The following days came and went in a haze. How did people live through these times? After staying at the motel for three days, they could go back home. But the moment Shakira stepped into the living room, pain and anger overwhelmed her. She saw Leila run to her screaming, “Mommy!” Couldn’t take it and decided to go and stay with her mother.
The coroner’s report was released to the press, and Shakira learned the circumstances surrounding the death of her two daughters. Evidently, Leila, the three-year-old, must have taken Latoya, her eighteen-month-old sister, into a filled bathtub and then got in after her. Both drowned within minutes. Time of death was estimated at 9:48 a.m., barely two hours after she and Deon left home. Her lips trembled and she couldn’t control the shaking of her hands as a representative of the police department made a statement.
Florence Odu, legal permanent resident of Nigerian descent, instantly made it to the list of Texas’s most wanted. Regional and local news channels broadcast the story for a few days. The two Smith girls were buried in an emotional interment five days later. The mayor attended and the governor sent a moving message. Shakira wafted through those days and details like a ghost, refusing to see it as her story, or taking part. She removed herself from the scenes and conversations, hidden in a place of no emotion or feeling. Somewhere she wouldn’t feel pain.
Deon refused to stay with her mother and moved back home after the funeral. Shakira could not bear to be in the same house where there had been so much joy in her life at first, but after two weeks she returned home.
Every night was difficult as she tried to cope with the loss of her beautiful daughters. In her mind, she kept hearing water fill the tub where their lives had been cut short. Shakira wanted to have the tub removed, but a trauma specialist advised they keep it to help bring closure.
Day after day, the police tried their best to find the woman believed to have last seen the Smith girls alive, but she had not been sighted since the day of the tragedy by either the neighbors or the agency she worked for.
Shakira was given leave from her job at the school. She thought she’d manage to work after a week but couldn’t bring herself to face the children she taught. Her therapist, Dr. Brickam, advised her and Deon to join a victims’ group, which they did, and to return to work. He did, she couldn’t.
Instead she sat in front of the TV all day, every day, seeking news about the case. But after less than a month, the tragedy became just a scroll on the screen and eventually disappeared as a whole. Other crimes made news.
Frustrated, she sought out the two officers assigned to the case.
Detective Gray attended to her in his cubicle. “We are doing everything we can to find her. Did you notice a ransom has been placed on her?”
Fifty thousand was a lot of cash. Shakira had been elated when the ransom was announced. No one would have information and not give it for such an amount of money.
“So has anyone come forward with information?”
“Unfortunately, no. There has been a torrent of leads though.”
“But she can’t just disappear?”
“Everyone is searching for Florence Odu. She can’t hide for much longer. It may please you to know the Interpol is involved after the—”
Shakira blinked. “Interpol? What has Interpol—she left the country?” Her heart skipped several beats. “She left?” Oh no. Florence couldn’t leave. How could she leave?
She stared at Gray. The officer nodded, and Shakira bit her lower lip hard. Florence was gone and they couldn’t find her. She was free. They would never find her. Interpol never found anyone. She had escaped.
“When?” Shakira said in a whisper, barely able to discern her own voice.
“November the eighth. She traveled with her Nigerian passport.”
Shakira shut her eyes tight, and this time a screech escaped from her soul. Florence Odu had left the country the same day she killed those babies.