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A beat passed before he came back low and strong, “Don’t you ever in the life I let you live speak to me like that again?”
“Let me live? You don’t let me do anything. You disturb me, you piss me off, but you don’t let me do anything.”
Eerie silence filled the line until he spoke, “I let you leave California, didn’t I?”
“Did you?” I asked in my utmost professional manner. “Or, did I outsmart you when I packed up in secret, left the house on what looked like a store run, and just didn’t come back one day? I knew you were watching me.” Packing boxes that were wasting away in my pantry had come in handy when I least expected it. I had planned to throw them out instead of paying a moving company to stash my belongings at an indoor security storage facility. I waited a week for my trail to go cold then had someone else move my things to the condo. A lot of smoke and mirrors for sure, but it worked. Until it didn’t.
“Aw, you’re mad because I did find you, Cherise,” he patronized. “If you had stayed off the internet promoting your business, maybe I would’ve never found you. Well, I did, and it’s time you learned your place. It’s at home with me!” he spat.
“Jesus, you are caught in a chauvinistic time warp. The fifties want their old, tired ass standards for men and women back. Grow a pair and ask a woman out already.”
He harrumphed sarcastically, “Fine. Will you go out with me, Cherise?”
I took the phone from my ear and stared at it as if aliens were climbing out the mouthpiece. No, no aliens. Just Chad’s madness. I put the receiver back to my ear. “Hell no, I won’t go out with you! Did you conveniently forget all the shit you’ve done to me?”
“That’s what I thought. You’re just like all the other women that—”
“All the women that don’t want you or will ever forgive you for the shit you’ve put them through!” I shouted. “Yes, I’m like them! Contrary to belief, everyone is not attracted to everybody who’s handsome or pretty. We don’t always get who and what we want. You should know that since you’ve passed childhood ten times already. Why and where the fuck did you take Eva?”
An honest to goodness growl resounded in the line. “I think I need to teach you a lesson about being in my fucking business.” Right. My business, personal and the one that paid me, was a free-for-all for him.
Someone banged at the door. “Cherise, open up! Cherise! Dammit!” Tobin was frantic, about to knock the door down.
A desperate thirst for him rose like a tidal wave. I dropped the phone, running to let him in. Chad and I were going in circles anyway.
“Tobin, he has her!” I barked at him and by proxy, the cluster of officials behind him.
Tobin snatched me up in his arms, embracing me so close it was hard to breathe, let alone quiver with rage against him. I draped trembling arms around his neck, realizing how bad I was shaking. He sunk down on the couch with me in his lap.
“We heard you yelling all the way outside, Cherise. This room is not soundproof by far. Who were you talking to?”
I shifted in his lap. “Chad, of course. He has Eva, he didn’t deny he had her. I recorded the conversation. We have to find her, we have to find him. I let my defiance go too far. We can’t let him hurt anyone else.”
A lot of commotion resonated behind me as I confessed my sins. People were at my desk, fumbling with my phone, talking about tracing calls and recordings. More barged in behind the others. I wouldn’t be shocked if the whole Long Island precinct was here.
“This is what happens
when a body goes missing from a morgue, and it shows up here,” Tobin spewed nastily. “Too bad they don’t move like this for harassed and missing women.” A couple more of them were missing as a matter of fact.
I palmed Tobin’s chest and back, pushing off him. “Where’s Athena and Malaysia?”
“She’s okay,” Tobin contended, swinging my legs right back on his lap. “Just breathe and talk to me for a minute.”
“Okay isn’t good enough, Tobin.” I looked from person to person. “Where exactly is Athena and Malaysia?”
As if on cue, Andre came strolling in the room over to us. “Athena really is fine. I took her home myself and made sure she got in the house after talking to her about taking a paid leave. It wasn’t hard to do after all this, although she hated going home.” She and her mother lived not too far away in a rundown neighborhood that they were both eager to escape.
Assured that Athena was out of danger didn’t make me feel any better. “What about Malaysia? I don’t trust Chad not to grab her too to get to me. He said he was going to teach me a lesson about being in his business when I asked about Eva. I have to go.”
Out of habit, I searched visibly for my keys and purse at the desk. There were too many people crowding it to see the furniture. I could forget spying my possessions on it. Then, my brain kicked in, reminding me that my things were in Tobin’s truck. I swung my feet to the floor again. An officer in suit and tie navigated around Andre, introducing himself as Detective Miguel Cortez.
“Dr. Johnston, I’d like to speak to you about that call from Chad Lowell.”
“I don’t have time, I need to find my sister.” I stood up, Tobin following suit.
“Do you know where she is right now? I can have an officer go get her. We really need to get all the information you got from the call with Lowell.”
“No, no, no and no,” I embodied Tobin. “You guys take too long for what’s important. I’ll come back when I’ve picked her up from the fashion house on Merriweather Street.”
