She was just thinking, Cyrus is up in age. . . maybe he’s wrong, when she pulled up just enough to see Poochie’s red car parked behind Devon’s truck and Poochie’s red behind parked inside it!
Anika started to confront them, but she didn’t. That low-down no-good dirty son of a—.
She threw the SUV in reverse and headed back to Chloe’s at a breakneck speed. To think she was going to move, give up The Haven and her family for him. What a fool!
She barely took the time to turn off the engine before she hopped out and raced into the house. She didn’t even try to stop the tears flowing down her cheek as she headed straight to her bedroom. Carelessly, she began to throw her clothes into her suitcases.
Chloe stepped into the doorway, with Nia in her arms. “Anika, what’s going on?” she asked, her face a mask of concern.
Anika paused, holding her hands up to her face as she fought for control of her swirling emotions. Pain, anger, and hurt filled her all at once. “I just caught Deshawn in Devon’s truck with Poochie.”
Chloe’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “No,” she gasped.
Anika nodded. “I’m done. I . . . am . . . so . . . done. Please take me to the airport.”
“Wait, Anika. Just hold on. Are you sure?”
Anika looked her friend full in the face, her mascara running down her cheeks like mud. “Do I look like I’m not sure? Please bundle Nia up and take me to the airport.”
“Dev should be home soon—”
“Chloe, please,” she begged. “If you won’t take me I’ll drive myself or I’ll ask Cyrus to do it.”
Chloe was confused about the details. Maybe Deshawn had a good excuse. Maybe it was a big misunderstanding. Still, Anika was her friend first and foremost. “Okay. I mean ... I don’t want you to go, but I’ll take you.”
∞
Deshawn slammed his fist down onto the steering wheel in anger. “Either get out, Poochie, or I’ll throw you out,” he warned for the tenth time since she slid into the passenger seat.
Poochie smirked and shook her head. “No, you won’t, you’re too much of a gentleman.”
Deshawn looked at her in pure disgust at how childish she was acting. “Fine, you don’t have to get out. I will,” he told her, his voice grating as he jumped out of the cab and started walking.
Devon walked out of the store holding his bag. He looked surprised to see Poochie sitting in his truck. “Poochie . . . where’s Shawn?”
She pointed and Devon turned his head to see his brother’s lone figure striding up the side of the road. Devon shook his head, already surmising the details. He moved to his truck. “Goodbye, Poochie,” he told her sternly, as he climbed into the cab.
Poochie laughed softly, before opening the door and exiting. “Bye, Devon,” she said, in a singsong fashion.
Devon immediately steered the truck behind his brother. He slowed as he pulled beside him. “Aren’t you supposed to hold up your thumb if you’re hitchhiking?”
Deshawn shot him a murderous look, before walking around the truck to climb into the passenger seat. “I’m not in the mood for jokes, Dev.”
They headed toward home in silence. A SUV passed them and Devon looked in his rearview mirror. “Was that Chloe’s?” he asked his twin.
Deshawn turned in his seat to look out the rear glass. “Looks like it. Who else got a Navigator around here?”
“Wonder where she’s going.”
“Probably one of them just going to the store.”
∞
Chloe set Nia’s carrier on the chair as she hugged her friend close in the airport terminal. “I think you’re making the wrong decision,” she told Anika as her flight was called.
“I was going home in a few days anyway,” she told her, her eyes still puffy from her tears.
“Deshawn’s not gonna let you go that easily. He loves—”
“Please,” Anika begged, holding up her hand. “I’m just glad I was able to get a flight out tonight. I’ll call you when I get in, okay?”
She bent and kissed little Nia’s smooth cheek, waved to Chloe one last time, and walked over to the terminal door to hand the attendant her boarding pass.
∞
When another hour passed and neither Chloe nor Anika had returned, Devon had called Deshawn at home. Now they both were waiting in his living room. Devon held Chloe’s cell phone in his hand. “Where on earth could they be?”
The lights of the SUV flashed against the wall, and they strode to the front door. As soon as Chloe walked in with Nia, Deshawn looked at the expression on her face and knew something was wrong. “Where’s Anika?”
“She’s gone.”
Chapter 25
Time
Anika turned on the living room lights and entered her town house, inhaling deeply of the familiar scent of her home. It was after midnight and she was exhausted physically and mentally. She left her suitcases at the door where the cabdriver sat them. She didn’t even bother to go upstairs, instead dragging her body over to the couch.
Four hours and two airplane rides later, she had calmed down and thought things over. She had been wrong to leave Deshawn without hearing his side. He deserved better than that. She nervously looked over at the cordless phone on the base.
Before she could change her mind, she reached over and picked it up. She was ready to talk, to listen. Eager for it all to work. Scared that it wouldn’t. With shaking hands she dialed his number. He answered on the first ring.
“Hello.”
“Deshawn . . . it’s me,” she said softly, at a loss for words.
He pressed the phone to his ear as he stood by his bed. Ever since Chloe explained to him why Anika left, he had fluctuated between anger at her and then sadness that she had no faith in him. Now that she was on the phone, he was just glad to hear her voice.
“Why’d you leave me, Foxxy?” he asked, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, cloaked by the darkness of his bedroom.
“I needed to get away, or I thought I did anyway,” she admitted, tucking her feet beneath her on the couch. “Deshawn, why didn’t you tell me Poochie was pregnant?”
“Hell, I didn’t know until tonight when Chloe told me.”
Anika’s face became a mask of confusion. “What? Deshawn, she said—”
Beep . . . beep . . . beep.
The long high-pitched wail of her alarm system echoed around her, slicing off her words. She looked around.
“Anika, what the hell is that?”
She rose, moving to the control pad by the door. “It’s my alarm. Probably a false—”
The hairs on the base of her neck stood on end and she felt another presence in the room with her. Anika whirled, catching sight of a tall darkly dressed figure. She yelled out just before her assailant slammed the back of her head into the wall with a violent grunt.
She heard Deshawn’s voice through the phone line shout out her name in alarm just before the phone fell from her slackened grip to the floor. She slipped into a black abyss of unconsciousness.
∞
“Anika . . . Anika!” Deshawn roared into the phone just before the line went dead. Coldness quickly seeped through his body. He knew without a doubt that she was in trouble.
Quickly, he scrolled through the numbers in his caller ID. He remembered Anika’s brother Trevor was an police officer and he had called for her one night. Dashawn reasoned Trever’s cell phone number would still be saved. As soon as he found it, he called. “Trevor. It’s Deshawn. Get over to your sister’s a.s.a.p. Someone broke into her house. She’s in trouble.”
∞
Luck was on his side. The street was completely empty, every window on the block dark. Not a passerby or car in sight. Hakeem worked quickly, knowing the police would be on their way. He scooped Anika’s body into his arms and raced across the street as fast as he could.
In his apartment he threw her carelessly down upon the air mattress on the floor and bound her wrists and ankles with duct ta
pe. For good measure he tore another strip and covered her mouth. Finished, he stood back to study his handiwork. Gotcha, he thought with success.
Earlier he had gone to the bathroom and when he finished relieving himself he just happened to walk over to the window. Imagine his surprise when he discovered her living room window brightly lit. His heart had slammed against his rib cage and he released short, rapid breaths like an angry bull. With the leer of a hawk, his eyes fixated on that one lit window.
His signal that the time had come.
Now here she was. A few pounds heavier. Her hair a lot shorter, but Anika Foxx nonetheless. He had lost fifteen years of his life because of her. Anger and hatred twisted his face as he pulled the gun out of his pocket and pointed it at her head.
∞
Deshawn’s eyes were troubled as he stared out at the skies through the airplane window. Anxious, he looked at his watch for the hundredth time. The plane was scheduled for landing at Newark International Airport in just under two hours. To him, those two hours seemed like an eternity. His worst fears had been confirmed when Trevor called him back. Anika’s house had indeed been broken into and she was missing. Fear clutched at his gut and Deshawn felt nauseated. “God . . . please . . . please watch over her,” he prayed, closing his eyes.
∞
Anika began to stir with moans of pain, her eyes wincing as she regained consciousness. Her eyelids fluttered open and she winced at the sharp, darting pain in the back of her head. She tried to raise her hand to touch her head but she couldn’t. She looked down and saw that her hands and feet were bound with tape. She wanted to scream, but her mouth was taped shut as well. Her eyes widened in fear and she struggled as panic seized her.
Hakeem removed his hood and cap. He wanted her to know exactly who her master was. “Remember me?”
Anika froze and looked into the face of the man she had once loved and feared. It was leaner, gaunt even, but the features that were twisted into hatred were the same. With wide eyes she took in his nearly empty furnishings, the desperate and crazed look in his eyes, and finally the gun in his hand pointed directly at her.
Fear like nothing else she’d ever known clutched at her heart. Anika closed her eyes and prayed for salvation even as he delivered blow after blow to her head with his fist. She welcomed the abyss when she passed out.
∞
Chloe and Devon sat with the baby strapped down in her car seat between them on the airplane. Chloe’s legs began to shake uncontrollably and she felt tears rise in her chest like hysteria. She tried to swallow back the whimpers but she couldn’t. She tried to hold back the tears but she failed. “Oh my God,” she cried out.
“Why?” she asked softly, her breathing haggard.
‘Why?”
∞
Hakeem walked to the window and peeked down at the black-and-white police car parked on the street below. “She’s right here,” he whispered against the glass, with a wicked smile.
He turned and looked at the closet where he had Anika locked. He thought it was safer than having her lying bound and gagged in the middle of the studio apartment. As soon as things quieted down a bit, he was going to kill her and then dump her body. Time was on his side.
∞
Deshawn considered himself a strong man, but as his coal eyes took in the shattered phone on the floor and the spot of smeared blood on the wall, a child could have beaten him to the ground with a feather. He was completely weakened by the whole situation. He moved quickly to take a seat on the sofa.
He fought not to think the worst but it still floated through his consciousness in droves. He loved her, but he knew that was not enough to keep her safe. Her life was in the hands of her abductor, who left no trail.
Trevor, dressed in his police uniform, walked into the living room from the kitchen where the assailant had broken in through the back door. All the other officers and detectives were gone and the faint residue of dusting powder and the shocking yellow of police tape remained. Both Deshawn and Devon stood.
“We’re going to start canvassing the neighborhood. Question the neighbors for anyone who might have seen or heard anything. The detectives are also checking the records at The Haven for possible suspects,” Trevor informed him.
Deshawn nodded. “What about her ex . . . Hakeem?”
Trevor’s eyes became cold. “I can’t believe she kept that from us all these years.”
Deshawn looked heavenward briefly. “Focus, man.”
“Right. He was released about six months ago but he left an address in Virginia as his new residence. We’re checking it out right now.”
“Okay, so maybe it’s not him.” Devon said, knowing his brother was disappointed by the news.
“I’m going to hook up with my partner and hit the streets.”
“Look, I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re going to my parents’. They have guest rooms made up for all of you and they’re waiting.” Deshawn grabbed Trev’s forearm. “I’m not going to sit around twiddling my thumbs while you’re out looking for Anika!”
“No—”
“Either you take me with you or I’ll go on my own.”
“I’m coming too,” Devon added.
Trevor looked at them and saw the determination in their eyes. “Let’s go.”
∞
Anika slipped in and out of consciousness. She felt sweat dripping down her face and between the valley of her breasts. The air was stale and still. Even when she opened her eyes, she was cloaked by darkness.
She thought of Deshawn, her family, Chloe, and Nia.
She cried.
She prayed.
She knew her death was near.
∞
“The kidnapping of Anika Foxx, the CEO of a local domestic violence center, continues to headline our news this afternoon. ...”
“Turn that news off, I can’t listen to it anymore,” Anika’s mother, Tasha, begged her husband, as she held a picture of her daughter in her hands.
Roger pulled her to his side, seeking to comfort her but needing some of his own. “We have to think positive, baby,” he told her, unable to hide the hint of fear in his deep, baritone voice.
Tara had caught a cab to Anika’s parents’ as soon as she heard of the news. She had come to think of Anika as more than a mentor. A big sister surrogate. She couldn’t control her tears and she held her sleeping daughter close in her arms. She was surprised when Anika’s brother Malcolm came to sit beside her and pull her into his arms.
Chloe sought comfort by placing her face in Nia’s neck and inhaled deeply of the scent of sweetness and innocence.
“Come on, everybody, let’s pray,” Granny Bert demanded softly, coming to stand in the middle of the living room.
One by one they came to stand in a circle and held hands. They lowered their heads and prayed for Anika’s safe return.
∞
Deshawn and Devon followed Trevor and his partner up the stairs to the top-level apartment. He was discouraged. So far, of the twenty or so neighbors that had been questioned, no one had seen or heard anything.
“Hello, I’m Officer Foxx with the Irvington Police Department. There was a break-in and kidnapping across the street at approximately a quarter to one this morning. We’re questioning the neighbors to see if you heard or saw anything out of the ordinary.”
Deshawn looked up at the thin middle-aged gentleman with glasses standing in the doorway as Trevor began his questioning. He told Trev that he hadn’t even gotten home until this morning. Deshawn frowned in disgust, turned, and descended the stairs. “Damn,” he swore, as he stood on the porch and looked across at Anika’s empty town house. “Stay strong, baby.”
∞
Hakeem removed the drugstore spectacles as soon as he closed his front door. He had recognized Anika’s brother before he even introduced himself. He had to fight the urge to push past them and run down the stairs because he was so scared that he would be recognized. When he saw tha
t Trevor had no idea who he was, he began to relax and shot them the lie.
He did wonder who the twins were. They weren’t in a uniform and didn’t have the look of cops about them. Their eyes had met briefly and he had forced himself to look concerned.
Hakeem moved to the closet and jerked it open. Anika fell out to the floor, her eyes still closed as she remained unconscious. Kneeling, he slapped her face twice to awaken her. When her eyes did flutter open, he tapped his gun against her forehead. “Your brother, the big bad cop, just left here.”
Anika’s eyes became alarmed as she thought of Trevor being hurt.
“They’re looking for you and the whole time you’re right here under their noses,” he taunted her, rubbing the barrel of the gun across her face. “Fifteen years I sat in that prison. You sent me there with your lies. You set me up. You don’t know what I went through in there while you went on with your life like I was just a footnote.”
Anika became even more afraid when she saw the craziness in his eyes. He actually believed he didn’t deserve to go to jail. Hakeem was a lunatic and she was at his mad will.
∞
Back at Anika’s parents’ house, Deshawn felt he was going insane, thinking the worst but hoping for the best.
“Anika’s strong, they’re gonna find this asshole and bring her home,” Devon told him.
“If Poochie hadn’t told that lie, Anika wouldn’t have come home. I’m going to strangle her when I see her,” Deshawn swore, his eyes murderous.
“Speaking of Poochie,” Devon began, as he steered his twin into the study where they could be alone, “before we left, Alicia actually called me—”
“Alicia?” Deshawn asked, surprised.
“Yeah, I know, I’m just as surprised as you are. Anyway, Alicia told me that Poochie was gloating to her about telling Anika that her baby was yours.”
Deshawn felt anger like he’d never known consume him.
“But get this. The baby’s Tank’s.”
Deshawn looked shocked as he turned to eye his twin. “What?”
Heavenly Match Page 26