The Rosaries (Crossroads Series) (21 page)

He went through the first box and all he saw were old photographs of days gone by, yellowed by time and bent at the corners. He got through the second box and he found a small case of costume jewelry. At the bottom of the case was a velvet pouch that felt as if it contained a necklace. It was tied with several knots and he sweat profusely as he tried to undo the tie, his fingers shaking so badly that it was torture to focus on such a patient task. He studied the contents through the material of the pouch – the small beads were about the same size as he
expected the rosary’s to be, and he thought he felt something sturdy at the end of the bag…a small cross, maybe?

His heart was thumping furiously; he heard blood rushing through his ears, and he suddenly felt faint. He laughed out loud, and kissed the pouch. He was ready to get out of there now; he turned off the flashlight before he opened the door, and slipped quietly out of Catherine’s room. And that’s when he heard voices…

At first, he thought they were just in his head – fear tricking him into hearing what wasn’t there – but when he listened closely, he distinctly heard the voices of two women. He went back into the room and into the closet, and literally prayed that they wouldn’t come upstairs. He heard one of them asking why the back door was open, and the other one assuring her friend that it was her mother who had likely left it unlocked this morning on her way out. One of the women was Natalie Sanders. To his dismay, he heard her tell her the other woman “I’m going to check all the doors while you fetch your things. Knowing Mom, she probably left a few more unlocked. After that I’ll be on my way, then. I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me if you need a ride.”

He hoped that wherever
her things
were, they were nowhere near Catherine’s room. He heard the woman come up the stairs and open the door to the room adjacent to the one he was in.

The housekeeper! He thought she had been discharged already…why was she here? He heard her moving around, his breath catching in his throat every time the sounds stopped. Then, he heard silence for a minute – where was she? He was sweating profusely, and almost gave in to the temptation of using one of Catherine’s clean garments to wipe his face. He bit down on his lower lip, the way he did when he was really nervous, and he cursed himself when he tasted blood.

He heard
Lakeisha’s
footsteps leaving the room, and heading toward the stairs. She suddenly stopped and turned around. The footsteps got closer and closer to Catherine’s room, until the door opened and she walked in. He hid behind two long satin nightgowns, and waited.

Lakeisha
moved some things around the room, then, obviously not finding what she was looking for, she opened the closet door, and he was ready to pounce on her. He hit her with the back of his gun, and watched her collapse on the floor, her face an instant mask of blood. She didn’t move, and he touched her throat to see if he could find a heartbeat – he didn’t. He wondered if she was the same woman who had called after him the day of the funeral, but in the darkness of the room, and with all the blood that covered her face, he could not make out what
she looked like. Even if he had seen her before, he would not be able to recognize her now. He put the pouch safely into his pocket and quickly fled the house and disappeared into the night.

Natalie was ready to take the ramp to get on 421 S after getting her supplies at the 24-hrs store, when she realized she accidentally left with the spare key she had used to lock the doors -- the one that Aunt Catherine always kept outside. Unsure of when she would go back, and certain that her mother would have a fit if she went to check on the house and the key was not there, she turned around and headed back toward Princess Street.

She wondered if
Lakeisha
was still in the house, so she went in and called her name. No answer.
Lakeisha
had already left. She wasn’t too tired, so she thought of going up to Aunt Catherine’s room and maybe box up a few things to make her mother’s job a little easier.
Lakeisha
had already packed most of Aunt Catherine’s personal belongings, but she was sure there was plenty more.

She went up the stairs and headed straight to Catherine’s room. Although it was almost summertime, she felt cold, and couldn’t decide whether the temperature was low, or if this old house was just giving her the willies. She walked in and turned on the light.

Most of the room had been packed up already, aside from the contents of the bedside table. She went to the closet to see if she could find a large bag or a small box to pack those items, and when she opened the door and went to turn on the light, she saw something. At first, she thought it was an old coat that had fallen off the hanger and had bunched up on the ground, but then she saw that the coat had a face, and the face was covered in blood. She screamed and stood frozen in place for what seemed like an eternity. She forced herself to look again. It was
Lakeisha
lying there; a motionless ebony doll abandoned to its fate.

She instinctually tried to find a heartbeat – it was faint, nearly undetectable, but there was definitely a beat. She burst into tears of relief, and ran out of the closet to grab the phone on Aunt Catherine’s bedside table. She prayed that
Lakeisha
would hang on. The wound on her forehead was bleeding profusely, and Natalie shivered at the thought of what would have happened to
Lakeisha
if she hadn’t decided to stop back by after she left the store.

The rescue team and the police arrived, and in minutes, the room was overtaken by medics and uniformed officers.
Lakeisha
was quickly whisked away, more dead than alive. The officers took Natalie’s statement, and told her that a detective would get in touch with her the next day. She
wondered if what happened to
Lakeisha
had anything to do with the rosary. She didn’t even know what led her to think of that, but it sounded like pure madness even as she formulated the thought. And yet, as she drove away from the old, dark house, she knew something evil was at play. That night, Natalie Sanders was truly afraid.

Chapter Thirteen

Jim Allen sat on his recliner and stared into space. Gone were the days when he would sit and do a crossword puzzle, or turned on the TV set to listen to the latest news. Without Belinda, life was not worth living, and he hoped every day that it would be his last.

His children and their families had come and gone; the police scraped every square inch of his home looking for clues, and found none. Same with the store – the perpetrator seemed to have vanished into thin air. He was pretty sure that the break-in at the store and Belinda’s death were related, but he didn’t think the police took him seriously when he tried to direct their attention to the possibility. They thanked him for his input, and for his cooperation with authorities, but as there hadn’t been any updates in over two weeks now, he was beginning to lose hope. And what if there were any updates? Even if the culprit was caught, Belinda would still be dead. Although he willed the son of a bitch to melt in the flames of hell, his capture could only fix the problem the way a band-aid would dress a slashed throat – a very small consolation indeed.

Jim wanted to die. In simple words, and without beating around the bush, that was his only wish from the heart. He stopped taking his heart medications three days before. Being a religious man, he considered suicide a sin, but if he looked at the issue with the twisted perception of a broken heart, he came to the conclusion that stopping artificial treatment aimed at preventing the course of nature wasn’t really suicide. If it was God’s will for him to live a tortured life without his Belinda, then he should be able to do it without chemical help, but he was simply not going to extend his own journey on borrowed time just to suffer.

One of his sons was still in town, working out details Jim had no will to deal with, so he had to be careful not to raise any suspicion. When asked if he took his medications regularly, he always replied that he did, and his son never questioned him.

He closed his eyes, and saw Belinda’s smiling face. There were times he saw her as he found her on that fateful day when she died, but he always opened his eyes immediately and pushed those memories away. He wanted to see her the way she looked while she was alive; when the two of them were together; when Jim was still happy to walk the streets of Earth.

“Really, Natalie, what was that woman doing in my sister’s house? She had no reason to be there after I discharged her.”

“Mother, I think I’ve told you that five times already.”

“Don’t you use that tone with me, young lady!”

Natalie sighed – there was no winning a battle against her mother; the most one could hope was that Angela would soon tire of her adversary and focus on the next enemy.

“I’m not using a tone, Mom. I told you – Some of
Lakeisha’s
belongings were still at the house; she doesn’t drive, so she can only carry so much on foot or on a bus. I gave her a ride to Aunt Catherine’s place. She was going to get her things, and walk back to her hotel. The perpetrator must have been already in the house when we got there. In fact, I know he was, since we found one of the doors unlocked. My first thought was that maybe you or dad went by the house earlier in the day and forgot to lock up.”

Angela took a deep, exasperated breath. “Maybe it is as you say, Natalie, but we’ve never had anyone breaking in before -- until that woman lived there, that is. Maybe she called some thugs from that God-forsaken place she is from…there is no telling. You know how those people are…don’t you, dear? We’ve heard all kinds of scary things on the television about violence down there where she is from.”

“Mom, the violence in New Orleans is due to gangs that moved into the run-down parts of town that were abandoned. Not everybody is violent ‘down there where she is from’. I know you’ve heard that too, from the television.”

Angela blushed – the impertinence of that child! She stood up and left. Natalie, relieved by the unexpected retreat of enemy troops, drew a big breath and prepared to go back to the
hospital to see if
Lakeisha’s
condition had improved at all. Two hours ago,
Lakeisha
was still unconscious; the doctor said that whatever hit her cracked her cranium only slightly, but the brain was still badly swollen and bruised, so she would be kept in an induced coma until the swelling decreased.

She called Ryan on the way there. “Hey, I’m on my way to Jackson Memorial. Someone broke into Aunt Catherine’s house last night, and
Lakeisha
was there gathering her belongings. The perpetrator attacked her and she is now in the ICU”

“Oh my God, Natalie…that’s awful!”

“I should be there in just a few minutes, if you would like to meet me for coffee.”

“Definitely, Sweetie. I’m on my way.”

“Okay, Ryan; thank you, I can really use the support – my mom is being a bitch, as always.”

“She’s probably upset too, Natalie”

“Nah, my mother doesn’t get upset; she’s pure Tuscan marble under the skin.”

Ryan laughed. “You’re hard on her. What would she say if she heard you?”

“She would say that I am a hopeless brat, and that my attitude probably comes from some bad, unrefined gene I inherited from my real mother. And for your information, she would say it, or at least think about it, whether I say anything or not – it’s her favorite mantra.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, Sweetie. There is nothing bratty or unrefined about you. You’re 100% winner.”

“See? That’s why I need you there. You walked into my life to restore my self-esteem.”

“I’ll be there in about thirty minutes, Natalie. I only need to finish reading a few paragraphs of a contract that came in this morning.”

“That’s fine, Ryan, see you there.”

She ended the call and laid the phone on the passenger seat. The hospital loomed ahead and she slowed down to make sure she wouldn’t miss the right entrance. She hurried upstairs to the ICU and went straight to
Lakeisha’s
room, hoping to talk to one of the doctors in charge of her care. She saw a nurse leaving the room, and sped up her step toward her.

“Excuse me, Miss,”

The young nurse turned to see who called her and smiled at Natalie. “Yes, can I help you?”

“I was wondering if there have been any changes with Miss Jackson.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that, Miss. You’re not family, right?”

Natalie almost laughed – She was white,
Lakeisha
was black, and although they shared a soul bond of some type, they were not blood-tied or related in any way. Did soul family ties qualify one to get information in a hospital setting?

“No, I’m not related to her, but she was my aunt’s nurse and a personal friend. She was injured when a perpetrator broke into my aunt’s house and attacked her. I already explained this last night to another set of nurses and to the doctor on duty.”

The nurse warmed up a little. “Of course, Miss. If you’ll have a seat in the waiting area I will send the doctor who checked on her this morning. I’m afraid this is a restricted area, so I cannot let you go into the room.”