Chapter 16
Every other Friday, Rashad and Jerry had a strict routine. Together they’d take a drive over to the warehouse and pick up some raw materials that would be needed for the next construction job. But on the evening of Friday, April 28, something came up at the last minute. Jerry wouldn’t be able to make the trip.
“I hate to do this to you, Boss Man.” Jerry had placed a quick call to Rashad. “Once again, something’s going on with my grands. They are running a fever. Can’t take any chances. So I gotta go.”
“Damn, Jerry, this really puts me out.”
“I know. I was supposed to drive over to the warehouse with you.”
“I guess I can do it alone. You go on ahead and take care of your business. Hope everything works out with the grandkids.”
“Thanks, Rashad. I appreciate this.”
“No problem.”
“See you in the morning.”
“Yeah, ’bye, Jerry.”
Rashad hung up. He went to his desk and logged on to his computer to pull a report of the materials that he needed to pick up. It was getting late. Nearly nine o’clock. The new project would begin at seven or eight the next morning.
He made a list and headed out to the Eason & Son van. As he started driving, he made a mental note to try to call Nicole again. Or maybe he could surprise her with a friendly visit. He just wanted to make things right again between the two of them.
After a twenty-minute drive, Rashad arrived at the warehouse location. A two-story building with very few windows, it was sandwiched between two other businesses. A furniture warehouse was on the right, and a gas station was on the left.
The floodlight that normally illuminated the warehouse’s entrance was not working.
“I need to let the owners know they gotta get that fixed. I’ll call ’em first thing tomorrow,” he said. “One more damn thing to remember.”
Rashad put a reminder on his calendar, then exited the van. He left the floodlights on so he could see his way into the building. With the driver’s-side door still open, Rashad walked to the rear of the van; he opened one of the double doors and retrieved the dolly.
He wheeled the dolly to the garage and punched in a four-digit code; the door squeaked as it opened.
Rashad laughed to himself. “Damn garage needs some WD-40. More shit to remember. This is ridiculous.”
He went inside and left the door partially ajar, thinking his task would take only a few minutes.
Rashad went into the building that he’d been inside a hundred times before. It was old, dusty, and dilapidated.
He proceeded inside and headed to the big load of weldable rebar, steel mesh, lumber, and materials needed to pour concrete. Eason & Son had been contracted to build a five-car detached garage for a house out in the Woodlands and he was excited to do the job.
He piled up a few pieces of lumber and loaded them on the dolly. He then was in the middle of picking up some rebar when he felt a presence behind him. He assumed it was Jerry and figured he had changed his mind.
Without turning his back, he said, “Hey, Jerry. Glad you could make it.”
A metal object smacked the back of his head.
Rashad turned around.
A strange man was glaring at him.
Rashad’s eyes enlarged. He raised his hands.
“Get on your knees.”
Rashad fell to his knees. His lips trembled. His eyes stayed on the gun as he gasped for breath. After a beat, he finally found his voice. For ten to fifteen minutes, he pleaded for his life. But it did no good.
* * *
A loud bang sounded.
His eyes opened wider but looked at nothing.
The salty taste of blood filled his entire mouth.
Rashad quivered as globs of blood and pink chunks of his brain exploded from his head. Rashad took one final breath. Then he entered into eternal darkness, where no one could hear the screams that burst from his soul.
* * *
It was 3:45 a.m., the wee hours of the next morning. Nicole woke up in a cold sweat. Her pajamas clung to her skin. She’d have to wake up in only a few hours because Emmy was about to start attending a new day-care center.
Last night was Emmy’s final time being cared for by Nadia. Nicole had invited the nanny over so she could play with her daughter once more. Having a nanny was a luxury that Nicole could no longer afford. “If it wasn’t for Rashad, Emmy would still have a nanny. But now my daughter has to be dropped off at a fucking twenty-four-hour day care. The staff is too young and inexperienced. But what else can I do?”
* * *
She fought hard to go back to sleep. When she woke up at seven, she showered then prepared breakfast for herself and Emmy. She wanted to turn on the news, but was too afraid. Every time her phone beeped, she jumped. But it was just game notifications. No texts. No calls.
Nicole put on the leather gloves and went and got the last burner phone. She placed it in a storage bag and dropped it in her purse.
An hour and a half later, she and Emmy left the apartment and were on their way. Every time she saw a white van on the street, she froze. And when it seemed as though a police car was following her, she carefully drove until she reached an intersection and then turned the corner. She looked in her rearview. The police weren’t following.
Nicole pulled up in front of the child-care facility. Although it was nine in the morning, the parking lot was packed.
“Damn shame that so many single moms have no other alternative than to leave their kids at places like these.”
She mustered up a smile and carried Emmy on her hip. She managed to get through the check-in process and had a seat in the lobby.
“Hey there, Nicole,” the director said. Her name was Wendy. “Glad to see you made it out. We’ll be happy to spend time with your daughter and make sure she feels comfortable. You’re welcome to stick around as long as you like. She’s in good hands.”
“Thank you.”
Wendy led Nicole to the toddler room. “This is where Emmy will spend most of her time.”
“Okay, I’ll be here for a little while and make sure my daughter feels comfortable. And then I’ll sneak away and leave and will check back in a few hours. But I’ll be reachable by cell phone if Emmy gets upset.”
“I’m sure she’ll have so much fun with the other kids she might not even notice you’re missing. You go right ahead and leave when you’re ready. And I’m so sorry that you and your husband are splitting up.”
“What are you talking about? I never told you that. Why would you say something like that?”
Wendy gave Nicole an odd look. “But isn’t that what you told me a few days ago? Don’t you remember?”
Nicole’s face was ashen. “I did? Oh, I don’t know why I told you that. I must have been talking about someone else. Not me. My husband and I are fine.”
“Oh, okay. Maybe I got it mixed up.”
“Yeah, you are very mixed up. Um, is it alright with you if I use the ladies’ room? My stomach is hurting.”
“Go right ahead. Down that hallway. To the very end, last door on the right.”
Nicole practically ran down the hall. She opened and quickly locked the door. She raised the lid and threw up for several minutes. When she was done, she rinsed her mouth out good.
“Oh shit. Why me?”
Deep inside she already knew what a pregnancy test couldn’t tell her. She knew she was going to have another child of Rashad’s. But if he was dead, what would happen then? Was it too late to get Ajalon to stop the hit?
Why did she even pay her ex to kill her husband? It felt like a bad dream. She wanted to call Ajalon, but decided to wait. Not knowing what had happened was killing her, and she wanted to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.
* * *
Later that morning, even though he did not want to, Jerry placed a call to Nicole. It rang three times before she picked up.
She started to say, “Hey, Jerry,” but she simply said, “Hello?”
“Nicole. It’s me, Jerry.” He never called her Mrs. Eason, and she thought it was so disrespectful.
“Hey, Jerry. What’s up?”
“Um. Have you heard from the Boss Man?”
“Uh, not lately,” she said. Nicole didn’t know how much of their business Rashad told to Jerry. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m out here in the Woodlands. We’re supposed to start a garage project, and last night when I talked to Rashad, he told me that he’d meet me out here between seven and eight. I’ve been waiting since seven fifteen. And three hours later, no Rashad. His phone rings and rings. No answer. No callbacks.”
“Um, maybe he overslept.”
“Rashad never oversleeps. I’ve known this man for years and not showing up for work is not like him.”
“Well, Jerry, tell you what. I will call him and see what’s going on. If I find out anything I’ll make sure and call you back. It’s probably nothing. He may be at his second home.”
“Second home?”
“Home Depot.” She laughed. “Or Harbor Freight.”
“I dunno. Maybe. When I talked to him last night, he was on his way to the warehouse. Did he mention it when he came home?”
Okay. Jerry does not know that Rashad and I are living separately.
“No. He never mentioned that to me.”
“This is nuts. The owners of the house are sitting around looking at me like I’m scoping out their house to rob them. You know how rich people get around strangers.”
“I, uh, I wouldn’t know, Jerry. Anyway, um, I was kind of busy.”
“Sorry to disturb you. Call me back if you hear anything. Otherwise I will tell these people we’ll have to reschedule. Waste of time and gas.”
“I’ll call if I can. ’Bye, Jerry.”
She quickly hung up. Damn. It sounded like the hit went off. But she wasn’t really sure.
She finished off the bottle of tequila and went to her kitchen. Cooking calmed her down. She threw together a quick lunch and baked a cake.
Suddenly her cell phone rang. It was Myles.
“Oh shit, no, no, I can’t do this.” She let the call go into voice mail. Soon she saw the icon appear on her notifications. A message had been left.
She pressed “1” to listen.
“Hi, Mom.”
Oh shit, he just called me “Mom.”
“It’s Myles. I drew you a picture. It’s of a pretend zoo that I made up. I wanted to send it to you, but I don’t know how. Call me back and tell me. My mommy is busy right now talking to Mr. Osborne.”
She heard Myles’s recorded voice and listened two more times. So Kiara and Eddison were together. That meant that no one had heard about Rashad yet.
She finished eating, then decided to call Rashad’s number. Her knees knocked together when his cell rang. She decided not to leave a message.
In her heart she felt that he must’ve been dead. But why hadn’t Ajalon called her?
* * *
It had been more then twenty-four hours since anyone had heard from Rashad.
Kiara attempted to call him, but there was no answer. No voice. Only voice mail. When Jerry called Nicole a second time and could get no solid answer from her about his boss’s whereabouts, he phoned Kiara.
“I’m worried. This isn’t like Rashad at all.”
A dreadful feeling gutted Kiara’s belly. Had anything bad happened to him? The last time someone had seen him was at Eason and Son. They thought he might have tried to go make a new deposit at the bank. But Jerry doubted that. His boss swore he’d never try that again. In fact, he wanted to come up with some new security measures so that everyone could be safe.
“What about all the construction sites, Jerry? Have you checked with those? I remember when he used to fall asleep at some of those sites. He’d stay all night, then come home.”
“Yeah, that man can work so hard that he can’t see straight.”
“I hope he hasn’t had a car wreck. He could be lying in a ditch somewhere.”
She said that, but inside she wished that was all that had happened. She hoped that Ajalon Cantu had nothing to do with Rashad’s disappearance. She hung up from Jerry and was unable to concentrate. She felt jittery, and negative thoughts punched her mind constantly. But the next evening, not quite a full forty-eight hours had passed, and she still had not heard from Rashad. Kiara felt she needed to take action. She remembered how to get into his Find My Cell Phone account. And when she pulled up the info, she gasped when she saw the blue light flickering on the computer screen. She could barely breathe as she raced to her car with Myles and Jazzy in tow. The address was a warehouse where some of his heavy equipment items were stored.
When Kiara arrived at the warehouse, the entrance gate was wide open. As she drove inside the parking area, she immediately saw Rashad’s work van right next to the building.
“Maybe Rashad fell asleep in the van.”
Kiara pulled up next to his vehicle and got out of her car. All the doors were closed. When she peered inside the window, he wasn’t in the driver’s seat. No other cars were in the area.
“Maybe he left the van here and got picked up by someone?”
Kiara dialed Nicole’s number, but the woman did not answer the call.
“Hmm.”
Kiara decided to go inside the warehouse. She didn’t want to leave the kids alone in her car, but she told herself she’d only be gone a couple of minutes.
“Wait here,” she instructed Myles. “If I’m not back in two minutes, please come find me.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
She got out of the car and walked over to the warehouse entrance. She remembered the code to the door and it squeaked as it opened.
“Rashad? Are you here? It’s Kiara.”
She walked inside and traveled about twenty yards when she encountered an awful smell. It was a sickly sweet, yet sharp odor, similar to pineapples and raspberries. She quickly covered her nose.
A cold chill came over her. Then she looked to the left and spotted a body spread out on the floor. It was lying on its side. Pools of blood surrounded the corpse. Dried blood wildly covered parts of the body. Maggots and flies were descending on top of the corpse. The smell was bad enough to make the last meal she ate rise up in her throat.
She took a closer look. Half of his face was gone, but she knew his body. She could never forget his shape, his hands. He lay facedown, unmoving, and looked as stiff as stone.
“Rashad? Oh my God, noooo.”
Kiara heard the ringing of his cell phone, which was abandoned only a few feet away.
That’s when Kiara screamed at the top of her lungs.
She refused to believe that it had happened. Did not want to accept that he was gone.
She trembled uncontrollably and she could not think logically for several seconds.
The kids! What if Rashad had gotten killed and the murderer was still nearby or even somewhere inside the warehouse? She had no idea how long he’d been there. Kiara sprinted through the warehouse and stumbled as she ran blindly toward the exit.
She burst through the door, afraid of what she’d discover. But Myles smiled at her through the car window and she’d never been more relieved in her life.
Kiara jumped in the car, quickly locked all the doors, and called 911.
“Hello, there’s been a terrible accident. Please hurry.”