owner but mostly a slumlord. After his mother was killed when he was a child, he was in and out of foster homes. This is the reason the FBI thinks he snapped when he didn’t finish the job with you, Simone. He found out that you too had been a foster kid, living a happy life. We can’t know for sure, but it’s part of the theory.”
I nodded and clenched my teeth, breathing through my nose. Jonah’s warm hand surrounded mine and held it in both of his over his thigh.
“His mother was a well-known prostitute. According to the information we found in his apartment, he’d seen her killed and journaled about it incessantly. Apparently, she would regularly park her car down an alley out of sight in order to do business. She’d force Wayne to stand in a dark corner while she brought the clients to the backseat of her car. There she’d do the deed. None of this hidden from her child. Until one of her client’s kinks got out of hand. He strangled her during the act by accident. Or so he claimed when he turned himself in. Apparently, Wayne saw it happen. This is likely when he had his first psychotic break.”
Mami Kerri covered her mouth and closed her eyes.
“He was a deeply demented man, set on killing women in the same manner his mother died. We’ll learn more when we get his foster care details and any psych evals he had in the past,” Jonah continued.
“I don’t care about Wayne Black. What I want to know is how he got into my building,” Sonia groused.
Jonah winced and swallowed slowly.
That meant more bad information was forthcoming.
“He tased the security guard out back and then strangled him,” Jonah stated gently.
I wanted to cry. I really did. Another life lost due to this monster and I had no tears left to give. I was dried up. Empty inside.
“How the hell did Tabby get involved?” Sonia asked directly, arms crossed over her shoulders as though she were angry. She probably was. Sonia had a temper that often exploded if she was hurting.
I cleared my throat and then spoke up. “I’d called Tabby and left a message when Addison went missing. Begged her to come home. Told her none of us were safe, including her. She said she was fine but that she had eyes on the lookout.”
“Our team discovered from the video footage of Sonia’s building that Tabby had been hanging out across the street at the small cafe, watching the front door. Our best guess is that she saw a stranger headed around the back of the building and followed him because not long after we saw the masked man, we saw Tabitha sliding along the outskirts. We got an anonymous lead that a strange man had entered the back of the building and a guard was knocked out. That was the last call I got when I was on the balcony. The timing was a perfect storm.” He rubbed at the back of his neck.
“She must have seen Simone taken and followed them, because when the video shows Simone being carried unconscious, over the shoulder of the man we know now was Wayne Black, we could see a skinny woman all in black running down the long alley and disappearing. Two hours after Simone was taken, we got another call. I spoke to Tabitha,” he said, his voice cracking.
My nose tingled and I shoved my body to his side, cuddling against his chest. He wrapped an arm around my back and took a breath.
“The operator was told if we got another anonymous call to direct it to me, but this time Tabitha asked for me by name. She was either following the case in the media and saw pictures of me and Simone or heard my name when she showed up at Tracks that night. Whatever the case may be, she called and gave me the location of where they took you.”
“Jesus, that girl.” Blessing shook her head as a wave of sadness flashed across her face.
Jonah took a deep breath and then let it out shakily. “She told me she’d been following the man that kidnapped you. Notified me where he’d taken you and told me to hurry. That’s it. Then she hung up. Which must have been not long before she entered the building on her own mission to save you.”
“My Tabby would never allow anyone to harm her sisters. She was more protective than Blessing and Sonia put together.” Mama Kerri sniffed and wiped at her nose with an old-fashioned handkerchief. “She always said if she didn’t have us, she’d have nothing. Which is why she would go to the ends of the earth to protect us.”
“And she did,” I whispered. “She gave her life for ours.”
Addy grabbed my hand and I held it so tight I could feel her heartbeat against my palm.
“My girl had a lot of demons but the one thing that gave her pride was us. We were the only good she could see in the world. It had been that way since she arrived here at thirteen years old. I can easily see why she’d make such a sacrifice. Her love was bigger than any drug that riddled her brain and body. And in the end, she did exactly what she set out to do. She gave it all up for the family she loved. As twisted and gut-wrenching as losing Tabby is for each and every one of us, her death was very noble. I’m going to choose to see my baby as a hero and I would encourage each one of you to do so.” Mama Kerri’s words were filled with compassion and sorrow, but she meant every word.
She firmed her spine and sat up in her chair. “You lost a sister today and I lost a daughter. That is going to take us a long time to accept. But let us feel comforted in the fact that she died doing what she loved. Protecting her family.” Her blue green eyes came to me, then Addison. “It would have been the same if it had been Blessing and Liliana or Sonia, Genesis or Charlie. I do not want the two of you taking this on as though it were your fault. It is the fault of a very sick man. Now, we have to set about healing. That alone will be hard enough without you two attempting to accept blame. You hear me?”
I licked my lips and nodded. “Yeah, Mama. I hear you.”
“Yes, Mama,” Addison reiterated.
“Okay, I’m going to go check on my grandbaby outside with Aunt Delores in the garden. You all have your beds here; I expect each of you to be in them tonight.” Her gaze scanned every woman and waited until they nodded or gave their own murmured, “Yes, Mama.”
“Now, I love all my girls with my whole heart. I loved Tabby, and together, we’ll find a way through this pain. Part of that will be putting my girl to rest.”
“I’ll help you with all the details, Mama Kerri,” Genesis offered.
Mama nodded. “We’ll set about looking at her place next weekend. We need this week to heal. I expect all of you to lay your heads down on a pillow in this house until I’m confident everyone is emotionally and physically okay. And that includes me. Okay, my chicklets?”
Again, each of us either nodded numbly or said okay.
“Jonah, I suspect you will be staying here with Simone?” Mama Kerri asked.
He perked up by my side. “I didn’t want to beg, but I would have.”
She smiled sweetly and that small smile was all it took for the emptiness inside me to start to fill up again with love. I didn’t have Tabby and would grieve her the rest of my life. But I did have Mama Kerri, Sonia, Blessing, Addison, Liliana, Charlie, and the man I loved holding me up.
We all had a long road to go, but together I knew we could make it through anything.
Even the loss of a sister.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I jolted awake, my entire body so hot, sweat misted around the edges of my hairline and down my spine.
I was back there. In that basement. Addison tied up, blood pouring down her arms and dripping against the cold concrete floor. Her lifeless eyes open staring unseeing at the ceiling as her life source continued to drip out of her.
Tabby lay dead at her feet.
But that wasn’t how it happened.
Addy was
alive.
I blinked against the darkness of the room while the familiar breath against the back of my hair took away a little of the panic. I focused on that breath from behind me as Jonah slept, his body curled around mine. Still, I couldn’t shake the unease clawing at my stomach.
Addy.
I needed to see Addy. Make sure she was okay.
Make sure she was alive.
With extreme effort, I eased slowly out of the bed. On bare feet, I padded out of my old room, the one I’d shared with Sonia that I was now sharing with Jonah. Sonia and Charlie had bunked up in the spare room because neither of them wanted to sleep in the room that Charlie used to share with Tabby growing up. It was too soon. It might always be too soon.
I maneuvered past the squeaky board that I knew would wake Mama Kerri and kept on past Lilian and Genesis’s room. Past Charlie and Tabby’s old room to the one at the end. Addison and Blessing had always been thicker than thieves. Sharing a room with a woman half your life would definitely build that relationship. It was also why they were so good working together a lot of the time. Blessing as the designer, Addy as her model. Had a lot to do with why they were hired for special shoots too. They just worked well together.
As quietly as I could, I pushed open the door to their room. Blessing slept deep. Always had. She was also the last to rise. No matter what. The woman liked her sleep and never had a problem falling to sleep or staying that way. You could run the vacuum right by her bed and she’d sleep through it.
Addy sat up a little when I entered.
I dashed over to her bed as she pulled back the covers. I slid in and faced her. She grabbed both of my hands and we stared at one another in the mostly dark room.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nightmare. You?”
“Same.”
I nodded, brought our hands toward my face, and kissed her fingers. She squeezed mine.
“Are we ever going to be able to close our eyes again and not see what happened?” she whispered.
My heart cracked open and more sorrow poured out. “I don’t know. I hope so. Probably when a little time has passed. Maybe not.”
She hummed and closed her eyes.
I closed my eyes and listened to her humming. She did it for so long it lulled me sleep.
Sometime in the night or early morning, Jonah came into the room and I was lifted into the air and held in his arms as he carried me back to his bed.
This became a nightly routine. Me waking with a nightmare and crawling into bed with Addison until I could sleep again. Later, Jonah would come and get me, carrying me back to my place at his side.
He never complained. Not once.
Friday, we cremated Tabby’s remains and set her soul free. Tabby’s ashes were put into an etched, ornate metal urn that Mama Kerri put front and center on her mantle over the fireplace. None of us were ready to spread her ashes anywhere. We needed the reminder of her presence in our lives and we all agreed Tab would be cool with that.
Mama Kerri held a small gathering at her house, and we put an announcement in the paper. Few people showed. Mostly friends of ours or Mama Kerri’s. Of course, the media mongrels were camped outside waiting to catch any sight of the grieving family. Not only was the media obsessed with the fact a serial killer had been caught and taken out, but the connection to the youngest Senator in history, one who was beautiful, strong, and firm in her political convictions? They simply couldn’t harness their fascination. Sonia had been followed incessantly and it didn’t look like it would be slowing down any time soon.
Worse, we were coming up on a presidential election and for some reason the media were calling for Sonia to run. This news shocked Sonia more than any of us, but she politely demurred and reiterated that she was happy serving the great state of Illinois as a Senator.
It was now Saturday and the remaining eight of us descended on Tabby’s rathole apartment downtown. We had boxes, newspaper, packing tape, and everything else we’d need to box up our sister’s life. Jonah was out doing something with Ryan and Aunt Delores had Rory for the day.
I swore you could hear a pin drop with how quiet all of us were when Mama Kerri opened Tab’s door and let us all in. We stood in the center of a very sparsely furnished place. The only thing of true value seemed to be the framed images on the walls.
When Tabby wasn’t going from crummy job to her dealers, she would take photos. I remember all the years she had a camera hanging around her neck. It was the first present she’d gotten from Mama Kerri on her fourteenth birthday with us. Instantly she set about taking photos of everything. Us. The garden plants and flowers. Landscapes. Broken down things that she somehow made cool through her lens.
I walked around to each photo starting with the one over her ratty couch. It was a gorgeous one of Mama Kerri with her big sun hat on, her long strawberry hair falling down her back in curly waves looking a stunning pinky gold. She was pruning her wildflowers and the sun caught her smile perfectly as she’d turned just half her face toward the camera.
I kept going, walking around the room until I found the one that always devasted me. It was of a woman leaning against the side of a brick building. A cigarette lit and hanging out of her mouth. She had black hair and even darker eyes that were hollowed out and empty. Her body was thin and pale. A junkie. Next to her feet was a small child. A little girl with a filthy mop of black hair and light, haunting eyes. She had smudges of dirt on her cheeks and she was playing with a single feather. It was as though she’d been captured running her fingers up and down the feather, feeling the life that had been attached to it. A different life. One that was free. There was a small smile to that little girl’s face as though she hadn’t yet been broken down or was doing her best to survive the circumstances she’d been given. The little girl still had hope in those eyes.
I knew in my whole heart why Tabby took a picture of that junkie mother and her daughter. She saw herself in that little girl.
The hope for more.
I lifted the picture off the wall and announced, “I’d like to have this picture.” I turned it around and showed the group.
None of them made any case for wanting it themselves. Either because they didn’t see what Tabby saw, or they did and wanted me to have what I needed to remember Tabitha by. I carefully brought the picture to a side wall. Each of the sisters chose an image they liked that Tabby had taken herself and enjoyed it enough to put it on her wall, and then set their choice next to mine. I put sticky notes on each one with the corresponding sister’s name.
After a couple hours we were making good progress. Each of us focused on a different area of the small apartment. We’d selected pieces of her clothing that we wanted to keep and boxed up the rest for donation. Any sentimental items we remembered and wanted, we set aside for ourselves. Addy had found Tab’s camera and told everyone that she wanted it. Whatever Addy needed to get through the horrendous experience she’d suffered, any one of us would give her.
We continued at a solid pace, boxing up her kitchen for immediate donation. Everything was mismatched, nothing of any real value.
“What’s this?” Addison called out, after she lifted a multicolored scarf off of a chest that Tabby had been using as a coffee table. She still had bandages wrapped around her arms, but she hid them by wearing a loose long-sleeve shirt.
I went over to her side and sat on the ratty couch as she lifted the latch and opened it. Inside were nothing but what looked like matching photo albums and extra blankets. I ran my finger over the huge three-inch-wide spines that faced the opening of the chest. There was one with each of our names on them.
I pulled out the one that said Simone as Addy grabbed the one that said Addison.
The photo book was rather heavy and huge. At least fourteen inches by fourteen inches. A perfect fat square. They were all a shiny black with silver imprint.
Addy and I opened ours at the same time. The first page had an awesome image of me. M
y blonde hair was blowing all over the place. I was wearing this baby blue button-up sleeveless shirt and a burgundy wide-brimmed hat that I was trying to keep from blowing away. A teasing smirk was plastered across my lips. I remembered Tabby taking that picture when we were downtown at the Taste of Chicago, a huge festival that was held every summer. We were hanging out overlooking Lake Michigan when Tabby started taking pictures. Across my chest in a super cool font were the words WILD CHILD. The image reminded me of a wicked cool book cover.
“Wow, this is badass.” Addison traced her image and the words WILD BEAUTY graphically designed over her picture.
I turned the page and there was picture after picture of me, or me with Tabby, or me with the rest of my sisters and Mama Kerri. I kept turning. It was years’ worth of pictures. More than a decade’s worth. I went to the very back. The first image was one she’d had to have taken when she first got the camera at fourteen. I would have been just barely twelve. It was a selfie of me and Tabby. Under it she wrote, Soul Sisters Forever.
Soul Sisters.
That’s what we were.
That’s what she died for.
That’s why I had to accept her sacrifice as the gift it was intended to be.
I reached for Sonia’s and Blessing’s books. Addison took Liliana’s and Charlie’s except hers said Charlotte which was her real name. I didn’t look inside to see what she’d named them, though I hoped one day they would share. For now, whatever was in their picture book was for them and Tabby alone.
Sonia frowned when I stood in front of her with the heavy book.
“We found these picture books in a chest. There’s one for each of us.” I handed her the one with her name on it.
The only way I could see how affected Sonia was in that moment was because her hands shook when she reached for the book that had Sonia in beautiful silver etching down the spine.
Wild Child (A Soul Sister Novel Book 1) Page 23