After her meeting with Nick, Dee Dee was so angry that she needed some mall therapy. She shopped for hours. She'd intended to shop for herself, but in each store she'd entered, Dee Dee would end up in the kid’s zone purchasing a dress, a pair of jeans, or an entire outfit for Natua.
She packed her shopping bags into her Mercedes and drove to the daycare to pick up her little princess.
Natua ran to Dee Dee and gave her a big hug.
“What happened to you,” Dee Dee asked, as she noted dirty smudges all over Natua's dress.
“She got a little dirty while we were on the playground today,” Natua’s teacher told Dee Dee.
The first week of school, Natua had gotten a pretty pink shirt that Dee Dee had purchased for Natua at an expensive little boutique dirty during play time. Dee Dee had gone ballistic. The teacher had tried to explain to her that when children play, they often get a little dirty, but Dee Dee hadn’t been convinced. She just knew there had to be a way to keep dirt away from children, even on a playground. But in the months that followed, she had come to accept that children not only attract dirt, they like it.
Sometimes Natua’s antics would remind Dee Dee of the fun she and Elaine had as children. And how they drove their mother crazy when she couldn’t get dirt spots out of their clothes. Thinking of those times always put a smile on Dee Dee’s face. She often found herself wondering why she'd spent so much time resenting Elaine, when she should have just enjoyed the fact that she had a sister. Nothing like an illness in the family to bring perspective.
When they arrived at home, Natua was so excited about her new clothes that she wanted to try everything on as soon as they walked in the door.
“Not so fast, little one. First you need to eat.” Dee Dee instructed Natua to have a seat at the table while she fixed her a sandwich.
“Okay, Dee Dee, but hurry.” Natua jumped in her seat as if her pants were on fire, and she was trying to squelch the flames.
Shaking her head as she laughed out loud, Dee Dee walked to the fridge and pulled out some lunch meat, cheese and mustard. She then got out a skillet, sprayed it with Pam and commenced to putting ham and cheese on whole wheat bread and then frying it in the skillet. Natua liked her ham and cheese sandwiches to be made like grilled cheese— something Drake had started for the child—and not to be outdone, Dee Dee also fixed the sandwich exactly the way Natua liked it.
“Here you go, honey. Eat up and then we’ll go try on all your new clothes.” Dee Dee put the sandwich in front of Natua.
She then put the lunch meat and mustard back inside the refrigerator and grabbed a juicy drink. She turned toward Natua, preparing to take the juice to her. But out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a piece of paper fall off the refrigerator door.
That was odd, because she never tacked things on her refrigerator. She thought that people who did things like that were just plain tacky themselves. She picked up the paper to read it and became immediately annoyed. The note said:
I don’t like Natua in green. She should always wear pink. Make sure she wears the dress I laid on her bed to school tomorrow.
That settled it. Dee Dee was changing the locks on her doors, and Drake would just have to babysit Natua at his own apartment. Who did he think he was anyway? Barging into her house, leaving notes on the refrigerator and clothes on Natua’s bed. Drake Milner had lost the right to insert himself into her life when he'd started acting too much like her father, with all of his Bible reading and praying at the drop of a hat. And she was going to tell him just that as soon as she put Natua to bed.
“You done with your sandwich?”
Natua swallowed, wiped her hands, and then said, “Yep.”
Dee Dee handed her the juice. “Drink up so we can go upstairs and try on your new clothes.”
Natua did as she was told, and then jumped out of her seat and ran up the stairs.
Laughing again, Dee Dee followed the child. Natua wasn’t her natural born child, but day by day, she was acting more like her than Dee Dee cared to admit. “Slow down, girl, you’re going to fall up the stairs.”
Natua hollered back, “Hurry up, Dee Dee, I want to see what you bought me.”
Dee Dee held up the bags. “I have the stuff in my hands. You won’t see it until I get there, so you might as well wait for me.”
But Dee Dee’s logic fell on deaf ears, as Natua took the last step and then raced to her room, giggling all the way. When Natua reached her room, she swung the door open and then stopped.
“Oh, so now you want to wait for me, huh?”
Natua turned around and ran toward Dee Dee. She wrapped her arms around Dee Dee’s waist and clung to her. “What’s wrong, honey?”
Natua pointed toward her room. “It’s broken.”
“Huh? What’s broken?” Although Dee Dee was trying, she still had a lot of problems with three-year-old speak.
“My room,” Natua screamed. “Somebody tore it up.”
Dee Dee plied Natua’s hands from around her waist as she rushed down the hall toward the little girl’s room. When she reached the door, Dee Dee was startled by what she saw. Clothes were strewn all over the floor. Certain items had been ripped apart and others were almost shredded. She dropped the bags as she put her hand over mouth and stepped into the room. Who would do something like this? She bent down and started picking up torn dresses and shirts.
“Don’t be sad, Dee Dee,” Natua said, as she came into the room and picked up a few shirts off the floor. “Look, my pink shirts are fine.”
Dee Dee’s head popped up as Natua held out the pink shirts to her. Then she remembered the note on her refrigerator and turned toward Natua’s bed. There it was…a pink shirt and a pair of pants lay on top of the bedspread. Dee Dee straightened up and grabbed Natua’s hand, pulling her out of the room. “Let’s go back downstairs.”
Natua pulled back, grabbed one of the bags that Dee Dee had dropped in front of the bedroom door. “Don’t forget my new clothes, Dee Dee. They might get torn up too.”
Dee Dee grabbed the other bags and then ushered the little girl back downstairs. She grabbed her purse and car keys, and rushed out of the house with Natua and her new clothes. Someone had been in her house, and Dee Dee now knew that it wasn’t Drake. Her faithful Christian husband would never do something so cruel to a little girl as sweet as Natua.
She threw the shopping bags and her purse in the car, buckled Natua into her car seat, got in the driver’s seat and then locked the doors as she put the keys in the ignition and started the car. Natua started crying and squirming in her seat. As Dee Dee backed out of the driveway, she told the child. “We’re just going for a little drive.”
“I want Daddy.”
She pulled the car over and told Natua. “Okay, honey, I’ll call Daddy.” When Drake answered the phone, Dee Dee didn’t waste time with small talk. “Someone has been in the house. Natua’s room has been torn apart. What are you doing? Can you come over?”
“Slow down. What are you talking about?”
“Drake, we need you. Please come to the house. Natua is very upset.”
Without hesitation, Drake said, “I’m on my way.”
Dee Dee hit the end button and threw her cell phone back in her purse. She leaned over and wiped the tears from Natua’s face. “Daddy’s on his way. Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see.”
“Daddy’s gon’ punch 'em in the face for tearing up my clothes,” Natua said, while balling up her hands and swiping at the air.
Dee Dee wanted to tell Natua that she might as well give up her dreams of seeing a fight. Drake would more likely get on his knees and pray for the soul of the intruder. Shaking her head, Dee Dee wondered for the hundredth time how someone as fine and sexy as Drake Milner could be as rigid as Moses carrying the Ten Commandments. “How about we go get some ice cream while we wait for Daddy to get here?”
A loud cheer came from the back as Dee Dee pulled off. If traffic was decent, it would still take Drake about thirty minutes to get to the house from where he lived. The ice cream shop was just down the street, so Dee Dee knew she could go there and get back to the house before Drake pulled up.
And that’s what she did. By the time Drake pulled his Range Rover next to her car, Dee Dee and Natua were happily finishing their vanilla and chocolate swirl ice cream cones. The car door was still locked just in case whoever had ransacked Natua’s room decided to bum-rush them while they were enjoying their ice cream. She unlocked the doors, and Drake helped Natua out of her car seat.
“Daddy, Daddy, I knew you’d come,” Natua screamed, as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“You didn’t have to worry about that, hon. Now let’s go check out your room.”
Shaking her head furiously, Natua said, “I don’t want my room anymore, Daddy. It’s broken.”
Drake glanced over at Dee Dee and silently communicated his concern. “I’ll fix it for you, baby. It’ll be like new.”
They walked into the house. Natua and Dee Dee stood in the foyer while Drake went up the stairs. When he came back down, he was holding clothes that had been ripped apart. “Who would do this to a child?” Drake demanded.
“I don’t know. At first, I thought it was you.”
“Me?” He held up the torn clothes for all to see. “What in the world would make you think I would do something like this?”
“I didn’t think you'd destroyed Natua’s room. I’ve been receiving these emails, and then there was a note on the refrigerator. I thought you had sent those notes, but once I entered Natua’s room, I knew you had nothing to do with it.”
“What notes?”
Dee Dee walked into the kitchen with Drake and Natua trailing her. She grabbed the note and handed it to Drake.
After reading it, he said, “Call the police.”
“But Drake, if I call the police, it will be all over the news and entertainment television. And you know as well as I do that if producers find out that I have a stalker, they’ll put me on the bubonic-plague list,” she whined.
“This isn’t about your career, Dee Dee. Whoever this guy is, he has been spying on Natua. We have to protect her. I’m going to check this house from top to bottom, and if you haven’t called the police by the time I finish, I will.”
“Get the bat out of the garage. If he’s still in here, you’ll need something to knock him out with.”
“I’ve got all I need with me right now.”
Dee Dee didn’t see any weapon in Drake’s hand, so she asked, “What do you have?”
He responded, “Holy Ghost power.”
Murmuring something under her breath, Dee Dee marched to the garage and grabbed the bat.
“All clear,” Drake said when he returned. “Did you call the police?”
“Well, no, I was hoping that you’d find him in the house, and then we’d beat the living daylights out of him.”
Drake picked up the telephone receiver. He dialed 911 and when the operator came on the line, he told her about the situation and then gave her the address.
When he hung up the phone, he turned to Dee Dee. She was leaning against the wall with her arms wrapped around her chest. “I guess you’re mad at me.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re right. It’s one thing to stalk me, but this nut obviously has also been stalking Natua. We need to do something about this.”
Drake stared at his wife for a moment, then quickly turned away from her. “The first thing we need to do is pray.”
Rolling her eyes, Dee Dee unfolded her arms and moved away from the wall she had been leaning against. “Instead of getting on your knees, you need to learn how to ball up your fist. Or better yet, go buy a gun. Natua and I don’t need a prayer warrior. We need a man who can take care of business.”
Drake ignored Dee Dee’s taunts as he continued walking to the room in the back of the house that he used for his prayer time.
She went into the family room with Natua and said, “Well, Natua, it looks like you and I are going to be the ones balling up our fists.”
“Daddy can fight too.”
“No baby, Daddy doesn’t like to fight. He prefers to pray.”
“I’m going to pray with him.” Natua ran down the hall to Drake’s prayer room.
“Guess I’m the only one in this family that’s willing to put up my dukes and go to battle,” she said dryly.
The doorbell rang. While shaking her head in disgust, Dee Dee walked to the front door. Seeing that two police officers were standing on her front porch, she opened the door and welcomed them in.
“We received a call about a home invasion.”
“Yes. Let me show you my daughter’s room,” Dee Dee said, as she took the detectives upstairs. “This is how the room was when I arrived home today.”
The taller of the two police officers looked around the room, took notes and then asked, “Was any other room disturbed?”
“No, but he left a note for me on the refrigerator.”
“Do you still have it,” the shorter police officer asked.
Dee Dee noticed that the shorter officer had startlingly gorgeous green eyes and a face to match. LA was full of beautiful people. But most of them couldn’t act and had to find other work. “Yes. Let me take you to the kitchen where I left it.”
By the time Dee Dee walked into the kitchen with the officers, Drake was in front of the stove fixing Ramen Noodles, or as Natua called them, perfect noodles. The child had access to the finest cuisine that Los Angeles had to offer, but she preferred Ramen Noodles over Penne or Linguine. Dee Dee didn’t understand it a bit.
“Here it is,” Dee Dee said, as she handed the note to Detective Beautiful.
He took the note and read it. He pointed upward, toward Natua’s room. “So, the person who wrote this note, also left that pink outfit on the bed upstairs?”
“Yes, I’m sorry that I forgot to mention that. With everything that has happened, I’m just a bit shaken.”
“Okay. Well, we’ll take that outfit and this note to see if we can get any prints off of them. Is there anything else?”
Dee Dee walked over to the kitchen table and sat down in front of her laptop. “I received an email a few days ago. At first I thought my husband had sent it, but now I’m not so sure.” She booted up the computer, opened her Outlook file and then clicked on the message.
Drake stepped behind the officers and read the email as well: "Leaving me isn’t going to be as easy as you think. I’m not like the others."
“You thought I sent an email like that to you?” Drake asked incredulously.
“Drake, can we please stick to the issue at hand?” She turned her attention back to the police officers and said, “I don’t know why this guy is fixated on me or why he’s so interested in Natua’s wardrobe, but I need him to stop.”
“We’ll do everything we can.” The taller officer handed Dee Dee a business card. “Send that email to this email address.” He pointed to the spot on the business card where his email address was displayed.
“We’ll be in touch,” Beautiful said, after they'd collected everything. They headed to the front door.
Drake walked them out. When he came back to the kitchen, he took the noodles out of the pot, cut them up and gave them to a smiling Natua. “Eat up, hon. I’m going to talk with Dee Dee for a minute and then I’ll be back in here to check on you. Okay?”
“All right, Daddy.” Natua began slurping noodles and forgot all about the grown-ups around her.
Drake and Dee Dee walked into the living room and then he said, “I’m not leaving. I’m moving back in until we figure out who this maniac is and what he really wants.”
“Natua and I will be fine now that we’re in the house. I do have an alarm system, remember?”
“And somehow, this guy was able to get in the house anyway."
“I just don’t think that it’s necessary to change our living arrangements.”
“I don’t care what you think, Dee. I’m not leaving the two of you alone, and that’s final.” Drake walked back toward the kitchen, leaving Dee Dee standing with her mouth hanging open.