by Ellis, Tara
I parked and grabbed Destiny out of the car. “We finna surprise Grandma and Grandpa,” I sang to her.
I knocked on the door three times but it didn’t surprise me that they didn’t answer. They were still on their bullshit. I knocked again before pulling their house key from my key chain and unlocking the door. When I walked into their house, I was surprised that both of them weren’t standing at the door looking out the peephole at me. And then a terrible stench hit my nose like a train.
“What the fuck?” I said as I tried to cover my nose while still holding Destiny. I placed her on the sofa and called out, “Mama? Daddy?”
What the hell was going on? The TV was off and the house was dark. The awful smell had me gagging as I turned the corner. I seemed to be getting closer to the culprit of the smell and it was so strong it brought tears to my eyes.
“Oh my God!” I jumped back as I entered the dining room. The dining room was covered in blood. There was so much blood that I knew whoever was hurt in this room hadn’t survived. And I didn’t have to walk further into the small room to know both of my parents were dead. I didn’t want to see them like this but my feet kept walking no matter how many times I told them to stop. My feet kept walking until I was upon both of their bodies. The smell was so horrible, but it didn’t compare to the sight of both of my parents drenched in blood. Their bodies had already begun decomposing, so they’d been dead for a while. I couldn’t tell how they’d been killed and I didn’t even want to know.
“Oh my God, Mama! Daddy!” I bent down and turned my mother over. Her face had been obliterated. Whoever did this to her had been full of rage because they’d damn near cut off her entire face.
I jumped back and ran into the living room where I’d left Destiny and my purse. I fumbled around with the contents of my purse looking for my cell phone. I had to call the cops!
I grabbed my cell phone and saw I had twelve missed calls from Charlie. I couldn’t worry myself with her, right now. I swiped the screen to get to my dial pad.
“Put that phone down, Lake.”
I almost jumped out of my skin. I turned around and saw Denise standing there looking as deranged as ever.
“What the fuck? What the fuck are you doing here? Did you follow me?”
She shook her head and laughed at me. “Put your phone down unless you want to go to jail, tonight.”
“What are you talking about?” My hand was shaking so bad I dropped my cell phone. I wanted to bend down and grab it and call 9-11 even more now.
Denise laughed at me again and her laugh sounded like something out of a horror movie. “You are nuts, you know that?”
“I’m nuts?” I yelled. I walked toward my daughter just in case Denise tried something. “You’re the one following me and shit! I have to call the police, my parents are in there dead!”
“I didn’t follow you, Lake.”
“What are you doing here then?” I asked. I was damn near hyperventilating. Then it hit me, “You killed my parents!”
Denise laughed so hard that she bent over. “I didn’t kill your parents, Lake. You did.”
Harris
I looked at my Lieutenant as if he’d lost his mind. Although, I’d heard his order loud and clear, I still had to ask again, “You’re seriously telling me to step down?”
Lieutenant Galey hated to repeat himself, so when he did, he made sure he added a scowl. “You’re gonna haveta’, Detective.” His expression softened when he said, “You’re too close to this.”
“Lieutenant!” I threw both of my hands in the air. “She’s missing! Knowing this Darnel guy, she could already be dead.” I felt all the fight leaving me as I glared at my boss who was telling me I would have to step away from Kesha’s case. If it hadn’t been for me, this department wouldn’t have even known they had a case.
When Kesha stood me up, something didn’t sit right with me so of course I popped up at her place and she wasn’t home. I knew something wasn’t right, but then there was a piece of me that thought maybe Kesha was just blowing me off. I mean, I was doing everything in my power to show that girl I was different than the other men she’d had in her life. But she had a wall as tall as The Great Wall of China covering her heart. When she shot me a text telling me to leave her alone, I did just that.
Call it police’s intuition, but two days later, something told me to stop by her job just to check on her. And once I saw her car, I went into the pharmacy to talk to her. When her co-workers told me she was off for three days, alarm bells went blasting in my head. I remembered her telling me about her best friend who ran a popular salon in Dallas. I instantly reached out to her and when she told me she hadn’t heard from Kesha,that was it! This had Darnel all over it.
Here my Lieutenant was telling me I would have to step away from the case and that he had Stephens and Walker on the case. Don’t get me wrong, they were good police officers but they didn’t have the fanatical desire that I did, to get Darnel, and most of all save Kesha.
Her wall was high and it was going to be tough to get to her heart but I was trying. Every day I was showing her in some kind of way that I wanted to be in her life. There was something about Kesha that captivated me and I wasn’t going to stop until I had her. But if Darnel killed her, I would never get that chance. It broke something in me to know I couldn’t protect her from him, although I promised her that I would.
But talking my Lieutenant into putting me on the case was useless so I stormed out of his office. I knew I needed to calm down before I broke something, or punched a hole in something, or someone. I paced the floor for about five minutes before I just said fuck it, and went into Cheng’s office. He was out crime lab analyst and was extremely good at what he did. When I stormed into his office he looked at me with wide, surprised eyes.
“Detective Moore? What’s wrong?”
I closed the door behind me and took a deep breath trying to steady my anger. “Cheng, I need a huge favor.”
He returned his eyes to his computer and waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss me. “I’m sorry, Detective, but I’m already knees deep in four other cases and everyone keeps dumping theirs on me saying it’s more important than the last. Ask John, his caseload isn’t near as high as mine.”
It took everything in me not to pick this nerd up by his collar and throw him across the room. But I had to remind myself it wasn’t Cheng I was angry at. Hell, it wasn’t even Lieutenant Galey I was mad at. I was pissed off at myself more than anything. There was no way Kesha should have been vulnerable enough to fall victim to Darnel again. That was on me. That was my fault.
“Look, Cheng, I know you’re busy. Trust me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t a life and death situation.” He was typing away at his computer not paying me any attention. I took another deep breath, trying to push away the thought that I was sitting here wasting time and each second, each minute, was precious. “My girlfriend has been abducted by her psycho ex-boyfriend.”
As soon as I said it, his fingers stopped on top of the keyboard, and he looked at me. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and I knew I now had his undivided attention.
“Lieutenant Galey wants me to stand down because I’m too close to the case, but fuck that. I can’t just sit around on my ass. I need to be involved, Cheng. If anything happens to her….”
He held his hand up. “Say no more. How can I help?”
For the first time today, I smiled. “I have his cell phone information, can you tell me what tower it’s hitting off of?”
In less than an hour, Cheng had the towers’ locations and it took a little detective work for me to find out Darnel’s mother owned a shack in that same part of town. I didn’t know if he was holding Kesha there, or if he’d killed her there but I was on my way to that shack. It could have been a dead end, but I was going to find out for myself. I didn’t care about a search warrant, although I knew I needed one.
“I’m on my way Kesha,” I said to myself. I grabbed my jacket and ran
out of the station.
Kesha
I watched as Darnel pulled his pants back up and I felt the chicken sandwich he’d brought me almost come up. It got to the point where no matter how hungry I was, I hated to see him come with food in his hands because every time he brought me food, he violated my body. And it repulsed me that he could just have his way with me and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Bile rose and I knew I was going to throw up. He stood over me looking at me like I was trash. “I might not kill you, Kesha. I’m starting to really like this arrangement we have.”
I didn’t respond to him. In fact, I hardly ever said anything to him, now. I didn’t know how long I’d been here but I did know I wouldn’t last much longer. My will to live had almost completely diminished.
After he zipped up his pants he sat in the chair across from me and glared at me. His cell phone vibrated and it must have been a call he’d been waiting on because he started smiling before he answered it.
“Hey baby.”
It was getting harder to resist the urge to throw up.
“I’m at work right now but I’ll see if I can get off early,” he said. “Yeah, I’ma come through and beat that pussy up.” He stared at me as he said this, wanting a reaction out of me. When I didn’t give him one, he turned around in the chair like all of a sudden he needed privacy.
As soon as he turned around, I reached under the mattress for the weapon. It’d taken forever, but during the times that Darnel left me alone, I was able to get the handle off the metal bucket that he’d left for me to use the restroom in. The ends of the handle were sharp. I wasn’t sure if it was sharp enough to cut skin, but I was sure as hell going to try.
My heart sped up and adrenaline rushed through me giving me strength. I slowly pulled the handle from under the mattress. My hands were shaking so badly I thought I would drop it, but as soon as my fingers touched it, I clasped it with dear life.
“Ok, see ya tonight.” He hung up and was about to turn around to face me saying, “She don’t mean nothing to me, Kesha.”
Fuck you, Darnel…I wanted so badly to tell him but instead I stood to my feet.
He began giving me an explanation that I didn’t ask for, and I lunged at him. The element of surprise was on my side as he hadn’t expected me to attack him. Before he had the chance to grab me or throw me off him, with all the strength I possessed, I plunged the end of the handle into his neck.
“Ahhhhhh!” Both of his hands flew up to his neck.
But I didn’t stop there, I couldn’t. I was in the fight for my life. It was either him or me. With the handle still in his neck, he went flailing across the cage. I grabbed the chair he’d been sitting in and began beating him with it. It was a small metal chair but I was pushing my body to its limit, using all of my strength to ensure my hits were doing some kind of damage.
The pain in his neck debilitated him, and kept him from defending himself from my hits. I was screaming and crying out in anger. My vision went blurry from the tears and sweat that was now falling from my forehead. All I could see was Darnel raping me and beating me so I didn’t realize that he was no longer moving. I was still screaming at the top of my lungs but a voice I recognized stopped me dead in my tracks.
“Kesha?”
Harris. My heart leaped out of my chest and I yelped. I knew he’d come for me. I’d almost given up hope, but there was a piece of me that always knew he’d be the one to find me.
He rushed over to me and I dropped the chair. I jumped in his arms and felt the strength in his arms wrapped around me.
“Oh my God, Kesha. I’m so sorry,” he said over and over.
He held me tight and pulled me out of the cage. “Is he dead?”
Seeing Harris made me forget all about Darnel who lay limp in the corner of the cage. Harris released me and went to check on Darnel. I stood in the doorway shivering with my teeth clattering together.
He bent down and checked Darnel’s pulse then he looked back up at me and said, “He’s dead.”
Lake
I looked at Denise and shook my head. “What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t kill my parents!”
She laughed again and her laugh chilled me to my core. “Ok, you didn’t do it on your own, of course. I helped you.” The expression on her face turned into a scowl. “I’ve always had to help you do shit that you couldn’t do on your own.”
I grabbed both sides of my head to keep the pounding sound out. “What are you talking about?”
“You still don’t get it, do you, Lake?” Denise asked.
I stared at her wondering what the hell she was talking about.
“I am you, Lake!”
What the hell? I felt lightheaded and fell to my knees. I put my face in my hands and tried to scream but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.
“You get it, now, Lake? I’ve always been you. Well, the better part of you. Every time something happened and you needed someone to take care of it, because you were too fuckin’ weak to do it yourself, I was the one who took care of it.”
What she was saying didn’t make sense. I shook my head as hard as I could as if to shake away all of this nonsense.
“You don’t remember all the doctors and counselors, Lake? You don’t remember the diagnosis?” Denise laughed again. “I know you remember the medications. All of the medications that you are supposed to take but you refuse to. Those medications that kept me away… why did you stop taking them, Lake?”
The room was spinning and going in and out of focus. I heard everything that Denise was saying but none of it was making sense. Or was it? All these memories came crashing back at me like a kick to the face. I remembered the 11th grade. I’d been expelled for fighting but kicking the bitch’s ass wasn’t enough for messing with my man. She needed to learn a lesson. That was the first time I’d met Denise…or so I thought. She’d said she knew exactly what needed to be done. So we went to the girl’s house and I’d confronted her, tried to stab her. But what I didn’t know was she had two older sisters who were home and were able to get the knife out of my hands. I was arrested that day.
How could I have not remembered that until now?
Denise gawked at me. “Your parents sent you to that mental hospital that year. You were diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. All those doctors probing you and shit. They said you were chronically unstable and needed medication in order to live a normal life. They filled you with so much shit and made you forget about me, Lake. I was buried inside of your head for so long. Then you stopped taking it and you allowed me to come back. Why did you stop taking your medication, Lake?”
My head was still in the palms of my head but I refused to look up. “I hated how it made me feel. I was grown. I wasn’t living under my parents’ roof no more, so I didn’t think I had to take it.”
Denise’s laugh was bitter. “No, you needed me, Lake. You needed me to do all the things that you couldn’t do. That’s why you stopped taking it. You wanted me to come back.”
I finally looked up at Denise. But she didn’t look like Denise anymore. She looked exactly like me. I gasped when I realized I was staring in a mirror.
Everything Denise had said was true. So I’d killed Greg’s wife? And I’d killed my parents. Cold chills ran throughout my body causing me to quiver. I looked at my daughter who lay asleep on the couch. What the fuck was I gonna do now?
Three Months Later…
Amir
I stared at clumps of my hair in the bathroom sink. I stared at the hair so long that my vision turned blurry. I knew this could happen, but damn, it burned to see it was actually happening. I was staring at my hair so hard that I didn’t hear or notice that Pops had entered the bathroom. I didn’t even realize he was standing beside me until I heard the sound of clippers buzzing.
I snapped out of my daze and looked at my father. He was shaving his salt and pepper colored hair completely off his head. In all of my life, I’d never heard my fa
ther talking about going bald, even when his hair was thinning at the top, he still held on to his hair for dear life. So I knew exactly what he was doing and it brought tears to my eyes. I glanced at the doorway and saw my mother standing there with wet eyes as well. She caught my eye contact before giving me a weak smile and walking away.
“Whatchu’ doing, Pops?’ I said.
“I’m shaving this shit off my head,” he said without looking at me. “It’s just hair, son.”
I watched as my dad shaved his head completely bald. When he set the clippers on top of the sink, I picked them up. I stared at them debating my next move. I was losing more and more hair every day so it was only a matter of time. Fucking cancer. Fucking chemo.
My parents had been with me every step throughout all of this. They never missed a chemotherapy session, they never missed a check-up with Dr. Johnson. At first, we’d all been confident. I had hope; strong, resilient hope that got me out of bed every day. But with each passing week, each new test result, each new cancer cell, that hope dwindled until there was nothing but the realization of death left.
I looked under the sink for a pair of scissors and began chopping my dreads off. I’d had my dreads for so long, that my hair had become a part of me. I cut the hair as short as I could with the scissors and then handed the clippers to Pops. He pat me on the back before taking them from me and shaving my head.
❤❤❤❤❤
The office remodeling was supposed to be finished a month ago but I’d been so sick that the job was taking longer than I’d told Jamison Mitchell. He’d stopped by the building a handful of times to check on it and I could tell his patience was wearing thin. I wanted to appease the man, because God knew, I needed the money.