He looked at the doors surrounding him. He approached the apartment directly across the corridor from five-seventeen. He placed his ear against the cold door.
He heard a television broadcasting the news, and a woman talking loudly, probably on the phone. She sounded young, which was good.
He straightened his jacket, grateful that he had cleaned up that morning and changed clothes. He rang the doorbell.
The volume of the television dropped. A few seconds later, he felt the woman looking at him through the peephole.
He kept his expression friendly and relaxed, though tense anticipation bubbled in his gut. For a six-month period during his police career, he had worked as an undercover narc. Playing a fictitious character was easy when it was necessary for the job.
“Who’s there?” she asked from behind the door.
“I’m sorry to bother you this evening,” he said, using a crisp, official voice. “I was wondering if you knew Rachel Hall? She lived in five-seventeen. I’m her cousin Brian, from Chicago.”
A pause. Then, “Hold on.”
He heard a security chain pop free. The door opened.
He found himself looking at a woman in her mid-twenties. She was about five-seven, mocha-skinned, with shoulderlength dark hair. She had soft, almond-shaped brown eyes that would believe anything a brother with half-decent game would tell her.
She wore a green V-neck sweater that showed off a mound of luscious cleavage, and black slacks that hugged long, shapely legs. She was barefoot, her pedicured toes nestled in the carpet. Her ring finger was bare, and when he glanced over her shoulder, he didn’t see anyone straining to find out who had rung the doorbell.
“Hi.” He gave her his best, disarming smile.
Automatically, she smiled back at him, showing pretty dimples, and he knew she would give him anything he wanted.
“Hey,” she said. “You said you’re Rachel’s cousin?”
“I flew in from Chicago this morning for a business trip, and thought I’d drop by to visit Ray-Ray. I haven’t talked to her in a couple of years—”
“Sweetheart, you’re kinda late.” She had a syrupy sweet Southern accent. “Rachel moved out like six months ago.”
“Are you serious? I asked Aunt Nita a hundred times if this was the correct address. I think she’s going senile in her old age, God bless her.”
“Uh huh.” The girl giggled. “Rachel moved out when she got married.”
He blinked. The phrase—when she got married—almost destroyed his act. Married? Was she telling the fucking truth? The bitch had gotten him thrown into prison, stolen his money, come down here, and gotten married?
He had a sudden impulse to grab this young woman by the throat and throttle her, to choke her as if she were his wife, his cheating, thieving wife—
But he caught himself so quickly that the girl didn’t appear to notice his temporary lapse.
“And you know, I asked Aunt Nita about that, too,” he said. “I said, ‘Aunt Nita, are you sure Ray-Ray didn’t move after she got married?’ She said no.” He shrugged. “But it’s not as though I was invited to the wedding.”
“Chile, who you tellin’?” She rolled her eyes. “I lived next door to her for a year, and I didn’t get an invitation. Plus, I was going to her salon, too. Ungrateful.”
Her off-handed mention of the salon clinched the deal. Although his wife had relocated, changed her name, and supposedly gotten married, she was plying the same trade. Dumb bitch. She couldn’t do anything else.
“She didn’t invite you, either? Well, Ray-Ray could be a trip sometimes.” He sighed, glanced at the parking lot, and then turned back to her. “Where’s her salon? I’ll try to catch her there.”
“It’s over in East Point, like ten minutes from here. Hold on a minute. I think I have her card somewhere.”
She disappeared inside. He waited in the hallway. He balled his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms and leaving red marks like stigmata.
She got married...
When the woman returned to the door, he unclenched his hands and smiled.
She had brushed her hair and applied a fresh coat of burgundy-colored lipstick. He thought he picked up a whiff of perfume, too.
She handed a business card to him. Their fingers touched, briefly.
“I’m Shakira, by the way.” She was smiling hard, displaying those dimples.
“Nice to meet you, Shakira.”
He studied the card. It was printed on thick, glossy red stock, with embossed white lettering. The name of the salon was Belle Coiffure. It listed the master stylists and owners as Tanisha May and Rachel Hall, and even had a small photo of the two women posed together.
His wife was wearing glasses, and she had cut her hair and dyed it black, but it was her.
“You’ve been to this place?” he asked.
“Yep. It’s real nice. I haven’t been in a minute, though. It’s kinda hard to get an appointment.”
“Ray-Ray always could do some hair, you know.” He tapped the card against his wrist. “Thanks for this, Shakira. I’m going to visit the salon right now—I’ll be sure to tell Rachel you said hello.”
“Okay.” Leaning against the doorway, arms folded across her bosom to lift her perky breasts higher, Shakira batted her eyelashes. “How long you gonna be in town?”
“That depends on how long my business keeps me here.”
“ ’Cause I was gonna say, if you need someone to like, show you the city... I’m a native. A luscious Georgia peach.” Her gaze was direct.
“What’s your number?” he asked, and then chuckled. “Since I already know where you live.”
As she told him her number, he programmed it into his cell phone.
“I may call you later tonight,” he said. “After I visit Rachel. She and I have some catching up to do ...yeah, a whole lot to talk about.”
33
After only three dizzying months of dating, she and Dexter were wed by the Justice of the Peace on the South Side of Chicago.
By then, at his urging, she had already moved in with him. The marriage was only a formality.
Her family and friends thought she was crazy for marrying so quickly. “When love is real, you can’t put a time frame on it,” she had told them, in the most sincere tone she could muster, and hoped they believed her.
Mostly, she wanted to believe it herself. Since she’d been a little girl, she had entertained fantasies of a fairy-tale wedding: a beautiful bridal dress, a lovely church ceremony, a stretch limousine, a big bridal party and three-tier cake, and most of all, the perfect man, someone gentle and strong and kind, someone she had married because of true love.
Deep down, she knew she didn’t marry Dexter out of love.
She married him out of fear.
Although the night of their first date was the only time she had seen him beat someone, she knew, from overhearing his conversations with his cop buddies who came by the house (at all hours, it seemed) that dispensing violence was a regular part of his job. They joked about roughing up suspects. They bragged about who they had shot in the line of duty. Dexter, in particular, boasted about how no one, ever, got away from him, and he apparently had an arrest record a mile long.
She could attest to his persistence, his driving will. While dating, he called her every day, at least three times. They went on dates daily. If she wasn’t working at the salon, she was almost always with him, or somewhere he could keep close watch on her—he hated when she went home to Zion to visit her aunt Betty.
Always when she was with him, there was a tangible sense of violence waiting to strike, like the quiet before a thunderstorm. It was in his eyes. In his tone. In his body language and coiled muscles.
Turning down his marriage proposal was never an option.
He didn’t unleash his fury on her until after they were married—when they were on their honeymoon in Jamaica.
Lying under an umbrella on a white sand beach at an allinclusive re
sort in Negril, wearing a bikini and sunglasses, she was reading an Alice Walker novel while Dexter was off playing beach volleyball with a group of men and women who’d started up a game. She glanced at him from time to time. He was playing aggressively, talking loudly and boastfully, leaping up and spiking the ball hard enough to drive it into the back of the skull of anyone unlucky enough to get in the way.
He seemed absorbed in the match, ignoring her, and she didn’t mind at all. She had learned to cherish her alone time. Her Me Time. Since she had met Dexter, the time she spent alone, doing what she wanted to do, had dwindled to virtually nil.
A tall, handsome, dark-skinned native strolled by, barechested and in baggy shorts. He smiled at her and uttered a greeting in the distinctive Jamaican patois.
She smiled. “Hello.”
She went back to her reading, and the man wandered off down the beach.
Later that afternoon, back in their ocean view room at the hotel, she was luxuriating under the shower when Dexter suddenly ripped aside the shower curtain.
She let out a startled cry.
“Oh, hey,” she said. “You scared me.”
His dark eyes bore into her. He was nude, sweat glistening on his muscular body. She noticed that he was erect, too.
“Scared you, huh?” he said. “Is it ’cause you was in here daydreaming about fucking that Mandingo motherfucker you were flirting with on the beach?”
She blinked, warm water beating down on her showercapped head.
“What...what’re you talking about?”
His voice was low and dangerous.
“Soon as I turn my head, you’re giving someone else the eye.”
“I...I wasn’t flirting with anyone. Some guy walked by and said ‘hello,’ and I said ‘hello’ back, it was only a friendly exchange—”
“Lying bitch!”
Snarling, he grabbed her by the arms and hauled her out of the shower stall. She screamed and kicked.
He flung her hard to the tile floor, the impact knocking the breath out of her. He jammed a cotton towel deep into her mouth. She gagged, struggled to pull it out.
He twisted her arms behind her back and handcuffed her, as if she were under arrest. The cold cuffs were so tight they bit into her flesh.
“Simple matter of respect, bitch. I put that goddamn ring on your finger, didn’t I? You belong to me . . .”
God, this couldn’t be happening. Not on her honeymoon, not with the man she had married.
She tried to roll over to get him off, but he was too big, too strong. He flipped her over onto her stomach and sat on her legs.
Then he punched her in her right kidney. The pain was unbelievable—like dynamite exploding in her body. She shrieked hopelessly against the towel, and hot tears blurred her eyes.
“Ungrateful bitch.”
She felt his rigidness thrust inside her. Raw, forceful, utterly invasive. He liked rough sex, as she’d learned during the first month they’d dated, but this was something else.
This was rape.
He mashed his hand into the back of her head, nailing her tear-streaked face to the floor, and hammered into her like a machine.
“You belong to me, bitch,” he whispered, “don’t you ever fucking forget it, bitch, you’re mine.”
She closed her tear-rimmed eyes and prayed to God for it to end soon.
Mercifully, Dexter climaxed after only a few minutes, spurting his warm fluids onto the back of her neck. He unlocked the handcuffs, and snatched the towel out of her mouth.
Shuddering, she kept her face turned away from him, squeezed her eyes shut.
“Look at me,” he said.
She wouldn’t. He could go to hell.
“Look at me!”
He grabbed her chin and forced her face toward him. She opened her eyes.
His nostrils flared. “Don’t ever think about fucking around on me again. Got that?”
She nodded. Her mouth was dry from the gag, and her throat burned from screaming.
He tossed a bath towel at her.
“Now get your ass back in the shower. We’ve gotta get ready for dinner.”
He walked out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.
It took at least a minute for her to drag herself up off the wet floor. Her entire right side throbbed, her wrists were chafed, and she had the painful need to urinate.
She would shower in a moment, but not because he had ordered her to—she would shower because she felt filthy. She wanted to scour her skin under hot water and scrub away his touch, his sweat, his disgusting fluids.
Taking the towel he had thrown onto her, she wiped the semen off the back of her neck, and almost collapsed onto the toilet seat.
When she let her bladder go, she cried out. It felt as if acid were streaming out of her.
She didn’t have to look in the toilet bowl to know that it contained blood.
A few minutes later, she flushed the toilet and grabbed the edge of the sink to help her stand. The vanity was cluttered with hotel toiletries, wrapped in glossy designer paper and embossed with the name of the resort.
She stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bulged and blood-red.
With a cry, she swept the toiletries into the sink.
She wasn’t on some scenic island resort with the man she loved, no matter the romantic stories she’d fabricated for her friends and family.
She was in hell, and Dexter was its crown prince.
34
That evening, Joshua returned to Tim’s shop to pick up Rachel’s computer and cell phone.
“Check out what the maestro’s done for you, dude,” Tim said. He slid the laptop across the counter toward Joshua.
Joshua flipped up the lid and hit the Power button. The computer beeped and launched into the boot-up cycle.
“What’s the password?” Joshua asked.
“We’re not there yet. Keep watching.”
Joshua expected to see the Windows log-on screen. But the computer bypassed it altogether and began to populate the display with familiar program icons: Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, Excel, and so on.
“Wow,” Joshua said.
“Applause, please.” Tim grinned and took a bow.
“You’re the man,” Joshua said. “How’d you do it?”
“Do you really wanna know? It’s pretty technical.”
“Never mind then.” He picked up the cell phone. “You worked the same magic on this?”
“Try it.”
Joshua turned on the phone. The small color screen flashed the logo of the cellular provider, and then, instead of prompting him for a pass code, depicted a screen saver of one of Rachel’s favorite beach photos. Icons for the Menu and Phone Book filled the bottom of the screen.
“I owe you big time,” Joshua said.
“Actually, it was kinda fun. I haven’t hacked in a while.” Tim nodded at the laptop. “The only files I accessed on the hard drive were the ones I needed to modify in order to get in. Everything else, I’ve left to you. Happy snooping, dude.”
On the drive back home, Joshua stopped by McDonald’s to grab dinner. He wasn’t actually hungry, but he needed to eat something to keep himself going. He’d been coasting all day on tense expectation.
When he stepped inside the house, the phone was ringing. He raced to it, heart in his throat, and stopped when he saw his parents’ number on Caller ID.
His mother had called him on his cell phone at least three times in the past couple of hours. He’d let the calls go to voice mail. He was in no mood to deal with her when he had so much other stuff going on.
But if avoided her any longer, she might show up, unannounced, at his front door. He answered the phone.
“Where you been, boy?” Mom said. “I been callin’ you for the last two hours! You was supposed to come over for dinner.”
“I never said I’d be over for dinner, Mom.”
“Yes, you did! When you rushed out this mornin’, you said you’d
be back for dinner.”
“I don’t remember that. But if I said it, I’m sorry. I already picked up something from McDonald’s.”
“McDonald’s? You done had me slavin’ in this kitchen all day and you done went and ate some junk food? What’s wrong with you?”
DON’T EVER TELL 197
Teeth clenched, he closed his eyes. It took every molecule of control in him to resist slamming the phone onto the cradle.
His mother was saying, “. . . fried up some chicken, cooked some macaroni-and-cheese, sweet potatoes, turnip greens... peach cobbler.”
“Okay, great. Sounds delicious. Make me a plate and I’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
“Chaquita ain’t gonna be here tomorrow!”
“Chaquita?”
“She came over here for dinner. She wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“Why you think? I told her that heifer walked out on you.”
“Jesus Christ, Mom, why’d you tell her that? That’s none of her business!”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. Chaquita ain’t never stopped lovin’ you. She wants to help you through all your troubles.”
“I don’t need her help.” He looked at his satchel on the kitchen table. “I’ve gotta go. A...a client is calling me with an emergency.”
“You better come by here tomorrow. Had me fix all this food for nuthin’...”
“I’ll stop by, promise. Bye.”
He hung up before she launched into another rant.
Someday he would have to deal with his mother’s overbearing manner and intrusions into his life. But it was easier to avoid her, or suffer her antics, than it was to confront her. He hated confrontations.
He took the laptop and cell phone out of his satchel, placed them on the table.
He realized that his tendency to avoid confrontations had landed him in this position: studying his wife’s possessions for clues as to her whereabouts and past. Early in their relationship, he should have pushed Rachel for full disclosure. He should have demanded the truth.
Because of his weakness, he was left alone to muddle through her life and piece clues together like an amateur sleuth.
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