“Old woman.” Topps grinned wickedly. “You must have a death wish. You obviously don’t know me well.”
“I know enough to know that you might be their father, but your name is not on their birth certificates. I know that you’re not legally married to my daughter, and you have no legal right to the children. I also know that if you don’t get off my property, I’ll call the police.”
“Oh, so it’s like that, huh?” Topps regained his composure, straightened his navy blue jersey. Angry muscles in his face twitched. “I’ll leave once I get my kids.”
“Someone bring me my cordless phone!” Hattie yelled over her shoulders. “So what’s it gonna be, Mr. Big Shot, you leaving or the police coming?”
Raynita ran back into the room with the cordless phone. “Here, Nanny.” Crying, she ran back out. Seeing the fear in Raynita’s face reinforced her refusal to turn them over to Topps.
Hattie took the receiver and prepared to dial 911. “Like I said, legally, you don’t have a right to these kids. Being a sperm donor don’t make you a father.”
“Is that right?” Topps smirked.
“Last chance. Get the hell off my porch.”
His grin turned into a laugh. “Crazy old woman. You crazier than a muthafucker, you know that? I see where Neema gets her stubborn streak from.”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll get off your damn porch alright, but this shit ain’t over,” he said, removing a packet of Fresh Wipes from his pocket to clean more germs from his hands. “You can count on it.”
“That’s between you and Neema Jean.”
“Crazy bitch.” Topps turned to leave, then stopped and looked back in her direction. “You know what they say, old woman. You play with fire, you bound to get burned.”
“If that’s supposed to scare me, you’re wasting your breath. What I fear is the wrath of God. Now, you get off my property and stay off! Your kind is not welcome.” She stood and watched Topps walk back to his chromed-out, black Denali, get in and drive off.
“Nanny, you make me sick! I wanted to go with my daddy. I don’t wanna stay here.” Brandon walked off to the bedroom and slammed the door.
“You can tell all that to your mother,” Hattie yelled behind him. Finally, she could exhale. She felt lightheaded. She had stood up to Topps Jackson saying that she wasn’t afraid, but the thin stream of urine running down her leg indicated it had all been a facade. Even her hands were still trembling.
EIGHTEEN
“You should call the police this time, Mama. Maybe something happened to her.”
“Myra, how many times I have to tell you, I refuse to traumatize these kids by getting the police involved.”
“Yeah, well, Neema promised she would come for ’em last night and she didn’t show. That was yesterday and it’s almost midnight now. I hardly think that she’ll be showing up this time of night.”
“I know, I know.” Hattie took the phone from one ear and placed it to her other. After cleaning the kitchen and taking her shower, she had been relaxing on her bed and talking to Myra on the phone for the last hour. Despite her eldest daughter being a know-it-all most times, she could also be a source of comfort. At first she’d felt guilty about calling to Victorville so late, but worry over Neema had gotten the best of her. She had to talk to someone. “You know that child, she’s full of surprises. Probably off somewhere having fun and not thinking about Nita or Brandon. I used to be young and I know how it is.”
“Mama, how many times are you going to keep falling for this little stunt of hers? Calling Protective Services is the best way to teach Neema a lesson.”
“Myra, if these were your kids, would you want me calling the police or Children’s Services?”
There was pause. “No.”
“Don’t you think your sister should be treated the same? I called to see if you knew of any of her friends I could try calling. Maybe one of her friends might know where she is.”
“Mama, you know Neema and I don’t have it like that. We’re sisters, but not what you would call best friends.”
“Yeah, I know, and it’s sad when you stop and think about it. You were always so protective of her.”
“Humph. That was years back. Not my fault she chose that lifestyle. I used to try to talk some sense into that girl when we were younger, but she knew what she wanted. Money. Men with money. More money. That fast and wild life. Maybe she got it from Daddy’s side of the family.”
Hattie reprimanded, “You leave your father out of this.”
“I’m merely saying that her wild ways had to come from somebody’s side of the family.”
“I’m so afraid for her. I keep thinking my phone will ring one night and some officer will be telling me to come down to the morgue and identify her body. I pray for her all the time…I’m so…” She heard a loud crash from somewhere in the house. “What the…what the heck was that?”
“Mama? What is it?”
“I don’t know. I heard something loud like glass breaking. Let me go and see what’s going on. Maybe one of the kids got up for some water and dropped a glass. I’ll call you back.”
“Mama, don’t hang up…”
Too late. Hattie pressed the off button and tossed the phone on the bed. She got up and slipped into her robe, then her slippers. It was still dark through her long hallway, but at the end she could see a flicker of glowing light. “What in the world…Nita, is that you? Brandon?”
Hattie rounded the corner from her hallway leading into her living room where the large front window was crashed in by a broken bottle. “Ohmygawd, fire!” First instincts had her stomping at flames on her rug, but her efforts were useless. Spilled liquid from the broken bottle led a flaming path to her living room drapes. The sound of popping and crackling material echoed in the room. “Brandon! Nita!” She ran to her kitchen for a bucket to fill with water. Finding one she ran back into the living room and tossed a useless splash of water that seemed to make the fire worse. Flames on a window joined force with drapery. She screamed for the children, “Brandon! Raynita!”
Running to her back door, she tried pulling her water hose through the house, but once outside Hattie could see that the knob was off the outside faucet. It was her doing to keep the kids from turning on the water and playing in it. She couldn’t find where she had placed the knob. She ran back to the living room where to her horror the fire had spread considerably. The thought of trying to extinguish it was futile.
“Ohmygawd, Lord help!” To heck with trying to put the fire out. Getting the kids up and out was her best bet. She ran into the bedroom to see if her shouting had awakened the children, but it hadn’t. Their angelic bodies lay in total peace, sleeping in twin beds while the front of the house was filling up with smoke.
Hattie shook them both roughly. “Nita! Brandon! Get up! Get up now. Wake up, I said!”
“Nanny, no. I’m sleepy. I don’t wanna get up. We going to school?”
“Nita, do as I say. We don’t have a lot of time. Get up, let’s go!”
“Did my daddy come back for me?” Brandon wanted to know, trying to rub sleep from his eyes.
If she wasn’t so busy trying to get them out of the house and to a safe place, she would have swatted his behind a few times for even asking such a foolish thing. “We don’t have time for questions. We have to leave this house.”
“I don’t wanna go to Daddy’s house, Nanny.”
“Nita, don’t worry about that right now. Hurry up, get your stuff. Get what you can, we have to go.”
“Go where?”
“Nita, girl, please stop asking questions and just do what I say! Hurry up now.” Just like children are inclined to do, the two grumbled and complained. It didn’t stop Hattie from finding some shoes for them to slip on. She snatched blankets from the twin beds and wrapped them around their shoulders. “Let’s go, let’s go!” They grabbed their backpacks and followed Hattie to the bedroom window where she pushed the screen out and climbed o
ut first to help Raynita and Brandon. It was the same window she hadn’t gotten around to having security bars put on. The three migrated through the side gate that led to the front of the house.
“Nanny, how come your house is on fire?”
“I’m not sure myself, Nita. I need a phone. Brandon, you have your cell phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me have it.” Hattie all but snatched it from his hands. She called 911 for a fire truck, realizing that she should have done this first thing. Then she called Myra back to let her know what was going on. To keep the kids from hearing her words, she walked them to her car parked in front of the house. “You guys wait in here.” She was able to let the kids inside the car because she rarely locked it. The car needed some engine work and hadn’t been driven for weeks. “I’m not going far. I’m right over here.” Hattie closed the car door and walked a few feet away. “He tried to kill us,” she said when Myra picked up on the opposite end.
“Mama, who? What’s going on?”
“The kids’ father, Topps. He tried to kill us!”
“What? Why? I mean, how?”
Hattie rattled off the earlier events of the day—how Topps had left her place angry because she wouldn’t turn the kids over to him. “He even made a threat about fire before he left. It had to be him. Said somethin’ ’bout if you play with fire you get burned. Those were his last words: ‘If you play with fire’!”
“Yeah, Mama, but wouldn’t him doing something like that endanger his own kids?”
“Hell, yes it would!” Hattie stomped her foot for emphasis. “Obviously, a man like that don’t care. Lord, have mercy, this is unbelievable. The front of my house is almost gone. He burned my house!”
“I’m driving down now!”
“Myra, no. Don’t make that drive. You’re too far away and it’s not safe at night. B’sides, it’s nothing you can do to help right now. No sense in you driving for over an hour to get here.”
“Mama, are you sure? I can wake Glen up and he can drive us.”
“No. Don’t do that. We’re safe right now. No one got hurt. I’ll call you again when I know more.”
“Are you sure? It’s no problem for us to drive down. What will you do? Where will you sleep tonight?”
“I’m positive. You stay put for now. I’ll work something out.” Myra’s drive from the high desert would take an hour and a half, and with the possibility of running into thick fog coming down the Cajon Pass, Hattie felt the trip would be safer in daylight. “A fire truck just pulled up. I’ll call you in the morning. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine. I’ll see about getting a hotel room for tonight.”
Lights went on in surrounding homes. Nosey and concerned neighbors began gathering in front of her burning house, causing problems for the fire crew members trying to do their job. Soon a flurry of activity was in full swing. Standing there watching, Hattie had never felt so hopeless. What kind of person could do something this awful with young children in the house?
“You poor thing. Are you okay? What happened?”
Hattie followed the sound of the voice. It was Mrs. Sweeney, her next-door neighbor. The elderly widow had a right to inquire, seeing how her house was so close and could be next. “I’m not sure, but I believe it was something electrical.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell the gray-haired woman that the father of her own grandchildren had thrown a flaming cocktail through her large front window. The thought of her smoke alarms not sounding off popped into her head. For months she had been meaning to replace the batteries in the alarms but hadn’t gotten around to doing it.
“Anyone hurt?” Mrs. Sweeney had on her pink housecoat and some fuzzy slippers. Her hair was a mess. Her dark, rheumy eyes flashed true concern.
“No. Praise God for that.” Hattie rubbed her goose-bumped arms and looked over at the car where the kids sat to get out of the night cold. She didn’t mind Mrs. Sweeney asking questions. The two weren’t the best of friends, but after Mr. Sweeney passed away two years back, Hattie found herself doing a few things for the widow. She had picked up her groceries and had driven the forgetful woman to her doctor’s appointments. Twice, she’d even taken the woman to church when Mrs. Sweeney’s car was down for repairs. Just like herself, Mrs. Sweeney was a God-fearing woman and quite friendly. “I’m grateful I was still awake to get everybody out in time.”
“Ain’t no telling what all can go wrong with these old houses.” Mrs. Sweeney shook her head. “I doubt if any of ’em are up to code.”
“Excuse me. Let me check on the kids.” Hattie went over and opened her car door. “You two okay?”
Nita rubbed her eyes. “Nanny, what happened to your house?”
“That’s what they’re trying to find out, sweetie.” Hattie was positive that a Molotov cocktail had crashed through the front window, and she was certain that Topps Jackson was the culprit. Topps’ earlier threat of “if you play with fire, you get burnt” kept circulating in her head. Who else would do such a thing?
“We don’t have a place to sleep?” Brandon asked. He didn’t seem particularly upset over the house burning. “We can call my daddy to come pick us up.”
“Brandon, so help me, if you mention one more thing about…”
“Hattie, sweetie,” said Mrs. Sweeney, sauntering in her nightclothes over to the car. “I doubt that you and the cheeren’ can sleep in that house tonight. Y’all welcome to stay with me until you figure things out.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Sweeney. I really appreciate that.”
“You welcome. Looks like they got the fire out. I’ma go on home and start some tea. Y’all come on over when y’all ready, or the kids can come with me now if you want.”
Brandon looked like he wanted to protest, but Hattie was quick to give him a little pinch as she helped them out the car. “You two go with Mrs. Sweeney here. I’ll be over as soon as the firemen get finished. I’ll hold on to your cell phone, Brandon. Go on now.”
“Don’t worry. Everything will be okay. I have some hot chocolate also,” Mrs. Sweeney volunteered as she hugged the kids by the shoulders and guided them toward her house. “Y’all like hot chocolate?”
“I like hot chocolate and cookies,” Nita chirped happily.
Brandon was tightlipped.
Firemen were all over the place, working around gawking neighbors. Hattie flipped Brandon’s phone open and searched the phone listings for Topps’ number. She was glad the kids weren’t around to hear the tongue-lashing she was going to give him. Then the phone rang. It scared her for a second or two. “Hello?”
“Mama? Is the fire out? What’s going on?”
“How’d you get this number?” It was Myra.
“Caller ID.”
“Oh yeah. I keep forgetting how that works. They got the fire out. It burned most of the front of the house, but with the water damage and smoke fumes, I doubt if we can sleep in it tonight.”
“Can you afford a hotel room for tonight?”
“Without my ATM card, credit card, or driver’s license, I doubt it. They won’t let me back into the house tonight, but my neighbor offered us beds at her place. You remember ole Mrs. Sweeney to the left of me? That’s where we’ll be.”
“This is awful.”
“I know,” Hattie agreed, “but it could have been so much worse. Thank the good Lord no one was hurt. I’ll try to locate my insurance papers in the morning. I’m so glad I kept those papers in a fireproof safe.”
“Still haven’t heard from Neema yet?”
“Not a peep, but anyway, we’ll talk tomorrow when you get here. Don’t worry ’bout us; we’ll be fine.” Hattie clicked off and continued to peruse the list. A number for Neema’s new phone was listed. She tried the number but got no answer. Where the heck could Neema Jean possibly be? She tried the number listed as “Daddy.” Hattie let the phone ring ten times before she ended the connection.
“Excuse me, ma’am, are you the owner of the home?” a burly, red-faced man walked u
p and asked. He smelled loud of smoke and burned wood.
“Yes, I am.” Hattie shoved the phone in her pocket and pulled her robe belt tighter.
“Do you have any idea of what might have caused the fire?” the fireman asked. His expression and tone was suspicious.
“Someone threw something flammable through my front window; that’s what happened. Good thing I wasn’t asleep yet.”
“Someone?”
“His name is Topps Jackson.” She hadn’t seen him do the crime, but who else had a motive?
“Maybe you need to speak to one of the officers on site and make a report.”
Hattie set her jaw to firm. “Without a doubt, I need to do that.” She planned to tell everything. Heck, if she had Topps’ address she’d give that to the police as well. The fireman continued to talk, but Hattie wasn’t listening. Instead, her attention was drawn away to the midnight-black Denali that had stopped in front of her house. The chromed-out vehicle had tinted windows and twenty-one-inch wheels. It was the same vehicle she’d seen Topps drive up in earlier.
“A damn monster! That’s what you are!” She couldn’t see the driver through the dark windows, but she didn’t have to see to determine his identity. She recognized that a monster was looking back at her.
The vehicle’s horn sounded twice before driving off.
NINETEEN
“Mama, be careful.”
“I will, but I have to find the insurance papers.” Hattie took careful steps, making her way to her bedroom closet where she kept her fireproof safe with other important documents. Once she unlocked the safe, she found a few hundred dollars left from the money that Neema had given her. “Thank goodness. I forgot all about this money.” She put the bills in her bosom and found the papers. Now she could call the insurance people and start the process.
“Wonder how long it’ll take to rebuild.”
“I have no idea.” Myra made a face. “What we need to focus on is finding Neema’s no-good ass to come pick her brats up. You have enough to deal with.”
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