Church Girl Gone Wild (25 page)

“You set me up! Nah, nah, that bitch set me up!” Three officers had to restrain him.

One of the officers cautiously used his booted toe to push open one side of the duffel bag so he could shine his flashlight into it. He nodded at me and called out to the others, “Yep, looks like we got him, boys.”

“This Navi belong to you, sir?” an officer asked.

“Nope,” Guinness barked back.

“That's funny because the name matches your ID and it looks like you've got warrants out the wahoo.”

Guinness was put in the back of a squad car and a tall, younger officer with hair so blond it looked almost silver came over. “Ma'am, I'm Officer Pierce; how about I see you all back inside?” he asked, looking at the girl with a bit of concern.

I tried to sound normal but what came out was a nervous, high-pitched guffaw. “Oh no, a friend just dropped her off from the beach before all this craziness happened. Praise the Lord everyone is okay. I was about to have her take those sandy play clothes off out here and throw them in the laundry before we go inside so we don't make no messes.”

“Okay, if y'all need us call. Get all that money put back up for your husband thinks you went on a shopping spree.” Officer Pierce chuckled and walked down the driveway.

I was doing my best Susie Homemaker wave and fake smile routine. The girl even offered a tiny good-bye.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

She nodded slowly.

“The good news is I'm not Mirna. I'm Eva.”

There was still the matter of Guinness's duffel bag. No sooner had I leaned down to pick it up than I was shielding my eyes from high beams blaring in my face.
Oh, no. What if one of those cops needs an ID from me for a statement? As soon as they realize I'm not Mirna, there's no way I could ever explain what I did in there.

Still blinded from the headlights I didn't have any time to brace myself. The concrete met all of my back with unforgiving roughness. Momentarily stunned, I was actually waiting for the officer to flip me over and slap cuffs on me.

“Bitch, I saved you and this is how you repay me?”

Her voice and the sound of her hand connecting with my face echoed in the garage. My left ear started ringing; the salty, copperish taste of my own blood pressed against my tongue, and coated my teeth. Shocked, I stared up at Aeron and had some kind of guilty outer body pity moment. I couldn't hear whatever she was yelling into my face. There were dark half-moon shadows under her eyes that were raining fat tears drops down onto my skin. Too shocked to defend myself while she was busy trying to choke the life out of me, I calmed myself down trying to ignore the reality of what I'd done. That was prison. That was survival.

The girl screamed jumping on Aeron's back to protect me. She scrambled to her feet pushing her away. I pulled myself to my feet, cursing my wobbly legs. Aeron stood there with her chest heaving, nostrils flared and I glared right back. The tiny leap of excitement my heart made at the sight of her was squashed as all my energy went into faking courage I really didn't feel. Thunder cracked the sky open all around me making me jump. The sound rattled my eardrums and bumped my heart up against my ribcage. My eyes shifted from Aeron to the pitch-black, starless sky outside and even that second was a second too long. When my eyes darted back, her finger was doing that sideways come hither on the trigger. There was nowhere for me to go, no time to move. All my thoughts drained from my head right along with the color from my face as I went pale. I even forgot to ask for forgiveness for all my sins.

The muzzle flared and I saw the thunder before the sound reached my ears. Fear had already stopped my heart. I stared down at my chest like an idiot trying to figure out why the ringing in my ears was so annoying. Gradually the sound of Mirna shrieking in pain behind me became clearer. I was pretty sure I was momentarily deafened from being inside a makeshift gun range. My hearing came back in bits and pieces. Steel clattered to the floor somewhere behind me. Aeron's voice finally broke through.

“I can't believe I'm doing this shit but somethin' tells me you have one hell of a story. We need to get out of here Eva, now.”

Nodding in agreement I grabbed the duffle bag and purse, and motioned for the girl to follow as I climbed in the passenger seat of Aeron's Escalade. A spotlight glared in my face from the back seat blinding me for the umpteenth time in one night. Aeron threw the SUV in gear and squealed the tires wheeling us out of there.

“Eva, this is my cameraman, soundman, and jack of all trades, Nigel. Nigel, meet Eva, the woman behind the infamous cherry scene,” Aeron announced.

Nigel grinned proudly displaying a gold tooth. “I thought ye looked a tad familiar, glad to see ye can take a wallop, too.”

Nigel almost made me swallow my tongue. His unmistakably coarse accent was either English or Australian but he was dark onyx ruggedly easy on the eyes with shocking platinum-blond hair. He gave me a crooked thumbs-up and I fought the urge to tell him that I had no idea what a wallop was but he could wallop me. Since Aeron had all but saddled and mounted the elephant in the room, I took a breath and womaned up.

“How did you find out about what happened?” I asked her quietly.

She glanced at me out the corner of her eye before leaning on the door and propping her chin in her hand. Aeron stared intently at me over her arm on the steering wheel. The girl whispered to Nigel in the back but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

“What exactly do you think I do for a living, Eva?”

“Um, Latina gang model extraordinaire?”

Aeron rolled her eyes. “I run a reality show.”

“OMG, it is you!” The girl squealed, “Aeron Villanueva!”

It was the most unexpected excitement, given what we'd just gone through. Her face lit up with the brightest smiles as she reached over the seat timidly touching Aeron's shoulder. Aeron looked up winking through the rearview.

“Nigel, start recording. Eva, messing around with you I almost forgot why I was at that house in the first place.”

“Villa who? Wh . . . recording what? Am I actually on camera? Wait, you mean you weren't there for me at all?” I sputtered.

Nigel maneuvered the spotlight from me to Aeron to the girl finally resting on Aeron. He spoke over the side of the camera. “Sorry, cherry chew, we were actually hooking bigger fish when you got caught on the line.”

Aeron fluffed her hair, did her eyeliner, and touched up her lip gloss all while steering with her knee. “I have a Web-based reality show,
Garish Lies.
We uncover truths and the shit private investigators can't and we go where the media won't. End of the day they pay for my footage.”

Aeron's voice went from sweet, motherly “tell me everything” to expert commentator in a matter of seconds. She didn't even have that damn accent I remembered as she turned and started talking to the camera. I'd stepped right out of prison and into the Twilight Zone. Nobody and I mean absolutely nobody was who they said they were. At this point in my life I'd need to walk around doing background checks before I could even have lunch with someone. I tried to roll some of the tension out of my shoulders. Dontay, Aeron, Kevin, Mirna, everybody had a script except me. Nigel planted his elbow in my boob and I slapped him away.

“Sorry, love. Got to get a good shot.”

“I'm Aeron Villaneuva, and for a while we've been tracking the local abduction ring. Most of the girls disappear from shelters and are never seen again. Others are taken from bus stops and afterhours programs. I have a brave young lady named Destiny Vasquez who's going to tell her story.”

Aeron paused for dramatic effect and the girl started sniffling. Aeron held up a finger toward Nigel who flicked the light off on the camera. I was surprised that my own eyes were getting damp at the melodrama unfolding in front of me. The sooner I could hug and squeeze Jada the better. This could have easily been Jada and for once I felt thankful for being in the wrong place at the right time. She didn't even look that young; the bishop and Mirna would have destroyed her.

Aeron's voice was barely above a whisper. “Okay, my love. This is your chance to say whatever you want. Tell exactly what happened. I can edit this before it goes online so you have plenty of time to change your mind. No one will hurt you, I promise. I'll have you home by the time you're done.”

She nodded.

“I was walking down the sidewalk picking up flowers from the cotton candy trees. They ran up and down both sides and after it rained the petals would cover the ground like snow.

“‘Those are called cherry blossoms,
bebé,
' Ms. Lita, my nanny called out. I don't know how she kept up, but no matter what Ms. Lita was always smiling. Daddy said she was the only person other than Mommy who he trusted with me or the keys to our house. He said it was because she understood the value of loyalty. In high school when he was a janitor working at the bank Ms. Lita was supervisor. When Daddy went to college and came back she was a manager and hired him as a supervisor.

“One day Daddy drove me around and showed me all these buildings with our last name on the side. He'd bought those banks. Well on this day I skipped and sang all up and down the block in our neighborhood until I was hoarse and sweaty. Ms. Lita smiled down at me. ‘Let's head back to the house and see about ordering pizza for dinner okay?'

“I nodded, skipping and singing my way back home. Sometimes I'm clumsy and I'd tripped skinning my knee and was crying when we walked in the front door.

“‘What the hell is all that noise? Is they usually this loud?' some lady called out.

“‘Toikea, meet my daughter Destiny.' Daddy introduced me with a big smile, puffing out his chest.

“‘She smell like outside. And what is that?' Toikea asked pointing at Lita.

“‘That, uh, I mean she's Lita. The nanny,' Daddy rocked back on his heels, answering with a sigh.

“Toikea frowned even harder. ‘We don't need that. Nannies is for white folk with disposable income and if it's disposable all like that'—she kissed his cheek—‘how come you ain't taking me shopping with it?'

“She started giggling against his cheek and Daddy started blushing like his whole brain just fell out of his ear. Me and Lita exchanged confused looks. I wasn't feeling his little ‘toy car.' Nobody treated Lita like that; she was basically part of the family. Since she'd been so rude I got rude and asked, ‘Does Mommy know that's here?'

“Daddy choked and Toikea tried to melt me with her eyes. After that we learned about this thing that grownups do called ‘breaks.' Mommy had needed one and supposedly Daddy had found Toikea. She made Daddy give Lita a break, too, and that's when he got sick. One day, Toi was all we had left.

“Then she dragged me to her nasty house, made me call her Mommy. And she lied telling some nice man with pretty gray eyes I was his daughter, making me call him Daddy. He cried and was sad all time, he kept telling me sorry. I wanted to tell him so bad. But Toi said she'd have somebody kill my mommy if I messed things up. So we went and did whatever the test was, but Toi's friend worked there and gave him fake results. I kept pretending to be sad so he'd give Toi money and marry her.

“None of it was fair. I did what I was supposed to and I kept begging her to see Mommy. That's when the man in the smelly black truck with the spinning rims came. Toi told me it was too late, that she'd died. Guinness came and got me right before Toi and the sad man's wedding.”

My throat was moving but no sound was coming out. I rocked myself, gripping my arms so tight my nails cut into my upper arms through the fabric of my sweatshirt. It wasn't a coincidence; Destiny's man with the gray eyes stealing money sounded too close to home. Too close to that picture I'd seen on Facebook with him and that mystery woman. We pulled into a large gated circular driveway a little after three a.m. Destiny was drooling all over Nigel's arm who was snoring with his face mashed against the glass. I sighed and looked over at Aeron with sad eyes as she put the car in park.

“I'm really sorry about Antonia,” I whispered. “Can you pull up Dontay's Facebook on your phone please?”

Without a word she nodded and nudged Destiny. “We're here, sweetheart. You're home. Before you go . . .” Aeron held up her cell.

Destiny yawned and squinted at the picture; her face gave away the answer before the words left her lips. “That's him. He's marrying Toi.”

The front door swung open and a tiny Puerto Rican lady rushed onto the wide porch in a floral bathrobe. She fumbled with her glasses before finally managing to slip them up on her nose. Her hands flew up to cover her lips; tears cascaded down her cheeks. She took the steps one at a time and couldn't get to Destiny fast enough.

“Ms. Lita!” Destiny rushed into her arms nearly knocking the poor little lady down.

“
Niña,
my baby girl, they found you.”

I watched over wiping my nose on my sleeve as Aeron got out and went over. Ms. Lita must have hugged and grabbed Aeron's face at least a hundred times. Nigel sighed behind me and not too long afterward the staccato of his snores was buzzing in my ears. One world was pieced together while simultaneously splintering mine into even tinier slivers. It didn't even matter that Dontay had been tricked into his marriage. The numbing kick in the gut came from knowing he was willing to throw me out of the plane without a parachute to save someone else. After everything I'd seen there was no telling what the people who had Jada were doing to her, or if they were treating her right.

Aeron walked toward the car with a bounce in her step and an excited gleam in her eyes. The roaring in my ears from my blood rushing and my thoughts churning was making me hot and panicky. I felt trapped and lost all at the same time. I picked at a dangling thread on my sleeve clamping my teeth down hard on my tongue ignoring the cheerful waves Ms. Lita and Destiny sent our way as we pulled off.

“Destiny's father left everything to Ms. Lita as the girl's guardian. She was really the only person he trusted with everything. I guess Toi found herself shit out of luck and in need of a new sponsor. So she used her as bait for a new bank account.”

“Yeah, mine,” I huffed.

“Calm down, angel. You're lucky I wasn't close to Antonia. The only part of my made-up bio that was real was that we really did hate each other. She was a bully from day one and she stole all my girlfriends. I'd have all these bruises and shit. My own sister was constantly beating my ass. When she got picked up for that robbery she tried to say it was me who did it.”

“So what were you doing in prison?”

Aeron giggled. “I'm dating the warden. I didn't know Christine was the damn warden when we met. It wasn't like we talked that much. Just lots of rough, drunk um . . . Anyway, when I found out what she did I asked her to let me take my show inside for a few months. See if I could find all that corruption bullshit you hear about. Sometimes Antonia helped; sometimes she hurt.”

There wasn't enough invisible lint or errant sweater strings in the world to distract me from the melting pot of mass confusion mixing around in my head. Glancing at Aeron out the corner of my eye I chewed and processed over a million questions at the speed of light. Even though I'd told myself repeatedly that what happened in prison would stay in prison, it was different when it came with a side of feeling dirty and used. It fell into the same category as Kev's, Mirna's, and Dontay's betrayals and so far I'd been doing a pretty good job at exacting an eye for an eye.

“So it was all acting then? Harassing and bullying me, all that?”

“Hmm no, I liked you and I wanted to make Christine jealous for having my celly before you nixed. She'd gotten into the habit of doing that.”

My jaw dropped. “You could have gotten me shanked by your psycho warden girlfriend?”

She just shrugged. “You're free now aren't you? Who do you think got you pardoned? These lips are good for more than talking but you already know that.”

I turned and stared out the window, feeling my face flush hot.

“Anyway, I did try finding Jada when I first got out and I kept hitting a brick wall. They wouldn't or couldn't help me. Someone's hiding something and I think that someone for starters is you.” Aeron's tone was accusatory.

“What do you mean me? After everything I've been through I don't have anything to hide, Aeron. You know that.” I didn't. All of my dirt had been laid down in the sandbox for everyone to sift through, climb over, and play in. There wasn't anything else.

Aeron tapped her chin with her finger. “Where did you get the money to start your business?”

Except that.
“If you're asking then you already know.”

“I want to hear little Miss Eva say it.”

“I always say it was a business loan. But my family had some pretty crazy things going on at one point in time. The money was willed to me by a man named Psion Burner or Papa Psion. It was part of my marriage pact when I was ten. He never got a chance to change it because Ava, my mom, kind of killed him before we could get married. When I turned twenty-two all of his assets came to me. I didn't even know until an attorney called me to disburse it.”

“Okay now you're being genuine. But there's a gap that I'm stuck on. I researched your case and even have an idea where to find Dontay, but I snooped into his accounts using one of my connects and he's broker than broke Eva.”

“Listen up Blues Clueless.” Nigel popped up from the back seat. “Out of curiosity I just tried pulling up all the remaining relatives of this Psion Burner.” He flipped his phone towards us. “Destiny Burner came up in the birth certificates same day and year as our little one, but her name was later changed to Vasquez when she turned six.”

Aeron whipped a u-turn that nearly sent us all flying out of the windows. The tires kicked up dirt as we broke the sound barrier to get back to Mrs. Lita's. We all were wondering the same thing. If Mrs. Lita was connected or maybe even married to Papa Psion and why hadn't Destiny mention any of it. We squealed to a stop back in front of Ms. Lita's place.

The lights were off and it was obvious they'd gone to bed.

“Should be come back a little later, maybe breakfast time?” Nigel asked.

I shook my head. “We need answers, my daughter is still missing and someone is getting away with a crime I was in prison for.”

I was too wired to feel sleepy or even think about anything other than questioning this little girl until I had every piece I needed to find my baby. The light on the doorbell flickered as Aeron pressed it with her thumb. We could hear the deep chimes echo throughout the dark house. I stared up at a crystal chandelier through a window on the front of the house. It glitter and sparkled from the morning light like one of Jada's old mobiles. I missed my baby so much it hurt.

Aeron pressed the doorbell again and by the third chime I'd screamed so loud it's a wonder I didn't shatter every window on the place. I stumbled down the steps with my eyes paralyzed by the rope hanging behind the chandelier. It was tied to the banister and what looked like Ms. Lita was hanging from it.

Nigel kicked in the door and the air from outside made her spin in a slow circle. I couldn't bring myself to move any closer than the bottom step. Aeron's face was sad and drawn as she came over and pulled me into a tight hug. It felt like hours passed as he ran from room to room searching the house for Destiny or whoever might have hung Ms. Lita. Aeron was in the SUV grabbing her cell to call the police when the entire back side of the house was lit up with a bright orange fireball.

I fell backwards into the grass. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't be possible. The fire spread so fast from the back towards the front Nigel almost missed his chance to get out. He stumbled out the door with his face covered in soot coughing the way I did when I was in that box so many years ago. Aeron rushed over and helped me up.

Nigel coughed and hacked his way towards us. “Was headed towards the basement, saw a little pipe bomb with a detonator I got spooked and started to head back. Grabbed this though, it was on the floor near the banister.” He handed Aeron the crumpled sheet of paper. Squiggly blue letters that were drawn out in crayon spanned across the paper. It reminded me of Leslie's first scribbled out notes I'd hang around my bedroom. I folded my arms tight across my chest scanning the wooded areas around us. None of Leslie's notes were ever as dreary or eerie as to say something like, “
Burner Burns Everybody
.”