When Memories Fade

Tyora Moody

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Table of Contents

This book is dedicated to caregivers. Please know your sacrifice and love are highly appreciated by your loved one.

God is amazing! I sensed as I was writing the first book in the Victory Gospel Series that there were minor characters that had stories to tell. As I entered this fictional world, I was led to research and then develop characters with very relatable issues that any of us could face at some point in our lives.

Did you know African Americans are twice as likely to die from a stroke as Caucasians?According to a 2010 special report by the Alzheimer's Association, older African Americans are probably about two times more likely than older Caucasians to have Alzheimer's and other dementias.

I knew when I started this novel, the story line would be centered around a missing person's case. Over the years, when an African American woman goes missing, her plight does not always receive the same attention as that of a Caucasian woman. Did you know that according to FBI figures, nearly 40 percent of all missing persons are people of color? That's an incredible percentage. The cable network TV One broadcasts a much-needed program about African Americans who have vanished under suspicious circumstances,
Finding Our Missing
. This is a start.

If you find at any time while you are reading this book that you have more questions about the subject matter, I have included online resources at the end of the book to provide some answers.

Now, there are a few people I want to acknowledge. Thank you to Robin Caldwell for reading through the manuscript. Your friendship, advice, and encouragement are priceless. To Dr. Jeffrey Brown, M.D., thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer my questions about stroke and Alzheimer's. I can Google all I want, but there's nothing like talking to a medical professional. Joylynn Ross, thank you for always being available to address my many questions as a newly published author. I've learned so much from you and look forward to continuing to work with you.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge the people who helped me push the first book in this series,
When Rain Falls.
I can't name everyone, but to all my family and friends, book reviewers, bloggers, online radio hosts, book clubs, and readers, thank you for your support of
When Rain Falls
. It's truly appreciated.

Thanks, Dad, for helping me spread the word about
When Rain Falls
locally. Your enthusiasm and support mean the world to me.

Last, but not least, I want to acknowledge my two best friends, my mom and my sister. You two have been the best with helping me get galleys out, finding readers and venues to promote the book, and being traveling companions. You two are my bookends.

Thank you, readers, for taking the time to read the second book in the Victory Gospel Series.

She gripped the steering wheel in fear as she calculated every move he made. For the last hour, he had held the gun in her direction. What if she jerked the car off the road? No. She
wanted
to live. Still, a car accident had to be better than what he would do to her. She had no idea where they were going.

“Pull over right up here.” He turned his hot breath on her. “Do it now.”

With as much ease as her trembling body allowed, she slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road. There hadn't been another car for miles on this back road. The sun had disappeared as cloudy dark gray skies loomed ahead.

He cocked the gun toward her chest. “Get out.”

Her hands felt ice cold as she struggled to grasp the door handle.

“Come on,” he growled.

She yanked the door handle and scrambled out of the car to face her abductor.

The man waved the gun and yelled, “Start walking.”

Sticks and leaves crunched as they walked into the mass of trees. From a distance, she saw lightning streak across the sky. A cool breeze whipped through the trees, but it brought no comfort. Her heart raced as if she had just run a marathon. She choked back a sob. He was going to kill her.

To think how much she had trusted him. It never would have crossed her mind that he would hurt her. More lightning split the sky, followed by an intense rumble of thunder. The trees shook their limbs, as if taunting her for being so naive.

“Stop.”

She turned and noticed he'd cocked his head like he'd heard something. Was someone else out here?

He swung the gun an inch from her temple. “Get down.”

“What?”

“Get on your knees,” he snarled.

She fell on her knees, feeling the earth beneath her. Her heart lurched as the thunder roared like an angry lion above their heads. Big drops of rain began to crash down around them. She shut her eyes tight, not believing this was her fate. “Please, God, help me,” she prayed fervently.

When she opened her eyes, an answer lay near her, barely covered by leaves. She glanced up at him. His eyes had grown wilder as he paced around her. He seemed to be having a conversation, but she couldn't understand a word he was saying. The rain was falling harder now, soaking her clothes. She peered down at the ground again. Why not? What did she have to lose? She had to do something.

She scooped the smooth rock up from the muddy ground. Her dormant softball skills kicked in as she homed in on his hand. Not waiting another second, she swung the rock with all her might.

The rock smacked him square on the hand, and he dropped the gun. “No, you . . .”

She leapt forward like a track runner and headed into the trees. As she ran, the oddest memory of a Sunday school lesson entered her mind. The one about Lot's wife. God told her not to look back, but she did and lost her life.

His voice bellowed behind her.

“Don't look back,” she told herself as she ran. “Don't. Look. Back.”

“We both know she's dead.” Angel Roberts tightened her grip around the steering wheel, realizing too late she'd destroyed a beautiful evening. A harsh silence sucked the air from inside the car. After a minute, her grandmother responded softly, but firmly. “Angel, I can never give up hope.”

Angel took her eyes off the road to peer at her grandmother's face. A warmth of shame washed over Angel as she witnessed the pain in Fredricka Roberts's eyes.
Why now? It's my birthday.

Less than fifteen minutes ago, Angel had driven away from Victory Gospel Church, still grateful for the love shown to her. A year ago, Angel would have never imagined herself regularly attending church, and definitely not Bible study. Tonight the members of the Overcomers Women's Ministry had presented Angel with a surprise twenty-fifth birthday celebration. Angel had loaded the remains of the almost eaten butter cream cake and birthday gifts into the backseat, not realizing her joy would be short-lived.

Angel slowed the car down as she approached the red light. All had been well until her grandmother had said, “You look so much like your mother when she was twenty-five.”

Despite confessing her faith in Christ nine months ago at Victory Gospel Church, Angel had continued to struggle with resentment. It seemed like every year, Angel's birthday turned into more of a memorial for her mother. There was this gap between Angel and her grandmother where her mother should have been. Angel barely remembered the woman who had disappeared twenty years ago.

The question that haunted Angel the most was the same one that brought her grandmother hope. What if her mother were alive? To Angel that meant Elisa Roberts had abandoned her daughter. That night after Angel's fifth birthday party, her mother had walked out and had never returned. Elisa had provided no clue about where she was going or whether she was going to meet someone. Just vanished. Due to foul play or on purpose. Surely, her grandmother didn't want to hope to find a woman who had done the latter.

As she drove through the green light, Angel chided herself for getting angry with her grandmother. It was just her and Grams now. She cleared her throat. “Grams, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to blurt out that we know my mother's dead. We don't really know.”

No response.

She glanced at her grandmother. Fredricka's face was turned toward the passenger window. Not wanting to upset her grandmother any more tonight, Angel became engrossed in her own thoughts. What Angel didn't want was for Grams to find out what she was doing. She was on a mission to find out what or who had led to her mother's disappearance. Five years ago, she'd started working on a documentary of her mother's life, but various circumstances led her off track and she abandoned the project. Now she was determined to complete it. Anything to bring attention to her mother's short-lived legacy.

Her grandparents had raised her, doing their best to keep memories of her mother alive. Even though she was young, Angel remembered her mother being sad all the time. Angel was born a few months after a devastating breakup between Angel's mother and father. It didn't help that her mother, a protégée, had struggled to regain her footing in a once promising singing career while trying to raise Angel.

In many ways, Elisa had shown signs of either desperately wanting a new life or ending the dismal life she perceived she had. Reaching her own breaking point four years ago, Angel longed for a connection with her mother.

Angel maneuvered her grandfather's old Buick into the driveway of the only place she called home. Her grandmother shuffled behind her as they made their way down the cobblestone walkway toward the front door. Once inside, Angel headed toward the kitchen to find a spot for the leftover cake inside the refrigerator. She had an urge to leave the cake out and eat the rest of it, but weariness invaded her body. She slammed the fridge door shut and turned around.

“Whoa, Grams.” Her grandmother had managed to sneak up behind her. Angel didn't remember hearing her walk in the kitchen.

Her grandmother sputtered, “Angel, we should have stopped by the store on the way home.”

Angel frowned. Maybe she had agitated her grandmother too much with her outburst in the car. “I can go back out, Grams. It's not a problem. What do you need?”

“Aspirin.” Fredricka held her hand to head. “I'm not feeling well.”

Angel placed her hand on her grandmother's shoulder. “Why don't you lie down? I will bring you some aspirin. I'm sure we already have a bottle.”

Angel walked across the kitchen to the cabinet where they kept a medicine supply. She searched among the orange and white labeled bottles. There were so many bottles. A lot of the labels bore her deceased grandfather's name. She really needed to work with Grams to throw away his old medicine. Finally, Angel saw a bottle of aspirin.

“Here is the bottle.” Angel flipped the bottle in her hand to check the expiration date. A forceful thump startled her. Angel turned around. “Grams!” she cried out. She ran over and knelt beside her grandmother on the linoleum floor.

The right side of her grandmother's face twitched. “Ang . . .”

Before Angel could stop them, tears sprang to life, blurring her vision. “Grams, hang in there. You are going to be okay.”

Angel sprinted to the phone on the wall, and with trembling fingers, she dialed 9-1-1.