by Gary Sapp
nce: Where are our Children
(A Serial Novel) Episode 2 of 9
By Gary Sapp
Copyright 2014 Gary Sapp
Table of Contents:
Our Story so Far
Roxanne
Thomas
Serena
Xavier
Serena
Xavier
Angel
Thomas
Chris
Louis
Get caught up in the ‘Rapture’
Dedication
Nest Egg Publishing Note
Nest Egg Publishing Presents Gary Sapp
Where to find this author online
Our Story so Far:
While incarcerated as an inmate at Calhoun State Prison in southwest Georgia, Xavier Prince, the leader of A House in Chains, confronts Michael Davenport; a man that he believes has knowledge of what turns out to be the 411 attacks upstate in Atlanta. Serena Tennyson and her Pandora associates carry out the highly coordinated, highly lethal attacks weeks later against the Andrew Young Youth Center, The Fox Theatre and the mayor of the city itself, Ernestine Johnson. On her deathbed, rotting away from a yet to be identified poison, Mayor Johnson enlist the aid of Thomas Pepper, a freelance reporter, to find out the answers to the three questions that every Person of Color in America wants to know. The FBI recruits a renowned Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Angel Hicks-Dupree to consult on the crisis in Atlanta—and after a confrontation with her husband, Dr. Seth Dupree, she reluctantly agrees to help. Her childhood friend, Special Agent Christopher Prince, turns out to be one of the hostages being held at the Fox Theatre. Meanwhile, his half-brother, Xavier, is confronted with his own siege that breaks out at Calhoun Prison on the eve of his scheduled release. In the meantime, Christopher Prince escapes the theatre alive, but immediately faces a new predicament when he receives a series of text messages that his 20 year old stepdaughter has come up missing.
Roxanne
Using the cover of darkness, she could have killed Special Agent Christopher Prince when he entered Piedmont Park from the south entrance without scanning the shadowed area off and to the right of him, or when he failed to glance in the silhouetted spectrum of corridors above his head when he passed under the water slide, or when he walked too close to peach trees boarding the skating rink.
He appeared to be alert, especially considering it was 1:00 am and the hell the man had suffered through over the past 36 hours. In fact, other than favoring his lower back when he walked, Roxanne Sanchez thought that Chris looked no worse for the wear, at least on the surface. Still, she needed him to be sharp both mentally and physically, with the horrors she was bringing to his life.
She had sent him a series of texts after she was certain that he had finally opened the first one and he had followed her instructions to the letter: Come alone. After you pass underneath the standing area beneath the skating rink, wait ten minutes, and approach the kiddies’ playgrounds from over by the bicycle trails. Sit in the swing that is farthest to the right. This will position you in a wide open space and protects both of us from ambush. I will approach you from the merry go round. Do not get up from the swing. Do not attempt to call me.
Roxanne Sanchez:
She was a coffee-colored, shapely Latino in her mid-thirties. She had dark shoulder length hair and dark eyes, a crooked nose and black lips stick on thin lips that curse words seemed to flow from between them far too often. Or so her mother had said. She’d paid too much for her body spray, her selection of panties was too risqué, her boots too long and her slacks hugged her hips far too tightly. Roxanne knew this and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of her or her choice of attire.
She used a long fingernail of her index finger to chip away at the bark from a tree trunk, while she stole a panoramic view of the entire park. Piedmont had been grand enough to host an Olympic celebration all those years ago, and yet had remained small enough to retain a good measure of its intimacy. Mayor Ernestine Johnson had been the latest of Atlanta’s Mayors to use tax revenue to refurbish most of the picnic areas, plant new trees and spice up the other shrubbery, and extend three of the walking and bike trails.
And now she was dead.
Two men were out for a late night jog in the murky air. How are you two standing to breathe this air? They seemed to circle back towards her and she lifted the cell out of her back pocket with one hand to check the time. It read 12:45AM back at her. She rested her other hand on her gun that was sitting in the holster inside her jean jacket. Don’t corner me; she silently spat the words at them. If I’m enough of a monster to place this steel at the temple of two innocent little girls and threaten to kill them both, then what would I do to you two?
When Roxanne left the bureau training program for her gig in private investigations, she first took on work where she could get it: She found an unfaithful husband in Albany, uncovered how a shady business was cheating its customers in Montgomery, and investigated faulty disability claims all over Louisiana, while brokering her services for one of the state’s most prestigious insurance companies. As both her reputation and bank account grew she ventured further away from her childhood home of Atlanta.
Six months later Roxanne finally settled in one of the small border towns near El Paso, Texas, doing some missing person’ s investigations on both sides of The Rio Grande. Most of these were simple runways cases.
She began working with a Mexican Police Chief after a couple more months, sharing professional duties during the day…and falling in bed with him during the night.
Victor Castillo:
He was a 35 year old brown skinned man. He had a slim but muscular torso, a bald head and spoke with a deep, raspy voice. Roxanne found him to be the ultimate study in contrast…the moon and the sun, the squall and the tranquil… the darkness and the light. He and his partner Gonzales fought injustice, or at least their vision of it, with a steel hand of viciousness and ruthlessness that almost…frightened her.
Yet, he could be so very tender when he touched her. She told herself that she didn’t love him. She didn’t need his love. Those feelings were left reserved for a man back home that she could never have. Victor, however, was a man of vices like most men who were cursed with them: He liquored too much, puffed like a chimney on his Cuban cigars and gambled at craps and poker and roulette. Vices had destroyed Roxanne’s her father and her only sister. No, she reminded herself, Rachel’s addictions ruined her life for sure, but it was Dr Angel Hicks Dupree killed her. She had vowed to never forget the woman’s role in Rachel’s demise.
And someday Roxanne Sanchez would make the good doctor pay for her sins against her family.
As for Victor, Roxanne had been content with his company, his silly serenades in her ear as they showered, his rock hard abs, and the way he held her lower back in place when he cojamosed her from behind. One night, after a particularly intense session of lovemaking she noted the look in his dark eyes that told her that he’d crossed his own private border, although his pride did not allow him to verbalize it to her. He did say in that raspy voice: I know that you are a big girl, Senorita, but always watch your back when you are down here…down below. Never allow yourself to dip in Cartel business…ever. You Americans think you understand them, but you don’t. You think the cartels are about weapons and drugs or money…no, they are about property. The cartels are not satisfied until they own your body, your soul; they want to own all of you.
She rolled on top of him and showed appreciation for his concern for the rest of the night until she serenaded him with moans of her orgasm.
For 30 more days her days were productive and profitable and her nights for a passion and pleasure.
On the 31st day she met a man who would change her life forever.
Julio Vargas:
He was a pie faced, pallid colored Mexican man who wore a toupee to cover his naked scalp, a thick moustache covered his top lip, and he looked as if he had been well fed to this point of his middle aged life.
He sat on his lush couch and told Roxanne that one of local cartels had kidnapped his two oldest daughters who were only 14 and 12 years old. Vargas’ wife gnawed at her fingernail and burst into tears when her husband had mentioned the girls ages.
Lying in bed together later that night, Victor told her that by now the girls had been repeatedly raped and even worse had been branded with the cartel seal on the nape of their necks. Vargas fronts as a small time business man but behind the scenes he’s a hood who deals guns