Chapter Twenty-five
When she returned home that evening, Yolanda went upstairs and knocked on Priscilla’s bedroom door. “Come in,” she heard her say.
“Can we talk?” Yolanda asked through the half-opened door.
Priscilla sat up on her bed and grabbed the remote for her TV and clicked it off. “Sure. Come on in.”
Yolanda took a seat on the bed beside Priscilla. “I think I owe you an apology,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“I was hoping you’d make this easy on me, but I guess I deserve the attitude. I’m sorry about what happened last week in the mall. I got caught up in the frenzy, and I’m really sorry that I forgot all about you. Will you forgive me?”
“I will if you tell me the truth about something.”
“I’ve always told you guys the truth. What do you want to know?”
Priscilla looked directly into her eyes. “Did you really have an affair with Mr. Washington? I mean, the clip of you kissing him is all over YouTube. You and Dad said it was edited, but it looked real to me.”
“The truth is the kiss was real, but he kissed me. I pushed him away immediately. What you saw on television was edited. He made it look as if we were kissing for a long period of time, and that’s not true. He wanted your father to believe that we were having an affair, and then he intended to kidnap me.”
“But he got Mrs. Kitts instead, right?”
“That’s what your father and I believe, but the police are still working on the case.”
Priscilla nodded her head. “Momlanda, how do you know if you’re being stalked? I mean, do they just follow you around?”
“Has someone been following you?”
“It’s not about me.” Priscilla hesitated. “It’s Lavette. She broke up with Nehemiah last year, but he won’t let go.”
“What has he done?”
“He calls her all the time. Sometimes if we’re at the movies or out to eat, he’ll show up out of nowhere. One time he told her he’d kill her if she didn’t take him back, but then he said he was just playing around.”
“Honey, listen to me. Lavette needs to have her mother call the police. I want you to call her today and tell her that,” Yolanda said. Her voice was filled with urgency.
Priscilla shook her head. “He’s just annoying, not dangerous.”
“I know it may seem like that now, but she has to do something before things get out of hand. I used to believe that Julian was not dangerous. Even when he was sending me text messages saying that he would kill me, I didn’t believe it. I’m sorry now that I didn’t take him seriously.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to her later. Oh yeah, and I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have left you at the mall like that. I was just so mad.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about anything like that again. The show is over, and after a while, people will stop recognizing me when we go out. But even if they do, I promise that I won’t act crazy like that again.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, Mr. Carter called while you were out. He said that he needed to talk to you guys about the show. He said something about a ‘special.’”
Yolanda was livid. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Anderson had not attended Tia’s funeral, she could not believe he had been making phone calls about the show. She left Priscilla’s room and went down to the family room to tell Jimmy. He was on the phone when she walked in, so she took a seat and waited.
“That was Anderson on the phone,” he said after hanging up. “He wants the cast to get together to film a special Christmas show.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I know that you told him that there’s no way that we’d be involved.”
“Actually, I didn’t say that. I mean, that was my first reaction, until he explained to me what he wants to do.”
“Jimmy, I’m shocked. You are the one who’s been against being on television from the beginning.”
“I know, but this is different. He wants it to be a tribute show honoring Tia’s life. He plans to invite each member of the cast to gather and offer our memories of her. He’s also having the production team put together a montage of clips of her from the show.”
“Honey, I don’t mean to sound uncaring, but who in the cast even has any memories of Tia? She was always so standoffish. Besides, if they edit her footage the way that they did mine, it won’t be a tribute, it will be another massacre.”
Jimmy sighed. “That’s not gonna happen. He also told me that the police have officially named Julian as a suspect in Tia’s murder. They’ve issued a warrant for his arrest. I think Anderson is trying to distance himself from Julian and this crime as much as possible.”
“Thank God. Do they have any idea where he is?”
“No, but they have some leads. Julian owned a cabin in Virginia, and they believe that’s where the murder took place. They’ve also questioned his family in Greenburg, but they say that they haven’t seen him or heard from him. He’s apparently on the run.”
“I remember that cabin. It was so far back up in the woods, the squirrels needed scooters to get there. I always hated that place. Julian called it romantic, but to me, it was just creepy,” Yolanda said, shuddering.
“Well, I told Anderson that we’d consider doing the show, but only if Brandon agrees. I won’t do anything that’s going to put him through any more grief or pain.”
“Honey, Danita told me today that Tia had been lying about being pregnant. She said the autopsy confirmed that there was never a baby.”
“Yeah, Brandon told me about that. It was difficult for him to lose Tia, but finding out she’d been lying to him for months about the baby just devastated him. I mean, how can he grieve for her when he’s so angry about what she did?”
“I think we should do the show,” Yolanda said.
“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me,” Jimmy smirked.
“No, you don’t understand. This time, it’s not about me getting in front of the camera and trying to be the star of the show. I can’t help but to feel somewhat responsible for what happened to Tia.”
“I’ve told you before, you can’t blame yourself. Julian is a crazy man, and he’s the only one responsible for this crime.”
“Jimmy, last night I had a horrible dream.”
He looked at her with concern. “You tossed and turned all night. I’m surprised that you slept at all.”
“After the dream I was so shaken up that I couldn’t . . . I was too afraid to go back to sleep. It was so real.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I dreamed that Julian came back for me. He told me that he was sorry for what happened to Tia, but that I was next. He said, ‘I love you to death.’ Then he shot me. It was so real that I felt a burning in my chest, like a bullet was searing through my flesh. I fell, and I just kept falling and falling and falling until I woke up.”
Jimmy pulled her into his arms. “It’s okay, honey. It was just a dream.”
“I know, but he’s still out there somewhere. I’m so sorry that I let my desire to be famous bring so much pain into our lives. Tia didn’t deserve to die because of my ambition.”
“That’s not why she died,” he assured her.
“I was just upstairs talking to Priscilla, and she has a friend who’s being stalked by an ex-boyfriend, but she’s not taking it seriously. I didn’t take it seriously either, and I can only imagine the many women out there who don’t. Even when I did call the police on Julian, they were really nonchalant about it.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“We need to do this show and bring some attention to the crime of stalking. We need to let those young women out there who are getting the late-night phone calls and text messages know that they need to take these threats seriously. Even if Brandon doesn’t want to do the show, we need to talk him into it.”
“Honey, aren’t you forgetting that Julian was verbally and physically abusive to you as well? That was probably a sign of what was to come.”
“No, that’s my point. We need to point out the signs of an abuser and possible stalker. Jimmy, you are always talking about how you want your church to minister to those with real-life issues. This is as real as it gets. We’ve got to do this show for every scared woman out there, but most of all, so that Tia’s death is not in vain.”
Jimmy nodded. “Okay, I’ll talk to Brandon about it.”
Two days later, Brandon reiterated his answer. “No, I don’t want to be a part of this show,” he said emphatically. “I want to move on, and I want to forget it. Can’t I just do that in peace?”
Zack Morton sat at his office desk looking over at him. Their meeting had only begun a few minutes earlier, and Brandon had already said no to the show five times. He’d also said no to Jimmy and Yolanda Snow, as well as Danita, when they had asked. Zack was their last hope of getting a yes out of him. “I understand that you want to move on, but as a minister, you know that part of the grief process is channeling your grief into something positive.”
“I’ll be honest with you, Zack. In the past when I’ve sat in my office and counseled people who were grieving, I’ve said the same thing. Now that I’m on the other side of the desk, I realize just how ineffective this is.”
“Okay, since you’re being honest, tell me the real reason that you don’t want to do this show. I know that you loved Tia, so why are you so against honoring her?”
Brandon shifted his weight in his chair and continued brooding. “You wouldn’t understand. Yes, I loved Tia, but Tia didn’t love me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The sad thing is that I’ve always known how she felt, but I wouldn’t accept it. I just kept praying to God that one day she’d stop faking that she loved me and actually start loving me for real. It never happened. Right up until the day she died, she was playing me for a fool,” he said. He tried to fight it, but tears began rolling down his cheeks.
Zack reached across his desk and quietly handed Brandon a tissue. Patiently, he waited as Brandon dabbed at his tears and blew his nose before speaking again. “I didn’t know Tia that well, but I do believe that she loved you.”
“If she loved me, then why did she play such a cruel joke on me? She knew how much I wanted to be a father. Pretending to be pregnant like that has to be the vilest, cruelest thing she could think of. If she loved me, she would have been honest with me.”
“Look at me, Brandon. Look into my eyes.”
Brandon glanced at Zack, then turned his eyes back to his lap. “My dad used to ask me to look into his eyes when he wanted to emphasize a point. I’m not a teenager, so you don’t have to do that.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I want you to look at the difference in my eyes, and in my hair.”
“I know they are brown now instead of blue. And I can see your roots growing into your hair. What does how you look have to do with me?”
“I was dishonest with my wife for my entire marriage. I set out to make her and everyone else believe that I was something that I was not. I know I was wrong, but I swear to you, it had nothing to do with how much I loved her.”
“So tell me why you did it? I was raised to tell the truth. My parents never tolerated me or my siblings telling even a small lie. So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t understand the logic behind lying to someone that you love.”
“There is no logic behind it. I can’t speak for Tia, but for me, I did what I did in order to please the people who claimed to love me. My stepparents wanted a white son, so I gave them a white son. Even though he wasn’t real, I justified my actions by telling myself that it was what they wanted.”
“No offense, but that’s pretty lame. I suppose you are trying to say that Tia lied to me and wore padding because I wanted a baby so much.”
“Like I said, I can’t speak for Tia. But don’t you think that your desire to be a father might have affected her actions just a smidgen? I know you’ve taught Sunday School. One of the first lessons we teach is that once you tell a lie, you have to keep telling more lies in order to cover for the first one until you have a huge ball of incomprehensible lies. I know from experience that you don’t want to keep doing it, but you also have no idea how to stop it.”
“I wanted to be a father because I love kids and I believe in family. That does not justify what she did.”
“It doesn’t. I totally agree. I’m not trying to justify it at all. I’m just trying to help you understand it, so that you can deal with it.” Zack paused and picked up his Bible. He turned to Ephesians 4:32. “I know that I shouldn’t have to read this to you, but I feel that you need to hear it.
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Zack closed his Bible and looked over at Brandon. “I’m sorry for what I did, and I’m thankful to God that my wife has forgiven me. You’ve got to forgive Tia. You said that you want to move on. The first step to that is forgiving your wife for what she’s done.”
Brandon covered his face with his hands as he broke down and cried. “I loved her so much, and now she’s gone. Being mad at her keeps me from missing her,” he sobbed.
Zack stood up from his desk and walked over to Brandon. He knelt on the floor beside him and lay his hand on his arms, and he began to pray. He allowed Brandon to continue sobbing as he petitioned God on his behalf. When he was done, he returned to his seat and quietly waited for Brandon to pull himself together.
“I’ll do the show,” Brandon said. He blew his nose.
“Are you sure? I know that’s initially why I asked you to come here, but the last thing I want to do is put more pressure on you. I’m your friend first. Don’t worry about the rest of the cast, I’ll handle them.”
“No, I’m sure. I want to honor my wife, and I know that the viewers of the show want to honor her as well. I’ve received a ton of cards and letters from people since this happened. They all loved Tia.”
“Um, you announced on the show that she was pregnant. How do you want to handle that with the tribute show?”
“It’s not a problem. The police have told me to keep it under wraps because the fewer people who know, the better. I’ve only shared it with the cast and, of course, my family. We are all positive of Julian’s guilt, but they think we need to keep a lid on the details of the crime, just in case. Anyone with too much information could be a suspect.”
“I thought Julian was the only suspect.”
“He is, but they think he may have had some help.”
Zack nodded. “I’ll call Anderson and the others and let them know we have a green light on the show.”