I sprinted towards the exit and barged into the door with my shoulder, the alarm wailing as it flung open and I stumbled out into the shade of the building’s rear.
CHAPTER 18
This was my first time laying eyes on Gideon’s house. It was just like the rest of the houses in this neighborhood—gable to gable roof, two stories high, no garage. Modest living. It reminded me of the sort of homey house my grandmother lived in. But to my knowledge, Gideon lived alone and didn’t need this much house.
Unless he was planning to start a family.
As I walked across the grass, I looked around to find the best place to break in. I couldn’t do the windows because all the ones on the first level had bars on them. Gideon would be back by the time I figured out how to get those off.
I took a chance on just opening the front door. It was locked—I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing in my life ever was.
I went back into the middle of the yard and stared at the house with my hands on my hips. There was a lower roof I could probably reach if I had a ladder. I didn’t see one anywhere so I got in my car and parked it inches from the side of the house. I hopped back out and climbed on the trunk of my G6, then the roof, which sunk in a little under my feet. I hoisted myself up by using the gutter, and then I was on Gideon’s lower roof.
I didn’t look down. I stayed close to the siding until I got to the nearest window. Tugging on it, I found that it was locked too. Maybe even sealed closed from the white caulking on the window sill. It looked like it had never been opened, ever.
I’ll pay you back, Gideon, I thought as I kicked the window out. I cleared the rest of the glass out with the heel of my Coach sneaker and then stepped inside.
I was in a bedroom. It was spacious, so I guessed this was the master bedroom. Right where I wanted to be. I looked under his bed for a gun but didn’t find it. I checked under his pillows, in the closet, throwing off lids of shoeboxes, checking all the places I thought thugs hid their weapons. The room was a mess when I was finished. And I was getting frustrated because I hadn’t found it yet. I knew he owned a gun. And I didn’t think he would take it to the grocery store with him.
Out in the hall, I put my hands on the balcony railing and looked downstairs at the living room. I didn’t know if I wanted to start searching down there or try the other two rooms up here. But I was willing to tear this whole house up until I found a pistol to kill Ladykiller.
I started down the steps—and that’s when I heard something.
A woman’s voice coming from the basement.
“Shut up! You think you’re the only one that’s hungry?”
Curiously, I walked closer to the sounds.
“I said shut up!”
I accidentally stepped on something that cracked under my shoe. When I moved my foot, I squatted down to inspect it. It was a chain and locket that was terrifyingly familiar. Popping the heart-shaped locket open, I stared at a tiny picture of myself and Rodrick at prom.
My daughter was here!
In a panic, my mind tried to figure out what was going on. I reached in my pocket and looked at the addresses I had written down. I didn’t put the names down with the addresses. I think I mistakenly came straight to Ladykiller’s house instead of Gideon’s! If I was correct, Ladykiller’s mother was in the basement with my daughter!
Heart racing, I flung open the basement door.
“Deborah Roby, I know you’re down there!” I shouted. “I want my daughter back and I’m not leaving until I have her!”
“Momma! Help me!”
Kylie!
Without thinking, I trotted down the steps, driven by the sweet sound of my baby girl’s voice. Halfway down the steps, a hand shot out from between the steps and tripped me up. I fell to the dirty concrete of the basement. Before I could get up, I was kicked in the gut, which flipped me over onto my back. I held my stomach, cringing in pain.
“Tyesha, I don’t know how you found this house,” the woman taunted, “but you’re gonna regret that you ever did.”
I looked at the woman standing over me, not wanting to believe who I was seeing. But as hard as I squinted, the face didn’t change—it was Deja Michelle.
“Momma!”
My eyes darted to Kylie and I laid eyes on her for the first time in what felt like years, but had only been a little over 24 hours. Her wrists were tied with nylon cable ties fastened to the gas pipe behind the washing machine. Strands of her brown hair were sticking up out of her little braids, her face was dingy and her fingertips were near black, but she didn’t look like she’d been harmed. The whites of her eyes where still bright and innocent.
The sight of her filled me with good adrenaline. I started to push myself to my feet but Deja jabbed me in the rib with a wooden broom handle, then she yelled at my daughter to stop screaming.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, holding my side in pain. “Why did you take my daughter?”
“You know why,” she said. “This is revenge.”
“What have I ever done to you, Deja? We were best friends. I loved you like a sister.”
She scoffed at me. “Sister’s don’t steal men from each other, do they? Do you remember what you told me when I said I had a crush on Rodrick in high school? You said he wouldn’t like me because he doesn’t date big girls. What kind of fuckin’ sister says that, huh?”
I instantly remembered the comment. It was our junior year, and we were standing by my locker when Rodrick walked past. When Deja said she liked him I had laughed and made the remark about her being too big for him. But always making references to Deja’s weight was my way of helping her lose it. And looking at her now, wearing a form-fitting blue jumpsuit that she would’ve never been able to pull off in high school, it clearly worked.
Never had I thought I was being so harsh on her to make her want to kidnap my daughter. Looking at the pain in her eyes now, I could see she’d been holding in evil feelings about me for all these years. I felt even worse for dating Rodrick. But I hadn’t believed back then that she seriously thought she had a chance of hooking up with him. And that was horrible of me.
“Deja, I’m sorry. You can have Rodrick. I didn’t know—”
With both hands she jammed the broom stick in my stomach harder than before. “You think you can just give Rodrick to me? You can’t give me shit! I took him, just like you took him from me. See, that’s your problem. You still treat me like I’m the fat friend. Like I’m a charity case who can only be helped by you. You even take credit for how I look now. You may have exercised with me, but I put in the hard work to get my body like this.”
“Deja, you’re right, and I’m sorry. You look beautiful. I don’t even know why you would want somebody like Rodrick. Look at you. You can do so much better than him.”
She stooped down and placed the end of the broom stick on the tip of my nose. “Don’t try to play mind games with me. Rodrick is a good man. You ruined him! He would’ve went to college on a football scholarship if you didn’t get pregnant by him. Because of you, he had to hustle in the streets, and that’s why he ended up in jail. If you hadn’t stolen him from under my nose, there’s no telling where me and him would be right now. But you know what, Tyesha? I’m going to make things the way they should have been. I’m going to help Rodrick be the man he was supposed to be, before you ruined his life.”
“He’s just gonna play you like he played me.”
She smacked me across the face. “Shut up! There you go downtalking me again. He treated you like shit because you are shit. I am and have always been a better woman than you, even when I was at my heaviest. Rodrick respects me. Your high and mighty ass is just too stuck on yourself to see it.”
“Deja, please. I just want my daughter. Let her go, please.”
“She stays. You don’t deserve her.” She stood up, gripping the broom stick high above her head. “And people like you don’t deserve to live.”
Deja stabbed the broom end down at my f
ace.
I rolled out the way and she struck the concrete. As I sprang to my feet, she lunged at me with the broom end like a javelin; I tried to duck but it caught me in the shoulder, pushing me back on my ass. Deja’s momentum sent her falling on top of me.
“Kylie was supposed to be my daughter!” she screamed, scratching her nails into my face viciously.
Her nails burned through my skin as I tried to swat her hands away. I got ahold of one of her arms and threw her off balance, rolling her over and straddling her. I started pounding on her face with hammer fists, as I heard my daughter crying behind me—and I think her cries made me pound even harder. Deja’s face grew bloody fast, almost as if the blood was seeping through her pores. I felt outside of myself; my rage had taken ahold of me again.
I grabbed two fistfuls of her hair and bashed the back of her head against the concrete over and over. She latched onto my shirt, staining it with her bloody fingers, but her grip was weak.
“Momma, he’s here!”
I turned and saw my daughter looking up the stairs. Then I heard the footsteps above. Ladykiller!
The thought of him sent me into a panic. I hopped off of Deja and went to my daughter, trying desperately to release the ties. I bit into them but it did nothing but make my teeth ache. Still, I kept biting, and I thought I was making progress when Kylie screamed and I felt Deja’s arms wrap around my neck in a suffocating hold. I fell back, fighting to get her arms off of me. Her legs wrapped around my waist and locked me against her. I was helpless.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” Deja said through gritted teeth. She sounded like a monster. “I’ve had it hard my whole life. Because of you!”
Her hold tightened, crushing my wind pipe. I could hear my daughter calling to me but I couldn’t see her. I was subjected to only staring at the ceiling, and it was getting very blurry.
“I wanted to be like you,” she hissed. “You were always so pretty. All the boys from school still comment on your pictures; they like everything you post. But nobody notices me.”
I caught a breath when I pulled on her arms but she tightened up again and I was seeing red. She squeezed harder.
“It’s all gonna change when you’re gone,” she said in a craze. “They’ll notice me. I won’t be in your shadow anymore.”
“Let her go, Deja. Now!”
I didn’t understand it but Gideon was prying Deja’s arms from around my neck. How did he find me?
He separated us as we got to our feet. Deja tried to attack me again but Gideon pushed her back.
“Kill her, Gideon!” Deja yelled. “What are you waiting for?”
I saw Gideon was holding a black handgun. Kill me? Was she crazy? Gideon was my homie.
“She’s the one who kidnapped Kylie,” I told him. “Her and Ladykiller did it together. And he might be on his way back.” I pulled out my cell phone. “I’m calling the police.”
“Give me the phone,” Gideon said.
I handed it to him. When he put it on the floor and crushed it under his heel, I was speechless. Deja started laughing, her teeth bloody red, and it all became clear. I hadn’t made a mistake with the addresses at all. This was Gideon’s house. He and Deja were in cahoots.
“Tie her up with her daughter,” Gideon said to Deja.
“No, shoot her,” Deja cried. “She knows what’s going on.”
“Just tie her up first, Deja. Shit.”
Deja pushed me toward the gas pipe and shoved me to the floor next to my daughter. She cable-tied my wrists around the pipe. Extra tight.
“We need to talk right now, Gideon,” said Deja. “We can’t keep both of ‘em here for long.”
Gideon looked at me and sighed. “It’s wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said to me.
Then the two of them walked up the stairs and closed the door.
CHAPTER 19
I immediately tried yanking on the ties. The pipe didn’t budge one bit.
“She use swizzers,” Kylie pronounced. “When I had to go to the bafroom, she cut t’em with swizzers.”
We didn’t have scissors so I started looking around me to see if I could find anything sharp within a leg’s reach. I didn’t see anything but lint balls and used fabric softener sheets. There were boxes on the other side of the basement but there was no way I could get over there.
“I know it’s something in those boxes…” I said to myself.
“I can get loose,” Kylie said. I watched as she tried to pull her little hands out of her ties. Her thumb was bending in unnaturally and I started to tell her to stop until I saw her hand slip free. I gasped, and a second later her other hand was loose too.
“Look and see if you can find some scissors,” I said.
My heart was beating fast as she scampered over and searched one of the boxes. I heard Gideon and Deja upstairs arguing and I knew it was only a matter of time before they came back down.
“We should have killed Kylie the first day we took her!” Deja yelled.
“And what would we have done with the body?” Gideon hurled back.
“Bury it!”
“Bury it where?”
“Anywhere! In the backyard.”
“Are you crazy? How about we bury her in yo backyard!”
I asked Kylie did she find anything and she looked at me and shook her head no. I whispered for her to look for anything sharp, not just scissors. Then she ran over with a device that I was sure was going to save our lives—a cell phone.
I held the power button and said a silent prayer. It was an old cell, not a smartphone, that Gideon probably stuck in a box down here. The screen lit up and so did my eyes. Even when the display flashed “no service,” I still had hope. I knew 911 could still be dialed out without minutes or a service plan. But when I pressed the “9,” the screen went black. I tried to turn it back on but the battery was dead.
I told Kylie to go look for another one.
“We gotta take ‘em outta state,” I heard Gideon say, “like we planned to do in the first place.”
“No, we have to get rid of them now!” Deja shouted.
“I told you why we can’t do that. We can’t kill them here. That’ll be too much evidence in my basement. You’re supposed to kill them where you bury them. Niggas in the joint told me this shit.”
“That plan sounded good before Tyesha got here. It would’ve been easy to move Kylie alive because she’s a little girl. Trying to take Tyesha too will get us caught. She busted my fuckin’ head up. Something can go wrong on the trip there. She’s a sneaky bitch, Gideon!”
“Don’t call her out her name.”
“Are you fucking serious?!”
In a sharp whisper, I told my daughter to hurry. She dug in a box that tipped over and spilled contents to the floor. My heart raced, waiting for one of them to come bolting down. But they kept yelling at each other. Kylie picked something up and ran over to me. It was a box cutter.
Hurriedly, I stuck the dull blade between my wrist and the zip tie. I sawed back and forth until it popped off and did the same with the other one. I went and rummaged through the boxes, looking for another phone. Instead, I found a laptop computer. It didn’t look new at all—the Dell symbol was missing, and so was the “H” and the “E” on the keyboard. But it had a wireless symbol so I tried to power it on.
It worked!
Deja’s voice boomed through the floor above us. “You know she has to die too now, right? Tell me you know that, Gideon!”
“So you get to be with Rodrick… and who will I have now?”
“That’s not my problem! We teamed up to get rid of their daughter. Everything was fine until your girl showed up. Now she has to die. What do you think, that she’s still gonna wanna be with you?!”
This had to be the slowest computer I’d ever seen. It was still booting up. No wonder he trashed it.
“Go down there and handle your business, Gideon. Or give me the gun. I’ll do it… Give me the gun, Gideon!” There wa
s silence upstairs, then: “Fine,” Deja said. I heard her stomping across the floorboards into another part of the house. “I’ll stab that bitch to death.”
Then her footsteps were coming back, closer to the basement door.
I had to hurry!
“No, Deja!”
“Move, nigga!”
The home screen appeared and I clicked the internet icon. It started to buffer. I glanced up the steps, hearing them yelling at each other close to the door. When the Web finally popped up, I logged in to The Site and typed in my username and password. There was more buffering—I turned and looked up the stairs again, told Kylie to say a prayer—and then my profile page popped up. I dug the sticky note out my pocket and typed Gideon’s address in without using the missing letters. Also, The Site had a navigation feature that pinpointed the exact location posts were coming from; I clicked it.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard, trying to think of a message I could post that didn’t have an “H” or “E” in the spelling. I couldn’t put “help me” or it would read “hlp m.” I couldn’t put “save me” or it would just come out as “sav m.” My brain wasn’t working fast enough!
Then a thought came to mind, the only thing I could think of.
Tyesha816: 349 Dnvr av CALL_COPS!_#KIDNAP_#QUICKLY!
The basement door flung open. Me and Kylie ran back to the gas pipe and I stuffed the computer behind the washing machine. We both wrapped our arms around the pipe as if we were still tied to it. The box cutter was still in my pocket, the handle sticking out. I placed my elbow over it to conceal it.
Deja came flying down the steps. When I saw the large kitchen knife in her hand, I grabbed Kylie around the waist and was about to roll us out of the way when there was a loud blast. Deja’s mouth widened in shock—and I thought she was surprised to see our arms untied, until I saw the blood pour out her mouth. She collapsed to the cracked concrete right in front of us. I quickly made Kylie hug the pipe again.
Gideon slowly trotted down the steps. When his face came into view, it was a mask of deep regret. He sat down on the last step and looked at me with sorrow in his eyes. Then he closed them, lowering his head.
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