by RM Johnson
Tim shut the car off and stepped outside.
He walked up the path and climbed the three steps up to the porch. He was about to ring the doorbell when he noticed that the door was ajar.
He nudged it open a little more and said, “Hey. Anyone in there?”
When no answer came, Tim pushed the door open all the way and walked into the hallway leading to the living room.
“Hello,” Tim said again. No answer.
He stepped into the living room and gasped. He almost choked from what he saw.
“No!” he cried when he saw his brother’s body lying across the sofa, his legs kicked out to the floor in front of him, covered in blood. As Tim ran to Nate, he saw Monica’s naked body by the bedroom, face down. He halted, not knowing who to check on first.
He forced himself to move, hurried to Nate, and dropped to his knees. Tim leaned over his brother and pressed an ear to his face, trying to determine if he was breathing. He couldn’t tell. Tim quickly slapped Nate a half dozen times across the cheek, trying to wake him.
“Nate. Nate! Please! Wake up!”
No response.
Tim whipped his head back and forth, as if looking for assistance. Where is Mrs. Weatherly? Where are the children? Are they in bed? Did they see this? Are they hiding in a closet? Were they victims? No! He could not think like that now.
Tim dug into his pocket, yanked out his cell, stabbed 911, pushed Speaker, then dropped the open phone to the floor. As it rang, Tim pulled his brother’s body from the sofa, laying him flat across the carpet. Tears spilling from his eyes, he tilted his brother’s head back, pinched his nose closed, opened his mouth, and blew heavily two times into Nate’s mouth.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” a voice asked from the phone.
Tim was centering his interlaced hands on Nate’s sternum, preparing to start heart compressions, when he yelled, “Please, please!” Tears were falling from his face. “My brother and his wife have been shot. Please send an ambulance now!”
6
Freddy’s right hand rested on the open trunk lid as he looked down sadly into the cramped compartment. In it was the boy he had taken from Mr. Kenny’s house about an hour ago. Freddy looked up at the house he was parked in front of.
It was the huge brick house with the long front yard that Kia’s father owned.
About an hour ago, Freddy had thrown the boy in the front seat with him, the boy wailing, tears practically squirting from his eyes. Freddy had to decide where he would go, what he would do.
“Would you just shut up?” he’d yelled. “Just for one minute. Shut up!”
Freddy had been parked in front of Kenny’s mansion, still surprised that he saw no police lights in his rearview. He sank the key in the ignition, deciding he had to go home. He had to tell his mother that he had done something bad, and that he wouldn’t be seeing her for a while.
Freddy threw the car in gear and slowly pulled from the curb.
But he needed to make a detour. He had to see his girl, warn her about what was coming. He pulled off into a dark alley, left the car running. Tears had stopped flowing from the boy’s eyes, but he was still making crying noises, his chest heaving as he took deep breaths. Freddy climbed out of his seat, quickly crossed in front of the car, threw open the passenger door, and snatched the boy. Luckily, there was a roll of old duct tape in the trunk of the car, which Freddy used to cinch the boy’s ankles, fasten his wrists behind his back, and tape his mouth shut.
Afterward, he hoisted the child up and lowered him into the trunk.
Freddy had driven on to Kia’s house, jumped out of the car, and had just now opened the trunk to see the boy still squirming around, but not as much as before.
The boy’s eyes were wide with fright.
“Don’t worry, kid. I know you scared. But I ain’t gonna hurt you. Just chill right here a little longer, and I’ll be right back.”
Freddy shut the trunk, heard the boy moving around in the car, heard his faint moans as he walked toward the house. Freddy guessed that at this time of night Kia would be home. But there was a good chance her father would be, too. The man hated Freddy. Called him every derogatory name in the book. He was the one who had pushed Kia to have an abortion. She had never listened to him before. Kia had loved Freddy then, trusted him, knew that he’d make something of himself. But after Freddy betrayed Lewis, all of Kia’s hope and love seemed lost.
Freddy swallowed hard, patted his unruly hair down, and wished that he didn’t look like a bum at this moment. If Kia’s father came to the door, Freddy would simply tell him that he needed desperately to talk to his daughter. If he would not allow that, Freddy would politely ask him one more time. And if the man still wouldn’t budge, Freddy had already killed two people tonight, what difference would one more really make? He saw the curtain sway back behind the small square of window in the door. Someone peeked out, but Freddy could not tell who. He heard the locks on the door come undone, and then the big wooden door swung open. Thankfully, it was Kia that Freddy saw standing behind the screened security door. She was as beautiful as ever. She seemed to have lost weight, but she didn’t look unhealthy.
Freddy smiled sadly, knowing that she had already gone on with her life without him.
Kia did not look happy to see him. “What are you doing here, Freddy? You know my father—”
“I don’t give a fuck about—” Freddy stopped, shook his head, waved his hands. “I’m sorry. Look. I just needed to talk to you for a minute. Can you open the door, or at least come out on the porch?”
“No, Freddy. You got something to say, just say it.”
Freddy looked into Kia’s eyes, and asked himself how the two of them had gotten here. This woman used to love him. They were going to have a baby, spend the rest of their lives together. “You know that’s all I ever wanted, right?” Freddy said.
“What are you talking about?”
“All I ever wanted was to be married to someone I loved, have a kid or two, and be a better father than my old man was to me.”
Kia didn’t respond, just looked at Freddy with little compassion.
“But all that’s gone now,” Freddy said. “That wasn’t my fault. Somebody else is to blame for that. You know that ’cause I told you. I told you, right?”
“Yes, Freddy. You told me,” Kia said, losing her patience.
Freddy looked down at his dirty sneakers, then up again. He turned, looked out on the street. It was such a quiet, beautiful warm night. He caught sight of his car, envisioned the boy inside, and forced himself to come out with his admission.
“I took care of that, though. That man who was blackmailing me, I took care of that.”
That got Kia’s attention. Her face filled with concern. She pressed closer to the door. “What are you talking about, you took care of that?”
“I just did. And I had to come by here and tell you that, because you’re gonna be hearing about it. I don’t know when, but you’re gonna be hearing. And I didn’t want you to think that I did it for nothing. That I’m just evil or something.”
“Did what, Freddy?” Kia said, raising her voice.
“I did it because I love you. I loved our baby, and …” Freddy choked up a little, almost unable to finish. “I knew if it wasn’t for him, we would still be together. But we ain’t. And he had to pay.”
“Freddy,” Kia said. “You’re scaring me. Please just—”
“Kia,” Freddy stopped her, his palm up. “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. But when you find out what I did, try to remember me the way you saw me when you still loved me, when you was gonna have my baby and we were gonna be a family. Okay?”
Kia’s fingers were latched onto the door. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, and as two tears slid down her cheeks, she said, “Okay.”
7
“Moms,” Freddy called, his voice a whisper. When she didn’t respond, he called again, giving her a gentle shake. “Moms!”
Freddy was standing over his mother’s twin bed. It was one of two small beds that sat in the small guest bedroom in Uncle Henry’s house.
His mother stirred, then slowly opened her eyes, squinting a bit at the bright light from the TV. “Fred, what’s wrong? Is everything all right?”
“I ain’t got much time to talk, Moms, so I just need to say what I gotta say.”
“What is it?” his mother said, worry now on her face. She propped herself up on an elbow.
Freddy sat down beside her, taking her hand.
“Moms, I did something. Something I’m gonna be in trouble for.”
Freddy heard his mother sigh deeply, dreadfully. “Freddy, no.”
“Moms, I know all I’ve been is trouble to you. I’m the reason why Pops is gone, the reason why we’ve been poor all our lives.
All I was trying to do was make things better, fix what I had messed up. And I was gonna do it, too. You know I had gotten that real estate license.”
“I know, Fred,” his mother said sympathetically.
“But that man. He lied to me. He said he was gonna give us that new house if I just …” Freddy ground his teeth, frowned, turned away from his mother a moment. When he turned back, he squeezed his mother’s hand and said, “But he didn’t. He lied to me. He got us living up in here. The two of us in this little room. And then my child is gone.”
“Freddy, please say you didn’t—” his mother said, drawing close to him, placing a hand on his back.
“I’m sorry, Moms, but I did what needed to be done … what that man deserved.”
“What did you do, Freddy?” Tears came to his mother’s eyes, falling one after the other. “What?”
Freddy didn’t speak at first, then said, “I don’t know if nobody knows yet, but it’s gonna get out. And when it does, they … the police gonna come looking for me.”
Freddy’s mother lowered her head, brought her hands to her face, sobbing. He reached out to her shoulder.
“Moms, I’m sorry, but I ain’t going to jail for this. I wasn’t wrong about this, and I ain’t going to jail for it. So I’m leaving. I’m going—”
His mother grabbed Freddy’s arm. She looked up at him and said, “Don’t. If they ask me where you are, I don’t want to lie when I tell them I don’t know.”
8
Four hours later, the sound came from far away, as if from down a long tunnel, echoing.
Beep! Then a pause. Beep! Pause. Beep!
Everything was black, but Nate was aware of himself—the weight of his body, the pain in his chest, his gut, his thigh. His leg throbbed. He thought he moved it, but didn’t know for sure. He tried to wiggle the toes on that foot, but he was still in darkness, still unaware if he was awake—he could not tell if he was successful. He felt more of his body. He tried to move his left arm, his hand. He felt his fingertips graze over cold linen. Then he heard a voice. It was distant, but Nate heard it.
“He moved. I think I saw him move his hand!”
That sounded like his brother, Tim, Nate thought, but he still could not open his eyes. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if he was—
“Nate. Can you hear me?”
Tim’s voice was louder now, as if he were leaning right over Nate, his mouth practically to Nate’s ear. “Nate, if you can hear me, open your eyes.”
“I don’t think he can hear you,” Nate heard another man say. He was not familiar with that voice.
“Wake up, Nate,” Tim’s voice pleaded.
Nate felt his eyelids now. He slowly raised them. All he could see was white space, and three dark fuzzy images standing somewhere in the near distance. Nate didn’t know where he was, what had happened. With effort, he blinked four times, bringing into focus his brother and two men standing on either side of him wearing suits. Badges were clipped to their suit pockets. Nate saw a smile spread across Tim’s face.
“Nate, how you feelin’?” Tim said.
Nate wondered who the men were. He slowly turned his head from side to side on the pillow, looking around the room. “Where am I?”
But before Tim even had a chance to answer him, all that had happened rushed back to Nate’s memory. Freddy marching Nate into the living room, the gun going off, the sizzling metal tearing through his flesh, Monica falling to the floor, his son’s scream, then blackness. Horror immediately covered his face and seized his body. Nate latched onto his brother’s wrist. His throat painfully dry, Nate begged, “Where’s Monica? Where’s Nathaniel and Layla?”
“Mr. Kenny,” one of the other men said. He had a goatee, was broad-shouldered, and was the shorter of the two. “My name is Detective Davis. This is my partner, Detective Martins.” A shaved-headed, medium-brown-skinned man stood on the other side of Tim. “We’re investigating this case. Can you tell me who shot you?”
“Where’s Monica?” Nate said to Tim.
“Nate,” Tim said, holding firmly to his brother’s hand now. “I want you to calm—”
“Mr. Kenny,” Davis interrupted. “If I could just ask you—”
“I want to know where my wife is, where my son is!” Nate yelled as loud as his weakened lungs would allow. He coughed behind the pain in his throat. The image of Monica falling to the floor kept replaying mercilessly in his head. “Where is my wife?”
“She was shot, Nate,” Tim said. “In the head.”
“I know that,” Nate said, his voice a whisper now. “Is she—”
“No. I found the two of you, called for an ambulance. They brought you both here, did surgery.” Tim tightened his grip a little, smiled as best he could. “Nate, you’re gonna be fine. The doctor said—”
“I want to know how Monica’s going to be,” Nate insisted.
“She’s in a coma, Nate. They don’t know when she’s going to wake up.”
Nate jerked forward in bed, trying to get up. Only then did he became aware of the hard plastic oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, and the countless tubes inserted into his arms. Tim eased him back onto his pillow.
“I need to see her.”
“There will be time for that. She’s just down the hall. But now you need to get your rest.”
Nate let his head fall to the side, feeling helpless.
“Can we ask you a few questions now, Mr. Kenny?” the clean-shaven man, Detective Martins, asked.
“Where’s Nathaniel and Layla?” Nate said, ignoring the detective’s question. “Layla was napping. But I know before I blacked out I heard Nathaniel calling me. Did you bring him here?”
Tim didn’t answer, but Nate could tell by the pained look in his brother’s eyes that something was terribly wrong.
“Tim, where’s Nathaniel?”
“They found Layla still sleeping upstairs. But Nathaniel … he wasn’t there, Nate.”
“What do you mean, he wasn’t there? Where is he? Does Mrs. Weatherly have him?”
“No.”
“Was the entire …” Nate gasped, out of breath. “Was the entire house checked?”
“Yes.”
“Did he wander off?”
“He could’ve,” Tim answered sadly. “But they don’t think so.”
“We believe,” said Detective Davis, stepping forward, “that he was taken by whoever shot you and your wife, Mr. Kenny. Now, if you could help us find out who that was, we can start looking for your son.”
Nate looked up at the ceiling, locking his jaw, trying to fight back the single tear that defiantly rolled down the side of his face.
“Can you give us a description of the—”
“I know who it was,” Nate said, still looking upward.
“Who?”
“Freddy Ford.” Nate paused, rage in his eyes. “The man’s name is Freddy Ford.”
9
Freddy had been on the road for four hours since he had left his uncle’s house. He sipped from a bottle of Coke he had just bought from some hick-town gas station five minutes back. Now he was driving down a dark two-lane road,
looking for his way back to the interstate. He looked into the rearview mirror at the boy.
He had no idea what he was going to do with him. But Freddy had to admit, he was a good-looking boy, and he always had wanted a son.
Freddy blindly reached for his cell phone in the passenger seat and flipped it open. One eye on the dark road before him, one eye on the phone, he scrolled through the directory and stopped on the name JONI.
He punched Talk, and waited while the phone rang.
Freddy glanced at the clock on his radio: 4:13 A.M.
It was very early in the morning, but if he remembered Joni correctly, she probably hadn’t even gone to bed yet.
“Hello,” Freddy heard a voice answer.
“Joni. This is Freddy.”
“Do you know what time it is?” Her voice was sweet, like music. “I haven’t heard from you in damn near a year, and you call me at—”
“Were you asleep?” Freddy asked.
“No.”
“Then why you bitchin’?” Freddy smiled a little to himself.
“Because I was watchin’ a DVD, and you interruptin’ the best part. I should hang up on your ass.”
“Don’t,” Freddy said, the smile disappearing. “I need to come to Atlanta, stay with you awhile.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“You in trouble again?”
Freddy paused a long moment. “What if I said I was?”
“Then I’d say ain’t shit changed, and come on down. I miss you,” Joni said, laughing.
Freddy let her have her moment, then after she quieted he said, “This time it’s serious.”
“Whatever, Freddy,” Joni said in a way that made Freddy know she had his back regardless. “Get here when you get here. I’ll be waiting.”
“Cool,” Freddy said, disconnecting the call. Just then he saw the blue/red flash of police lights in his rearview mirror.
“Fuck!” he said, slowing the car and easing it toward the shoulder. Before he came to a halt, he leaned over, unlatched the glove box. Freddy grabbed his gun. He set it down near his hip, covering it with his right hand.