“I thought you had more to do there,” Jacob said. “And it was one thing after another, one more thing to wait for.”
“Crazy,” Jill shook her head. “Sandwich? Soup? Salad? What sounds good?”
“You?” Jacob smiled. She hugged him.
“I thought Jim was coming,” Jill said.
“Jim came and went,” Jacob said. “I’ve never seen a team put in windows so fast. They put them in, added the extra pane to support and protect the new windows, and were gone in less than a half hour.”
“I’ll call Rosa and ask her to clean,” Jill said.
“Rosa was waiting for me in the kitchen,” Jacob said. “Delphie called. Told her that I needed her help. She’s cleaning the chapel right now and . . . ”
“MJ and Honey’s home,” Jill said. “We’re done with that too?”
“By tonight,” Jacob said. “I just have to put the showerheads on.”
“Wow,” Jill said. “They’ll be thrilled.”
“Rosa’s cleaning there too,” Jacob said. “I asked her to put sheets on the beds and towels. They should be able to sleep there tonight.”
“Just in time for their baby,” Jill said. “That was really nice of you.”
“I figured it was my mom who made it work out.”
“Well, you did the work.”
“I’m merely a slave to the women in my life,” Jacob bowed and Jill laughed. “You seem less miserable.”
“One week down, seven to go,” she said. “Plus, there’ll be a wedding tonight.”
“God, I hope so,” Jacob said.
“How about lunch?” Jill asked.
“Sure,” Jacob said.
Jill easily made sandwiches and fruit. He carried them out to the small patio off their bathroom which overlooked the garden. For the next hour or so, they had lunch and enjoyed the day.
~~~~~~~~
Friday mid-day — 12:45 p.m.
“And Tanesha, Mrs. Smith?” Samantha broke the silence. “What does she think?”
“She doesn’t blame me for what happened,” Yvonne’s lovely face flushed with emotion and her eyes welled with tears. “She’s . . . my Tanni, she’s . . . ”
Yvonne fell silent while she sniffled. While she was upset about Tanesha, and did think she was an amazing child, Tanesha would kill her for fussing like this in front of strangers.
“Wait,” one of the young women said. “You’re Yvonne Smith. Is your daughter Tanesha Smith?”
“That’s right,” Yvonne said. “I call her Tanni but I’m the only one who does. Do you know my daughter?”
Smiling, Yvonne dared to look in the woman’s face for the first time. The young woman glanced at the woman seated next to her.
“Is she married to Jeraine Wilson?” the other woman asked.
“That’s right,” Yvonne said.
The women glanced at each other.
“So she’s Misty?” the first woman asked.
“Her Daddy called her ‘Miss T’ when she was a baby,” Yvonne said. “Jeraine, why he’s my friend Dionne’s baby. He used to touch my belly and say, ‘I can’t wait until your baby is born.’ Her Daddy would say, ‘Why is that?’ Jeraine would say, ‘Cuz she’s gonna be my best friend.’ Gosh, Jeraine must have been three years old.”
Yvonne laughed.
“He was the cutest child,” Yvonne said.
“But now,” the woman said. “Is she Miss T now?”
“Oh,” Yvonne said. “I don’t know. I don’t remember things very well now. I hurt myself to get Mr. Alvin to stop raping Tanni and . . . ”
The young man made an unconscious click of his tongue. He fell back in his chair and looked away. Yvonne could almost feel the intensity of the look the agent gave the young man. She didn’t want the young man to suspect her game so she clammed up.
“How do you remember now?” The second woman’s voice was snide.
“My husband wrote it on the inside of my hand in marker,” Yvonne opened her left hand so the woman could see. “It says, ‘I love you. Tanni’s married to Jer. You’re finally home.’ And on my ring finger it says, ‘We’re getting married tomorrow.’ So many words he had to write on the sides too. See.”
Yvonne held up her hand.
“I’d recognize Rodney’s handwriting anywhere,” Yvonne said. “He learned from my Aunt NeNe. We were so poor . . . Oh Lord, we didn’t have school or running water. Dirt floors and an outhouse, if you were lucky. Aunt NeNe was from the city. She taught us to read, write, type, and to think.”
Yvonne chuckled. She was pretty sure she’d won the young man and had the girls on the hook. She had to set it. Yvonne sighed.
“Rodney, that’s my husband, he’s a lot older than me. Five or six years. I guess now that I’m in my forties, it’s not so much older, but he always seemed o-l-d to me.” Yvonne smiled. “His momma was the only thing close to medical in our area. She helped give birth to me and Rodney was there. That’s how we met, in case you were wondering.
“We lived out on the fields. His daddy share cropped the farm where we lived and the one next to it. My aunt had an arrangement with the man who owned the fields. She did his bookkeeping in exchange for letting us live there. We also processed some of the food and took care of the livestock. Gosh, from the time I was one or two years old, I was collecting eggs, washing cucumbers, packing potatoes into boxes, milking goats . . . That was our life.”
“Of course, the best part about it was Rodney,” Yvonne said. “He and his sisters worked at our house while his older brothers and his daddy worked the farm. He was the youngest and his mother’s favorite. She convinced his daddy that Rodney was a weak, sickly child, who wouldn’t amount to much.”
Samantha and the agent laughed.
“I know,” Yvonne beamed at the young people. “You should see my husband. He’s tall, taller than the agent there, big . . . ”
Yvonne used her hands to indicate his muscles.
“His hands are as big as basketballs,” the agent said.
“That too,” Yvonne said. “And he’s smart. Really smart. Aunt NeNe taught him to read behind his daddy’s back. He read every book in our house. Aunt NeNe would barter for books for him. I’d sneak them to him. He . . . ”
Yvonne’s face radiated with joy.
“He’s amazing,” Samantha said. “My dad had him over for dinner when he was first out of prison. He and my dad talked until the morning about life, justice, the prison system . . . He left a big impression on my father and he’s hard to impress.”
“We met the General and your Mom a few times when I worked for the DA,” Yvonne said. “Nice people.”
“What I can’t get over is how Rodney isn’t mad about Aaron Alvin sending him to prison,” Samantha tried her hand at Yvonne’s game. Yvonne smiled to encourage her. “I’d be furious.”
“Rodney’s not like that. He’s . . . ” Yvonne’s entire face broke into a smile that seemed to light up the room. “The best person in the whole wide world. He could always make the very worst thing seem beautiful. When I was four or five, the owner of our house gave me seven chicks to raise. I loved those chicks, played with them, named them, fussed over them, fed them, and then one day . . . ”
Yvonne glanced up to see if she had the young people’s attention. Seeing their interest, she sighed.
“They were fryers,” she said. “Aunt NeNe told me they were fryers but I didn’t know what that meant. My chickens were rounded up and killed. I was so upset I ran and hid. I cried for hours until Rodney found me. He didn’t belittle my feelings or tell me to grow up. He told me I had given the chickens the sacred gift of my love and they could in turn pass my gift along. So by loving even one chicken as much as I did, I was passing love to all the people who benefited from her. He told me that I loved because I was a loving person and that I was the best kind of person, a rare precious jewel.”
Yvonne nodded.
“Those words,” Yvonne said. “They’ve meant a lot to me in the
last years. They helped me turn horrible days and nights into bearable survival. I loved because that’s who I am and I had to believe that my actions would help others even if I didn’t know it.”
When she looked up, she saw that she had the young people’s full attention. Samantha’s mouth had dropped open a little. Yvonne gave her a little nod.
“From that moment forward, all I ever wanted was to be married to him,” Yvonne smiled. “Him too. He told me he wanted me to be in his life forever. Kind of silly, I guess, but that’s when we decided to get married. Because I was living with Aunt NeNe and my momma was raped, I didn’t have anyone to sign to let us get married early. We had to wait until it was legal for me. We got married at the courthouse and took to the road. Rodney got into Metro College and my momma was here.”
Yvonne’s flushed with emotion and she smiled to herself.
“It was a pretty exciting time,” she said.
“You waited two years to have Tanesha?” Samantha asked.
“We didn’t want to be too poor. I mean, we knew poverty. We didn’t want Tanni to know it like we did,” Yvonne said. “Rodney had finished two years in school and I’d been working for the DA about as long. We bought this cute little house caddy-corner to my momma’s house. We were so, so, so happy.”
Her words hung over the room. She glanced at the young people. They looked like they were working out what happened. Yvonne was afraid to move or she’d break the spell.
“I saw that interview,” the young woman nearest to her said. “You know the one with Tanesha and Jeraine?”
Yvonne shook her head.
“Tanesha and Jeraine were interviewed by Diana Sawyer,” Samantha said.
“I wasn’t allowed a television or a phone or a computer,” Yvonne said. “I didn’t see it.”
“I bet we can find you a copy.”
The young man pulled Samantha’s laptop from under the table and opened it up. He typed for a while and then turned the computer so everyone could see.
“Look! That’s Tanni!” Yvonne said. “That’s Jeraine!”
“Shh . . . ” Samantha shushed her.
Yvonne leaned forward. For the next forty-five minutes, they watched Tanesha and Jeraine. Yvonne sniffled at some places. Near the end, the blonde lady asked if Tanesha had one wish. Without hesitation, Tanesha said, “That my mother could come home.” Tanesha’s eyes welled with tears and Jeraine hugged her close.
Yvonne began to cry. The hopelessness and desperation of her situation overwhelmed her. She was just a small woman in a world of powerful men. She was caught by the spider.
She felt a strong hand on her shoulder.
“It’s time to let us go.” The agent’s Queens accent added a measure of threat to his words. “You don’t want to do this.”
“We already have,” the young man’s voice cracked with desperation.
“You haven’t done a thing,” the agent said. “You were supposed to do something, but they’ve clearly been detained. You haven’t done it. Yet. You can decide not to do it.”
“But . . . ”
“You broke our phones. That’s all. Mine was a government issue. I’ll get another the moment I walk out of this room. Sami?”
“I hate that phone,” Samantha said.
“All this woman wants to do is live the rest of her life with her family,” the agent said. “Don’t you think more than twenty years of rape and torture is enough? Hasn’t she suffered enough?”
The young people stared at the agent. Yvonne knew that this was the moment. These young people would either let them go or kill them. The thought of never seeing Rodney or Tanesha again overwhelmed Yvonne. She bent over and sobbed into her hands.
The young man stood from his seat. The two young women looked at him. He nodded his head and walked to the door. Using a key, he opened the door.
“Go,” he said.
Faster than she could blink, the agent lifted her from her chair and they were trotting down the police hallway with Samantha at their side. They reached a door and the agent set her down.
Boom!
The agent kicked the door open and he was carrying her again. They reached an elevator and Samantha pushed the button. When the elevator didn’t come, Samantha ran to the stairwell. The door was locked.
They could hear people moving in the building around them.
They could hear people coming for them.
Samantha pointed to the restroom sign. They ran down the hallway to the women’s restroom and slipped inside.
There was no way to lock the door. The agent leaned his weight against it.
Terrified, Yvonne felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest.
This was it.
She would either die today or go home to live forever.
Bang! Someone hit the bathroom door.
Chapter Two Hundred and Sixteen
“Get in the last stall!” Agent Rasmussen yelled to Yvonne.
Scrambling on her hands and knees, Yvonne shimmied into the small stall near the end. A tall, thin woman, she stepped between the toilet and the tile wall.
Bang!
Someone hit the bathroom door.
Bang!
Someone hit the door again.
Bang!
Feeling something drop on her, Yvonne looked up. A tiny brown skinned woman’s face peered at her. The woman held her finger to her mouth and Yvonne nodded. The woman lowered a rope to Yvonne and demonstrated with her hands what to do with it. Yvonne clipped the rope around her middle and was pulled up into the ventilation system. Hands, lots of hands, pulled her into the duct. She scooted on her back until she reached some kind of a cot.
Zoom!
The cot whisked through the ducts like an amusement park ride. Terrified, she closed her eyes tight. The cot jerked to a stop.
“Yvie!” he said.
She opened her eyes and saw Rodney’s face.
“Oh Rodney, you always make the worse day better,” she said.
Laughing, he helped her up. She was standing in a room surrounded by Denver Police Officers and military people. Men and women in blue suits were working on computers. She recognized drawings from her journal on more than one computer screen. Standing in front of four computer screens near the center of the room, General Hargreaves’s daughter Alex waved to her. Someone dropped a blanket over her shoulders and it seemed like everyone was talking at once.
She heard a laugh and saw Samantha Hargreaves lifted out of the air conditioning duct with that cute Agent Rasmussen crawling out behind her. They held each other for a moment before looking around.
Yvonne threaded her finger through Rodney’s and looked up at him.
“I guess this is it,” she said.
“This is what?” Rodney asked.
“We get to live happily ever after now.”
Overwhelmed with emotion, Rodney held her close.
~~~~~~~~
Friday mid-day — 12:15 p.m. PT (1:15 p.m. MT)
“Where would you like to go to lunch?” Seth asked.
He held the door of the concert hall open for Ava and followed her through it. With his phone pasted to his ear, Schmidty followed them. They were almost to the limousine when Seth’s phone vibrated. He stopped to open the door for Ava before checking. He smirked at the text and got in the car. Schmidty slipped in behind him and closed the door.
“What’s with you and your phone today?” Ava asked.
“What do you mean?” Seth asked.
“Usually Schmidty has your phone,” Ava said. “At least when I call, I always get him.”
“I had a few things I wanted to keep an eye on today,” Seth said.
“Redoing the sound tracks has screwed up our schedule,” Schmidty said. “We’re already starting to get ready in Denver.”
“Uh huh,” Ava said. “You know, you smile like that whenever you lie.”
“I do?”
“You do,” Ava said.
“Oh,” Schmidty s
aid.
“What’s so important that you have your boy here lying for you?” Ava asked.
“Your father,” Seth turned to look at her.
“My father?”
“Should I go up front?” Schmidty asked.
“No,” Ava said. “Whatever my father’s doing, I’m sure it’s all over the news and if it’s not? I should know anyway.”
Seth turned and took Ava’s hands.
“Your father said he would go in witness protection in exchange for his testimony in the prostitution matter,” Seth said.
“He did?” Ava asked. “I wonder why Mom didn’t call to tell me.”
“Just him,” Seth said.
“Just him,” Ava scowled. “You mean he’s going into witness protection and the rest of us are on our own?”
Seth nodded.
“And?” Ava asked. “I know by the look on your face there’s an ‘and’ so you may as well spit it out.”
“His deal includes one of his . . . women,” Schmidty looked at Seth and he nodded.
“One of his women . . . ” Ava’s voice drifted. She sat up straight when she understood what Schmidty was saying. “You’re saying he made a deal to live happily ever after with Tanesha’s mother?”
“I’m sorry,” Seth said.
“Against her will?” Ava shook her head as if it was impossible.
Seth nodded.
“Oh wow,” Ava said. “Really?”
Seth nodded.
“And my Mom? My sisters? Me?” Ava shook her head.
“He turned in his mob connections in exchange for witness protection and Yvonne Smith,” Seth said.
“But . . . ” Ava’s mouth opened and closed. She leaned forward and whispered, “What about us?”
“He’s ensured that you don’t know anything,” Seth said. “The Marshalls have assessed that you, your sisters and your mother are most likely not in any danger.”
“Most likely . . . ” Ava said. “Does Mom know?”
“No,” Schmidty said. “I spoke with her this morning. She thinks your father is on a business trip.”
“It gets worse, right?” As if she couldn’t accept what she knew was true, Ava shook her head. “Has to be worse.”
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