Snapped (39 page)

Dominique was completely confused. To her knowledge, Octavia had never missed a dance class. And she was more worried than ever about her daughter’s whereabouts. She went into Octavia’s room and turned the light on to
look for clues as to where she may have gone. She didn’t have to look very far.

An envelope sat atop the pillows on Octavia’s bed. On it, she had written mommy in her fancy cursive handwriting. Dominique tore the envelope open and read the contents.

Ma,
I got myself in some trouble. I’m not really who you think I am and I don’t want to let you down anymore. It’s time for me to grow up sooner than I thought I would and to take responsibility. I love you and I’ll be in touch soon. Don’t worry about me. I’m okay. You just have to accept that I’m not your baby girl anymore. In time you’ll understand.

Octavia

Dominique was confused. She felt like she was reading some kind of puzzle that she was supposed to decipher. She ran back to the kitchen, grabbed her purse off the counter, and headed back out the door in search of her child.

Misa arrived home
on the evening of January fourth and couldn’t wait to see Shane. It had been days since Louis had picked him up, and she missed her son. She kicked off her BCBG heels and plopped down on the couch to call Louis. As the phone rang, she toyed with the diamond ring Baron had given her, hoping to replace it soon with an actual engagement ring. She figured that if she played her cards right, it would only be a matter of time before she was Mrs. Baron Nobles.

Finally Louis answered the phone.

“Well, well, well, stranger,” Louis said when he answered. “How nice of you to finally call.”

“Hi, Louis,” Misa said, detecting the anger in her ex-husband’s voice. She wasn’t in the mood for bullshit today. “Where’s my baby?” she asked. “I miss him.”

“You irresponsible bitch! You don’t have a son anymore!” Louis bellowed into the phone.

Misa was taken aback, and was completely speechless for several seconds. “Who the fuck are you talking to like that?”

“I’m talking to you, you filthy bitch! You haven’t been home in days and you never even bothered to call to check up on this little boy!”

“That little boy is my son, you idiot. And he’s been with you—his fucking part-time father—for the past week. Why would I call to check up on him when he’s with you? I trusted that you’d take care of him like a real father would.” Misa did feel badly that she hadn’t been the best mother to Shane. But she believed that Louis was the last person who should dare to lecture her about parenting skills. “Now put my son on the phone.”

“I told you that you don’t have a son anymore. He is
my
son. And you’ll never see him again by the time I’m finished with you.”

“Louis, I don’t know what your problem is, but—”

“You’re so busy running around chasing after some dick that you never thought about protecting Shane. What kind of fucking mother does that make you? He doesn’t even ask for you. You know who he asks for? Camille!”

Misa felt hot tears spill from her eyes. “Louis, all right,” she said. “That’s enough. I’m sorry it took so long for me to call and talk to Shane. But I’ve been up at the hospital—”

“
You let somebody molest my son!
” Louis bellowed. He sounded out of breath after he said it. His chest heaved with rage and he knew that if Misa had been there, he would have strangled her.

Misa’s heart seized in her chest. “What?” She wondered what had made him come up with this ridiculous theory. She figured that this was Louis’s latest attempt at battling her—making up lies in order to seek custody of their son. “Ain’t nobody molesting Shane, Louis! What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I swear to God, if you were here right now I would kill you with my bare hands and happily do the time. You selfish bitch.”

“Wait a minute, Louis. Please tell me what the fuck you’re talking about. And stop calling me out my name.”

“Somebody has been raping my fucking son and all you can say is that you been at the fucking hospital?” Louis was livid.

“Raping Shane?” Misa’s head was suddenly pounding. “You’re bugging out.”

“That’s right.
I’m
bugging out.” Louis chuckled at Misa’s audaciousness. “You know what happened last night? Shane was acting up, being real disrespectful, and that’s not like him. So I started to spank him.” Louis paused, and Misa could tell that he was crying now. She felt like her world stopped spinning as she listened. “And he started to cry and begged me not to hurt him back there. He told me, Misa. He told me that some nigga has been touching him,
raping my muthafuckin’ son!
And that’s
your
fault!”

She felt at that moment as if something inside of her shifted. She went numb, and her own voice seemed to echo
in her ears. “Louis, what are you talking about? Who would do that to Shane?” Misa was crying now.

“He won’t tell me,” Louis said, his voice barely above a whisper. “He won’t even tell me because whoever it is, they scared him to death so he won’t say nothing. All he keeps saying is that he don’t want to go home. That he don’t want to play those games no more and that he’s gonna be good; he keeps swearing that he’s gonna be good. And as long as I have breath in my body, he will never come back to you again.”

“Louis, can I talk to him?” She sniffled as tears cascaded down her cheeks. “Please, let me speak to him so I can find out what’s wrong.”

“Fuck you,” Louis said, wiping his own tears, which he had shed ever since learning of his son’s victimization. “I’m calling the cops and I’m getting a lawyer so that I can get sole custody. You and your family stay the fuck away from my son until you figure out who did this to him. Until then, don’t call here again, Misa. If you do, I’ll kill you myself.” He hung up on her and she sat there in silence, still holding her phone in her hand.

Misa wasn’t thinking straight. This whole thing was like a horrible nightmare. She sat there and racked her brain for who might have been lecherous enough to harm poor, innocent Shane. She thought of his teachers at school. None of them seemed predatory, at least not to her. Louis had mentioned that Shane didn’t want to play “those games” anymore. She thought about who her child played with most often, wondering who could be responsible. Outside of the teachers at his school, the only other people who had ever had prolonged access to Shane were his family members. Camille, the aunt who adored him, and Frankie—who rarely
even interacted with his nephew. When Misa’s thoughts turned to Frankie’s brother, Steven, her heart all but stopped.

She thought back on times when Shane would tell her how much Uncle Steven loved to play with him. She thought about the way she had found her son weeks earlier—curled up in the fetal position in Camille’s bathtub. She recalled Steven telling her that Shane played hide-and-go-seek all the time this way. That it was “his pleasure” to babysit Shane.

Steven certainly fit the profile. He was always playing with Shane, always willing to look after him, always hanging around little kids. Misa’s stomach flip-flopped as she realized that the only person capable of such a depraved act was her brother-in-law. She cried for her son, overcome with intense guilt. When her tears finally dried, she pulled herself up off the couch, vowing that no one was ever going to hurt him again.

It was slightly after midnight when Misa walked into the house. She was in a daze, feeling like her feet were carrying her forward all on their own. Her mind was reeling, and all she could think about was confronting the man who had molested her innocent son. Misa had driven to Camille’s house in a fog. Having a spare set of keys to her sister’s place, Misa let herself into the sprawling home and saw that no one was there.

She walked into the dining room and sat down at the table. Seeing a candle sitting in the center, she picked up a nearby match and lit it. She sat there in the flickering darkness and waited. The diamond ring and bracelets she wore sparkled in the candlelight. She knew it wouldn’t be long before that bastard returned. And when he did, she’d be waiting.

It was close to one in the morning when Steven came in from the guest house and went to the kitchen. He took a beer out of the refrigerator, although he was already drunk, and guzzled it. He thought about Shane. Guilt tugged at him for
what he had done repeatedly to the little boy who had been left in his care. He flashed back to the abuse he had suffered at the hands of his tyrannical father. Frankie had been beaten by him, but their father had saved the worst of the abuse for Steven.

With these thoughts on his mind, Steven turned to leave and came face-to-face with Misa. She saw him standing there, startled, with a beer in his hand. Her heart roared in her chest.

Steven laughed after being caught off guard, and smiled at her. “Damn, girl. You scared me.”

Misa looked at Steven and her jaw clenched. Her hands balled up involuntarily into fists, and she shook slightly.

“What did you do to my son?”

Steven was still smiling, but she could see the surprise in his eyes upon hearing her question.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, frowning.

Misa inched closer to him. “He said that you touched him.” Her voice shook, and she kept advancing on him. “He said that you hurt him, you fucking freak!” Misa was crying now, and her lips quivered as she spoke. “You molested my son!”

The smirk on his face remained, but Steven shook his head. “He’s lying.”

Misa reached in her coat pocket and pulled out the .38 special that Louis had given her for protection years ago. She pointed it at Steven, though her hands shook as she did so. The smile immediately drained from his face.

“Put that away,” he urged her. “The little muthafucka is lying.”

Pop!
Misa pulled the trigger, hitting Steven in his chest.
He fell back against the counter and looked at her in shock. He staggered toward her and she fired again and again, hitting him twice in the head and then riddling his body with even more shots. Even after he fell to the floor in a dead heap, she kept on shooting, letting off all the rounds that remained. Soon the trigger just clicked as the chamber was now empty. She continued firing, as if entranced, staring down at Steven’s lifeless body crumpled on her sister’s kitchen floor.

Finally, Misa lowered the gun and dropped it at her feet. She cried from the pit of her soul for her son and for the torture he had suffered at the hands of the monster she had just slain. She only wished that she had saved a bullet for herself. This was all her fault, she thought. Everything that had happened to her son was her fault. She should have never left him alone with this sick muthafucka who lay sprawled across the kitchen floor.

She stumbled, sobbing, out of the kitchen and into the dining room, where she leaned against the wall and cried. Some of Steven’s blood had splattered onto her clothes and she tried to wipe it off with her hands. Absentmindedly, she wiped her bloody hands on the wall. Thoughts of poor, sweet Shane being victimized by a grown man flooded her mind, and she squeezed her eyes closed in anguish. She slumped down into a chair, still trembling. As Misa sat there staring at the wall, reality set in. She had just committed murder, and her life as she knew it before this day was over.

The phone rang and snapped her out of her trance. She wondered who was calling, but didn’t dare answer it. The house was empty except for her and the body lying on the kitchen floor. The phone seemed to ring forever, each ring sounding louder than the last. Soon all she could hear was the shrill volume of the ringing in her ears. She knew she
couldn’t hide forever, but she wasn’t ready to face what she had done. Not until she made sense of it herself. All she could think about was what she had done. And the only thing she felt was numbness.

The ringing finally stopped. It was over, she reassured herself. She sat there in the stillness of the house and closed her eyes, realizing that nothing would ever be the same. She heard someone come in through the front door and held her breath. She waited to see who it was, but didn’t move from where she sat transfixed.

Camille walked into the house and immediately sensed that something was awry. First of all, Misa’s car was parked outside, which was odd since Shane had been with Louis for several days. Second, the house was dark and quiet, even though most nights Steven came into the house and drank up the beer in the fridge while watching TV in the living room until the wee hours of the morning. Instead, tonight the house was empty and silent.

She walked into the kitchen and screamed. Steven’s cold, dead body was lying in the middle of the floor, and blood was splattered all across the walls and all over the floor. A gun lay on the floor near the body. Steven’s eyes were wide open, and a broken beer bottle lay near his right hand.

She saw a dim light coming from the dining room and walked toward it. She took a knife from the block on the counter and followed the glimmering light. As she stepped into the room, she was amazed to see who was sitting at the dining room table, and slowly inched toward her.

“Jesus . . . oh my God, girl, what have you done?”