Rhythms of Grace (48 page)

At least that was what I hoped. In my gut, I thought it might have been Lottie, but she was the last thing on my mind. What worried me was that the calls went back to 7:00, when my cell had been on vibrate.

When Grace had been at my house.

The thought of Lottie following Grace or even watching me was too much for my brain. I didn’t dare mention it to Grace. Despite my stupidity about hair comments, this I knew for sure.

“Games, huh? Somebody must have been really confused. It seemed like a lot of calls.”

I nodded. “You can never know what people are thinking, but I think it was a genuine mistake. I probably set something wrong as flustered as I was about Joyce.”

She turned back to the window. “Could be. It shook me pretty bad too.”

Grace’s condo appeared all too soon, but I knew I needed to get home and sleep, process the past few days. I’d forgotten how exhausting constant communion with God, let alone women, could be. And almost losing Joyce? Forget it. I’d thought that knowing she was sick might change something when the time came, but it seemed like it hurt just the same.

I parked and got out to open Grace’s door, but she’d already let herself out. Probably thought I was too tired. Eva always said that if you were too tired to be a gentleman, you were too tired to have a woman in your company—

Grace didn’t wait for me to shut the door behind her. She was out of the car and walking at first, then faster, then running. I slid behind her, catching up just as she crumpled to the cement in front of a broken picture frame. It had been a beautiful print, I could see that. A black-and-white of an African woman, whose peaceful face was now sliced in half. I reached for Grace and pulled her close with one hand. I called the police with the other.

She buried her face in my hair. “Not again.”

I stroked her face. There’d be no more peace. Not tonight.

They left the door open.

“Like last time, they wanted to make sure she knew they were here. That’s what the picture was about. A message,” the officer said, his words aimed at me this time.

I squeezed Grace’s hand.

“The team will assess the evidence and catch this person. They were foolish enough to return to the scene. We’ll get them this time.”

“If it was the same person,” Grace mumbled. I knew she was thinking about the phone calls I’d gotten earlier. So was I. I hadn’t thought that Lottie would go this far.

I tried to stay calm. “It’s the same nut.”

The officer narrowed his gaze. “Do you have something to add, Dr. Mayfield?”

“He doesn’t, Officer. We’ve been at the hospital all night with our principal, Joyce Rogers.” Grace interjected before I could respond.

“I’m sorry. About all this. Where are you going to stay tonight?” the officer asked.

Grace pointed toward Zeely’s, even though there was no car in the driveway. “I’ll stay with a friend, Zeely Wilkins.”

The officer nodded and flipped through the case file, noting Zeely’s phone number and address. “Do you need an escort?”

I shook the man’s hand. “I’ll handle it. Thanks again.”

As Grace and I walked away, a wiry woman in a uniform whispered something in the detective’s ear.

He stopped us. “One more thing, Ms. Okoye. We found a gum wrapper in the kitchen. Do you chew gum?”

Grace shook her head but she stumbled back as though she knew someone who did. It took me a minute, but it came to me too. Sean McKnight. The math gum. I tried to call the officers back but Grace begged me not to, said I didn’t know for sure. It could be anybody.

Yeah. Right.

No matter how hard I tried, nothing could slow down the anger flooding my veins. If the officer hadn’t already left, he might have arrested me next. I banged my fist on the hood of my car.

Grace cringed, watching me pace back and forth. I hurled my keys to the ground. “I knew it! I told Joyce to get him out.” I spun toward Grace. “And I told you to watch out for him. I—”

STOP
.
YOU’RE SCARING HER.

As quickly as the storm began, it ceased. I picked up my keys, took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of it. Let’s get you safe.”

Grace looked like she wanted to ask how I’d take care of it, but was scared to find out. And with good cause. If Sean was capable of doing something like this after all Imani and I had done to help him, the boy deserved whatever he got.

We walked to Zeely’s in silence and stood in the cold moonlight ringing the doorbell.

Ding. Dong.

Okay, so Zeely’s car wasn’t at the shop. Despite the crazy hour, she really wasn’t home.

My head started to throb. “Okay, look. You can’t go home and I can’t leave you here, so come with me. I’ll take you somewhere. Thelma’s maybe—”

“No. Zeely will come home. She always does. Probably out shopping somewhere.”

She was back across the yard and into her place almost before I knew it. I caught up quickly. And followed her inside. The officer had ordered us out and here she was back at the scene of the crime, hitting redial.

This makes no sense.

My body hit the couch. It was all I could do to keep from losing it, just stop and drop. Something stuck me, cut into my jacket. Glass. No wonder the cops had ordered us out. The closer I looked, I could see little bits of glass on the couch and on the floor. I got up and took the phone from Grace’s hand. “You can’t stay here. Do you understand that?”

She grabbed it back. “I’m not staying here. I’m just waiting until Zeely gets back. She must have run to the superstore for something to go with her outfit tomorrow.”

“You’ll be waiting awhile then. That’s twenty miles away.” I fought off a wave of nausea from lack of sleep. “Look, come home with me. I’ll sleep on the couch. I’ll sleep in the car if you want. Just don’t stay here.”

It was her turn to pace. If I’d seen this coming, I would have taken a longer nap at the hospital.

She slammed the phone into its charger. “I can’t spend the night at your house. This is messy enough. If someone saw me leaving there, it’d be on the front page.”

Better than an obituary. “Be reasonable, Princess . . .”

One look at her eyes told me I’d crossed the line.

And so had she.

Grace took my hand and tugged, moving toward the door. “If I were reasonable, I wouldn’t have moved back here.”

I stepped between her and the door, ready to restrain her if necessary. Instead, I fell backwards from an unexpected shove. I got up, but on the wrong side of the door. Maple wood almost smacked my lips as the door slammed shut. The lock clicked with finality.

Eva was wrong.

Sometimes being a gentleman was just too tiring.

78

Grace

I don’t think I’ll talk anymore. It makes me tired.
People are only thinking of what they’re going to
say better, faster—instead of hearing the words. No
one listens except God, and I can no longer hear his
answers. I can only hear the drums.

Diana Dixon

I dragged myself toward my bedroom then, not wanting to hear him start his car and drive away. I’d forgotten that they’d come through the back window this time and gone out the front. A chill whistled through the sliced screen that sent me running back to the front for the phone. Redial. No answer. No car. And now Brian was gone too.

I walked to the front door, trying to remember Brian’s cell number. Was it in my purse? I couldn’t think. There were just windows going through my mind, windows with a blank face pressed against them. And here I was trying to pull Zeely into it.

I should have listened to Brian.
About Sean. About everything. It had only been a few minutes since I’d shoved him outside, but it seemed like forever. I opened the door anyway.

My foot hit something soft. And something not so soft. Muscles.

“Watch it. I’m trying to sleep, you know.” It was Brian, stretched out across my porch.

I dropped the phone. Brian got up and raised one hand. “Don’t hit me, okay? You know I couldn’t leave you here—”

“Thank you,” I said, folding into him. “I’m sorry. I’m just so, so sorry.” I pressed against his cold, wet body, felt his tangle of hair, freezing lips . . . Snow soaked through my tights as we held each other. The coconut oil from his hair smelled better than ever.

Almost as good as he tasted. Delicious, just like I knew he would.

Brian spent a few seconds trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t figure it out myself. So far I was only sure of one thing—I needed this. I needed him.

Maybe if we’d been more rested, less hungry and afraid, I might not have started it, running my hand under his sweater, up his back . . .

But I was all of those things and as it was, when I kissed him, I forgot about Joyce in that hospital, the picture on the front lawn, the gum wrapper the police found . . . For a minute, I think I forgot my name.

We were lost in each other but Brian tried to stop, tried to pull away while he still could. Well, I was past that. Way past it. This was why I didn’t date much. I was as scared of myself as I was of men.

Brian almost got away, but I wasn’t having it. I grabbed a handful of his hair and kissed him thoroughly.

Completely.

He started talking about praying and saying hold up a minute and how I didn’t mean it, when I took my fingernails and raked them through his beard.

He stopped talking.

We started moving back toward the door, in the house with the glass and the hurt. And at the moment, I didn’t care. At least not until my foot slipped out from under me.

We went down hard, both of us. Hard like how we’d fallen for each other that first night in the cafeteria. We held on tight, tumbling as the porch seemed to slide away.

Finally we came to a stop in a bank of fresh snow so wet and cold that I started to sneeze. Brian wiped his mouth and helped me to my feet.

“I’m going to call the police back. They can keep you at the station until Zeely comes back. You’re right. You can’t come to my place—”

I just stood there, horrified. “I—we—”

Brian shook his head. “Just call 9-1-1 before we kill ourselves out here.”

Before I could reply, we heard someone behind us.

“Umph umph umph.”

Zeely stood behind us in a leather trench coat and bunny slippers. “Y’all won’t have to worry about the boogeyman. If that didn’t scare him, nothing will.”

Though she hadn’t wanted to listen to me lately, Zeely hung on to my every word.

“I am so sorry. I should have come to dinner with you.” Zeely waited with a towel in the doorway while I splashed my face with cold water. “First Joyce, now this? What a rough night.”

Rough? Tonight was downright crazy.

“Sorry I wasn’t home when it happened. I stopped by Dad’s for a while. Left my phone in the car. When I left there, I saw your messages.”

I followed Zeely upstairs, trying both to remember and forget what had happened with Brian. Zeely had been right all along. Staying away from men was the best policy. I hoped Zeely would be smart enough to take her own advice. She looked like she’d had a hard night too. Whatever she’d talked about with Reverend Wilkins must have been some heavy stuff.