Caress (15 page)

“Ow!”

They fell silent as they prepared for takeoff. Once in the air, Michael carefully broached the subject of Elphonse Deklerk once more. “Nya, I don’t want to fight with you. Obviously, despite everything that’s going on, I think you know I’m… ahh… drawn to you. But I’m going to find out why Deklerk revealed the story and led me to Ellis.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but it just couldn’t be. I know him. I do. I talked to him late last night after I talked to you. It’s part of the reason why I’m on this plane. I found out that he’s been taking money out of his own pocket to help the families of those kids. He’s meeting with them all tomorrow to see what more can be done to express his and Hatsheput’s sympathy. No one asked him to do it. While I was chasing after you trying to get you to spit-shine Hatsheput’s reputation, he was doing what really mattered. After talking to him last night, I felt really bad about letting you make me doubt what I know, have known for more than twenty years.”

“I only gave you the facts. Don’t be angry with me for trying to get to the truth and for trying to arm you, to protect you.”

She shook her head, then absently brought one hand up to press at the muscles in the back of her neck. “We won’t get anywhere with this. I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree and wait to find out what the investigation tells us.”

“Maybe,” he said as he shifted in his seat. He moved her hand away from her neck and replaced it with his own.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m rubbing your neck.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re tense… and I want to touch you.”

A warm flush raced across Nya’s skin, but she didn’t stop him. His hands were strong and they relaxed her in a way her own hands never could.

Michael leaned in close, his lips next to her ear. “If you have faith in him, and if he is taking care of those families of his own volition, then I won’t argue. Just don’t be surprised if you find out something different.”

“Is this where you tell me why you’re going back to my island this morning?”

“Marshall Ellis disappeared two days ago. He was bailed out of jail before anyone knew he was to be transferred into federal detention. No one has seen him since.”

“What?”

“That’s why I’m headed to the island.”

“How is that even possible? Everyone knew he was a person of interest in the federal investigation. There was no bail
set.
”

“I know. Supposedly there was a clerking error.”

“A clerking error? A
clerking
error!” Nya yelled.

Michael pressed a finger to her lips to quiet her. “You know there’s only one way he got out.”

Nya lowered her voice. “Mandolesi.”

“Right. I just want to see if there’s a trail and where it might lead.”

“I wonder if my father knows. He would have a good idea of where Marshall would go to hide.”

“How about you ask him for me when you see him?”

Nya looked up at him. The man was so handsome and so determined. “Okay,” she agreed and settled in once more for his neck massage.

When he was done, he dropped his arm over her shoulder and pulled her against his chest. Her protest was a weak one. She told herself that as soon as they landed, things would go back to normal between them.

h

At the airport Nya offered Michael a ride to his hotel after he retrieved their bags. Michael accepted and held her hand as they drove through rural areas and cityscapes. They were both somber as they considered what the rest of their separate days held.

When they stopped at his hotel, Michael kissed her on the corner of the lips before he got out of the car. Nya melted a little from the contact.
God, why did he have to come along at a time like this?

Impulsively, she yelled out the window for him to be careful. He just flashed a smile that made her melt even more.

Nya banged her head against the backseat of the car.

h

Nya was surprised when the car didn’t pull up to the Hatsheput central office. Instead, it pulled up to a tiny, pristine white chapel attached to a large church where the Seymours and Andersens had worshiped for three generations. There were a couple of cars there already. When Nya got out of hers, an exact match of her car pulled up. Her father, tall, overbearing, and immaculate in a black suit, starched white shirt, and pale yellow satin tie, stepped out.

Their eyes met, and Nya headed right over to him and hugged him. He hugged her back, hard.

“Daddy, what are you doing here?”

“Your mother told me you were coming in this morning. I asked her why and she said you were doing something with Elphonse. I called him, he told me.”

“But Daddy, you didn’t have to come.” Nya felt the warm feelings she had felt in those first few moments dissipate. Here he was, late on the scene again, and only there because she had taken the initiative to be there.

“Don’t look at your father like that, girl,” he admonished.

Nya tried to tame the riot of emotions inside her. She never wanted to show her father how deeply hurt she was by his actions. He’d easily perceive it as weakness.

“That’s not much better,” he told her. “Don’t let your ire interfere with why we are here. Straighten up before we go in.”

Nya schooled her features and begrudgingly took her father’s direction as he pushed her forward with a hand at the small of her back. They both went into the chapel. Inside, Elphonse, coincidentally in a dark suit with a pale yellow tie, sat forward in a folding chair, intense as he faced a long wood bench with red velvet padding where three women in their forties sat hip-to-hip.

When he saw Nya and her father, El rose and went to grab two more chairs. Her father stepped forward to grasp hands with each of the women. Nya found herself welcoming each of the women into an embrace that left them all with wet cheeks. She sat between her father and El, and the small congregation began to talk.

Lola MacPherson spoke of her son, Lamonte, talented at caricature, who had been slain in front of his girlfriend after showering her with gifts, supposedly bought with money he was supposed to turn over to the kingpin.

Mary-Amelia wept over her son Errol, a graffiti artist with a long history of drug abuse. He had had the option of going to jail or into Art Sentries. A year later his twelve-year-old cousin, a kid who looked up to him as a big brother, watched him be shot full of drugs before he took a bullet in the brain.

Danika Rolle’s daughter, Zahretta, had been the one to witness the death of her son Noah. Noah had been a found object artist. It was his passport out of a life being in and out of lockup. They’d both been taken from their home early in the evening. Everyone had been home, including Danika.

“They busted in our front and back door. There were at least five of them. They came in their black clothes, with their masks on. They took my Noah first. They say they know he’s been talking. Then they tried to make us decide which of us would watch him die. They said if we didn’t decide quickly, then they’d kill him where he stood. All the little ones were there. Zahretta couldn’t stand her children seeing. And she thought maybe she would buy some time, you know.” She shuddered. Beside her, Mary-Amelia sobbed.

Nya couldn’t check her own tears, which flowed freely.

“Do you know they brought them back home?” Danika continued. “Two hours later, they push them out of the car like dogs and throw money in the yard for Noah’s funeral. Zahretta won’t talk about what happened. She ain’t been the same since. None of us have, but that girl has suffered the most. She won’t eat, sleep, or say nothing to no one.”

“Do you think she would see a counselor if we provided one?” Nya asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, we’ll try to get her one. We’ll provide that for any of you who need it.” Nya looked over at her father.

He cleared his throat. “We will do everything in our power to make sure the men who did this,
all of them
, are brought to justice,” Nyron vowed. His voice was deep and strong and confident. His words crystallized among them, and even Nya believed that this would happen because he said it would. Her father had always been a force to be reckoned with, always.

Nya added, “We will also subsidize a real education for the rest of your children. We will make sure they want for nothing.”

“Oh, Miss Nya, Elphonse has already done that and more,” Lola told her.

Nya only nodded. “I know. But he doesn’t stand alone. We are all here for you. We are desperately sorry for your loss.”

The women nodded. Nya dabbed at her eyes.

h

Nyron escorted the women out at the end of their meeting, but Elphonse held Nya back. She looked up at him quizzically.

“Little sister,” he started. “Sit.”

Nya did. It was rare for Elphonse to call her “little sister.” More often, he used the term for Jenine.

“I’m glad you came,” he said.

Nya nodded. “I’m glad you are the person you are, El. I’m glad that you put this together, when neither my father nor I had the foresight to do it.”

“I don’t know about sight, Nya. What I know is that I must take responsibility for my own actions. I don’t know whether this is noble or if it comes from guilt.”

Nya felt as if she had been punched in the chest. “What would you have to be guilty about, El?”

“Here, in this place of God, there is something I need to tell you.”

Her heart started to pound and she was already shaking her head no.

He cleared his throat. “I know you’ve been working with Michael Harrison, and I know what he’s told you about me being the reason his article came together.”

“El, don’t do this to me. Please don’t.”

He rubbed his eyes and chewed the corner of his lip. Then he reached for her hands. The warmth of his let her know how cold her own were. “Nya, I need for you to believe in me today. I need for you to have faith in me no matter what I say to you.”

She couldn’t respond. Her faith in him had not been shaken before. She didn’t want it to be shaken then.

“I did talk to Harrison. I did tell him that Marshall knew everything and was credible. I did these things knowing that if he published his article it could delay or even prevent the arrest at this point in time.”

Nya snatched her hands away and stood up. She started to pace at the front of the chapel. Elphonse stood as well, but he stuffed his hands in his pants pockets and watched her.

“You couldn’t have done this. You couldn’t have.” She couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him.

“Nya, I did, but I had no choice.”

She rushed to him then, “What does that mean, Elphonse? Were you blackmailed? Were you threatened in some way? What? Tell me
something
that will make this make sense.”

El took a step back and away from her. “Nya, I can only tell you to trust what you know in your heart. Trust
me.
”

She shook her head and tears streamed down her cheeks in earnest. “What have you
done?
”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Does Nyron know? Does he know you did this?”

“I told him.”

“Of course you did. And what? He didn’t question you, didn’t have a word to say against what you’ve done despite what the authorities have asked?”

“He trusted me, Nya. I’m asking you to do the same.”

“Why tell me at all?”

“Because I regret involving Harrison, and because I need your faith.”

“You had my faith without telling me this.”

“I want your faith
despite
telling you this. I want your faith because you know who I am no matter what. I need you to believe in me when I don’t believe in myself.”

Nya tilted her head and stared at her friend. She observed a man with a most tortured soul. She had seen him this way before. She gave him her faith.

h

“Tell me what happened,” Michael said as Nya and he sat down to eat in an intimate booth at the swank supper club in his hotel.

“I don’t know where to start.” Nya smiled nervously and gave her head a little shake.

“Start with where you met with the ladies.”

“We met at a little chapel attached to our church. My family has met there more than once in a time of crisis.”

“And the mothers were there?”

“Yes, the three of them were there with El when I arrived. The fourth boy, Bernard French, didn’t have any family left. No one seems to miss him.”

Michael reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

Nya squeezed back and related all that had happened with the families. Michael listened intently, inserting soothing words and words of support here and there. He talked about having to confront families that had faced even worse atrocities as he wrote an expansive feature about the Congo. He gently wiped away a tear on her cheek with his thumb.