“Shut up, Homer,” Maurice said. “You’re the one with an allergic reaction to being with one woman.”
Solomon laughed. “I used to have that allergy,” he said, then he looked into Kandace’s smiling face. “Then I met the right woman.”
“Spare me,” Homer said, making a gagging sound.
“Cab’s here,” Maurice said. “Let’s go, Homer.”
The big man followed Maurice out and Kandace walked over and locked the door. “I thought they would never leave,” she said after pulling the blind down.
“Me either,” Solomon said as he crossed over to her. Kandace wrapped her arms around his neck and brushed her lips against his.
“I cured your allergy, huh?” she asked.
“Yes, you did, and I’m enjoying the treatment,” he said as he slipped his hands underneath her skirt. “Forget the sofa. Let’s get out of here and make use of that big bed in your bedroom.”
“All right, I’m going to check the kitchen and then we’re out of here,” Kandace said.
Solomon headed to her office and Kandace took off for the kitchen. While he waited for her, he shut down her computer and packed up her laptop. Moments ticked away and he wondered what was taking Kandace so long in the kitchen. “That damned chef had better not be trying to make a move on her,” he muttered as he bolted out of the office and headed for the kitchen.
“Kandace, babe, what’s the hold up?” Solomon called from the hallway.
“Don’t you move,” Carmen hissed as she pointed the sharp blade of the knife at Kandace’s throat. Kandace’s eyes focused on the blood dripping from the blade of the knife, blood that proved Carmen was a homicidal maniac. Raymond Martinez’s body lay in the corner in a pool of his own blood. Raymond had just graduated from Johnson and Wales University and had been excited for the chance to work with Devon Harris. Now that opportunity had cost him his life.
Looking down at the blade wedged against her throat, Kandace fought the urge to scream. She was sure Solomon was walking into his death. Kandace had seen his potential as a pastry chef and she enjoyed the treats he would sneak to her when he worked late trying to come up with new recipes. He reminded her of Devon in the early days when he’d been finding his footing as a chef, before their relationship had fallen apart. Kandace had seen the same kind of drive and determination in Raymond as she saw in Devon. She had been looking forward to seeing his star rise and now he was dead.
“Hey, Kandace. Are you in here?” Solomon called out as he stepped into the kitchen.
Carmen looked away from Kandace, shocked to see Solomon there. Kandace took a chance to get away from her and jabbed her knee into Carmen’s midsection, knocking the breath out of her.
Carmen flew backward into the stainless steel counter, sending the knife clanging to the floor. “SOLOMON!” Kandace yelled as she attempted to run. Carmen grabbed a pan and threw it at Kandace, hitting her in the center of her back.
Solomon flew over to the counter in time to see Carmen, dressed in the green hospital scrubs, reaching for the knife as Kandace fell to the floor. He kicked the knife out of her reach and stomped on Carmen’s hand.
“How could you?” Carmen screamed. “You ruined my plan, Solomon.”
He snatched her up by her shoulders and Kandace ran to the utility closet in the hall outside the kitchen. “Your cook isn’t the only thing that got cut,” Carmen said, then delivered a sharp blow to Solomon’s family jewels. While Solomon clutched himself in pain, Carmen grabbed the knife from the floor and ran after Kandace.
Kandace held her breath in the utility closet as she heard feet padding down the hall. When she stuck her hand in the pocket of her skirt, she was relieved to find her BlackBerry, but when she pulled it out, she saw that she didn’t have a signal in the closet. Sticking the phone back in her pocket, Kandace looked around for a weapon, but before she could find one, the door swung open and Carmen stood in the doorway with the knife in her hand.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” she sneered.
Kandace took a step back as Carmen moved forward and pointed the knife at her face. When she tried to stab Kandace in her shoulder, Kandace ducked, but the point of the knife nicked her face. When Kandace saw the blood drop on her shirt, she lunged at Carmen’s knees, knocking her down on the floor. Then she kicked the knife out of her hand and scrambled to pick it up.
“Where is Solomon?” she demanded.
Carmen spat in Kandace’s direction. “Don’t worry about Solomon. I took care of him.”
Anger surged through her body and Kandace delivered a kick to Carmen’s head. “If you hurt him,” she exclaimed as she kicked and kicked. Carmen rolled into a ball and reached out and grabbed Kandace’s ankle, pulling her down to the floor. She pounced on top of Kandace and tried to wrest the knife from her hand, but Kandace pounded her back with her free hand while trying to keep the knife out of her reach. Carmen tried to grab Kandace’s hair and slam her head into the floor, but Kandace brought her knees up and slammed them into Carmen’s midsection. She rolled over on her side in pain and Kandace rushed to her feet and ran to the front of the restaurant. “Solomon, Solomon,” she screamed.
“Kandace,” she heard a breathless Solomon call back from the dining room. She rushed to him, looking over her shoulder for Carmen.
“Call the police, please call the police,” she said frantically. Solomon and Kandace rushed for the front door while he dialed 9-1-1. Just as Kandace had the door unlocked, a knife came flying her way. She and Solomon quickly ducked and the sharp knife lodged in the wall. Carmen came out of the shadows armed with what seemed like every knife from the kitchen.
“Drop the phone or I won’t miss her with the next one,” Carmen exclaimed.
Solomon dropped the cell phone with the operator still on the line. “Think about this, Carmen. You don’t want to hurt anybody else,” Solomon said as he took a step toward her.
“Yes, I do,” she said madly. “I loved you and you turned your back on me for her. I have bullet wounds because you told the police to shoot me so you could save her.”
Carmen dropped all of the knives except for the meat cleaver she held and then she rushed toward Kandace. Solomon ran in front of Carmen and grabbed her as she swung the cleaver wildly.
“Why didn’t you give me a chance? Why couldn’t you love me?” Carmen screamed as she struggled against him. Solomon squeezed her wrist with all of his might but she wouldn’t let her weapon go. He sidestepped her as she tried to kick him again. “I loved you.”
“You’re sick, Chelsea.”
Carmen stopped moving for a brief second. “Chelsea is dead and soon you will be too.” She brought the cleaver down on his shoulder and Solomon dropped to the floor.
Kandace ran to the pile of knives and grabbed one. As Carmen lifted the cleaver to strike another blow to Solomon, Kandace lunged forward and drove the blade of the butcher’s knife into Carmen’s chest. The meat cleaver clanged to the floor as Carmen fell. She gasped and gurgled for her next breath as blood poured from her chest. Kandace kicked the meat cleaver across the floor out of Carmen’s reach, then rushed to Solomon’s side.
“Are you all right?” Kandace asked frantically.
“Yeah,” he said as he touched his shoulder. “She just nicked me.” They both looked at Carmen as she lay dying on the floor.
“It’s finally over,” Kandace said as she heard the sirens in the distance. Solomon slowly rose to his feet and took Kandace’s face in his hands. He saw her cut for the first time.
“Did she hurt you?” he asked as he ran his thumb across the dried blood on her face.
Kandace shook her head, then broke down sobbing. “I thought she’d killed you when she found me in the closet, Solomon. I can’t lose you. I love you too much.”
“I love you, too,” he said as they waited for the officers to enter the restaurant.
It took two hours for Solomon and Kandace to give their statements to the police. When they were fi
nally ready to leave the restaurant, three television reporters were outside waiting for them and the police.
“Shit,” Solomon whispered when he saw the reporters coming their way. “Don’t say anything to them.”
“This is going to be bad for the restaurant,” Kandace said as she trembled in Solomon’s arms.
“Miss Davis, what happened?” one of the reporters called out.
“Was this a robbery?” another reporter asked.
Solomon held up his hand. “Can we give you guys a statement in the morning? We’re tired and a little bloody right now.”
Solomon ushered Kandace to her car, ignoring the other questions the reporters were hollering out. “Are you going to call your friends?” he asked when they got in the car.
“I’m willing to bet one of them was watching the news and that means all of them are going to be waiting for me,” she said as they drove to her house. When they pulled into the driveway, Kandace pointed to the two cars parked on the side of the road.
“Alicia and Serena are here.”
“It’s good they have your back,” he said as they got out of the car.
“But I’m regretting that I gave them a spare key,” she said as they walked up to the front door. Kandace didn’t even bother to take her house key out because Serena opened the door and enveloped her friend in a tight hug.
“My God, please tell me that psychopath is dead,” Serena said as she glared at Solomon.
“Can we do this later?” Kandace asked as Serena led her over to the sofa. Alicia came from the kitchen with a mug of tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
“Are you all right?” Alicia asked as she set the plate and the mug in front of Kandace.
Kandace touched her cheek and nodded, though she wasn’t all right. She didn’t think she’d ever get the image of Carmen dying out of her head. Especially since she was the one who had killed her.
But I had to. If I hadn’t killed her, she would’ve killed me or Solomon. This was never going to end with her alive, she thought as she took a sip of the cinnamon tea Alicia had made.
Solomon eased on the couch beside Kandace and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. His touch was so comforting that he didn’t need to say a word to put her mind at ease.
Alicia walked over to Serena, who was standing by the door as if she was looking for someone. “We should go,” Alicia said in a loud whisper.
“All right,” Serena said, then she turned to Solomon. “You need to walk us out.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Solomon asked Kandace.
“You’re not going that far,” Kandace said as Solomon stood up and walked her friends to the door.
Once Solomon, Serena, and Alicia were on the front porch and out of earshot of Kandace, Serena turned to him and said, “You’d better take care of our friend.”
“That’s all I want to do right now,” he said.
“That’s good,” Alicia said. “What happened in the restaurant tonight?”
Solomon ran his hand over his face and glanced at the blood on his shirt. “It was very ugly. Carmen killed one of the chefs and she would’ve killed me and Kandace if Kandace hadn’t stabbed her.”
“She killed her?” Alicia asked as she hugged herself while rocking back and forth.
Solomon nodded. “She had to.”
“And where were you when all this was going on?” Serena asked.
“I had a meat cleaver in my arm,” Solomon said as he shot an aggravated glance at Serena. “I didn’t want anything to happen to Kandace and I didn’t want her to have to do what she did.”
“You need to go back to her,” Alicia said. “Come on, Serena.”
Serena turned to Solomon and offered him a faint smile. “Thank you for protecting our girl.” She gave him a sisterly hug, then she and Alicia got into their cars and headed home.
Solomon walked into the house and found Kandace curled up on the sofa asleep. She moaned softly as if she was having a nightmare or reliving the real life nightmare that happened to them moments earlier. He placed his hand on her shoulder and gently shook her. “Kandace.”
She jerked awake and uttered a quiet scream as Solomon pulled her into his arms. “The blood,” she muttered. “I keep seeing all of the blood.”
“Baby, it’s all right. It’s over and no one will ever hurt you again,” he said as Kandace clung tightly to him. “Let’s get you to bed. Do you want to take a shower first?”
She shook her head. “I just need you to hold me,” she said as she rose to her feet. Her eyes zeroed in on the bloodstain on Solomon’s shirt. “Don’t you think you should have your shoulder looked at?”
“It’s not bad. Besides, I’m more concerned about you, Kandace. I’m so sorry you had to go through this. But it is over,” he reassured her again. “I will never let anything or anyone else hurt you.”
As they headed up to the bedroom, Kandace felt safer. And when she got into bed and Solomon wrapped his arms around her, she felt secure.
CHAPTER 29
For the next three days, the media descended on Kandace and Solomon with a relentless force. After the local stations revealed that Solomon Crawford was at the scene of Carmen’s murder, the New York reporters came to Charlotte and camped out. And after the media discovered that Maurice Goings was the brother-in-law of one of the restaurant’s owners, the frenzy intensified.
Luckily, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police ruled that Kandace was justified in killing Carmen, which put an end to all the legal questions surrounding Carmen’s death and the restaurant was free to open. Police also linked Carmen to the death of Dr. Hovis Clarke and the murder of the housekeeper at Carolina Serenity. With each detail of what a monster Carmen was, Kandace’s blood just ran cold.
Solomon walked in to the living room as Kandace was watching CNN reporters refer to his connection to Carmen’s murder spree. He took the remote from the table and shut the TV off. “You need to get out of town,” he said.
“What?”
“I think you need another vacation,” Solomon said.
Kandace shook her head. “A vacation started all of this,” she reminded him.
Solomon cocked his head to the side and frowned at her. Kandace covered her face. “You know what I meant,” she said. “When is this going to be over? We released a statement and those damned reporters are still digging. What more do they want?”
“Unfortunately, this is a sexy story,” Solomon said as he sat on the sofa beside Kandace and pulled her into his arms. “It’ll go away as soon as something else happens. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will knock this out of the headlines.”
“Damn, I forgot all about Thanksgiving,” she said. “This year we were supposed to have a dinner for the homeless and then we all were going to have a big dinner with everyone.”
“Where?” he asked, looking around Kandace’s small home.
“At the restaurant. But now, I’m not sure.”
“Why not? I know it’s hard right now, but you can’t stay away from your dream because of what Carmen did. She was a sick woman and I’m sorry that she ever hurt you,” Solomon said. “But you can’t let her overshadow all your good memories and what you’ve worked for.”
Kandace sighed. “You’re right. Believe it or not, they used to have to pry me out of the restaurant.”
“And you haven’t been back since this happened.”
“How can I? Every time I think about that place, I see Raymond and Carmen.”
Solomon stroked her cheek gently. “Then you need new memories there. Think about how much good you are going to do for the less fortunate. And I’ll help you guys in anyway I can. I’ll even be nice to your chef for a day.”
A small smile touched her lips and she patted Solomon on his knee. “How’s your shoulder.”
“Fine,” he said. “At my appointment this morning the doctor said I should be ready for rehab next week.”
Kandace ran her hand across her face and leaned again
st Solomon’s strong chest. “Will you go to the restaurant with me today?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Anything you need.”
“Right now,” she said as she held tight to his arm, “I need you to hold me.”
“Always, baby,” Solomon said as he kissed her on the forehead.
A few hours later, Kandace and Solomon headed to Hometown Delights and much to their dismay, the press was waiting outside for them.
“Mr. Crawford, Mr. Crawford,” one of the reporters called out as he and his colleagues ran up to Solomon and Kandace. “How did you find out that Carmen De La Croix was living under an assumed identity?”
“Were you two lovers?” a female reporter yelled out as Solomon opened the door to the restaurant and ushered Kandace inside.
Kandace froze at the door. “This was a mistake,” she said as she turned to exit the restaurant, but Solomon stopped her.
“Either face this or a bunch of reporters. You’re stronger than this. I know you are.”
Kandace took a deep breath and walked forward. This was her restaurant. She and her friends had worked too hard, jumped through too many hoops to build this place and make it a success. She couldn’t let Carmen rob her of that.
“Kandace?” Jade said as she appeared from behind the bar. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Hi,” Kandace said.
Jade rushed over to her and hugged her friend tightly. “I would’ve come by sooner, but Jaden is just getting better,” she said, then turned to Solomon and gave him a hug. “Thanks for getting her here.”
“How’s the baby doing?” he asked as the trio walked over to the bar.
“All better and acting like his father. I had to sneak out of the house while they were both asleep,” Jade said as she pulled out three coffee cups. Kandace looked around the restaurant hoping that she wouldn’t see Carmen’s face or Raymond’s dead body. Every shadow made her shiver. Then she felt Solomon’s hand on her knee.
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