Chapter 12
August 14
Keep glowing. Keep growing.
Vanna read the affirmation card she’d randomly selected this morning one more time.
She was pretty sure she was still glowing from the past few nights with Aden. And no, the glow didn’t totally come from the way that man had mastered every part of her body in such a short span of time. Speaking of which, her smile widened as her skin tingled at the memory. But there were little things that had her feeling some type of way about these last few days. Like when he texted her.
Now, on any given day, Vanna’s notifications kept her phone buzzing, whether it was her personal emails, text messages, or the couple of social media apps she was on. So that wasn’t new. And her J adding her own worries to the mix wasn’t going to make the investigation or impending court process go any faster.
With that in mind, she grabbed her purse and keys with her free hand and juggled all the things she was carrying to make it out the door. After checking the knob to make sure the door was locked, she turned and made her way down the porch steps and over to her driveway. Her car was still in the shop, and the rental SUV was actually growing on her. She pushed the automatic door opener on the keychain, and was about to reach for the handle on the passenger side so she could put her purse and lunch bag on the seat when she paused. A shiver eased down her spine, and she looked down the street to see if there was a reason why. The feeling that came next was indescribable, at least for her. Eerie was the best she could do as she slowly turned to look in the other direction.
Nothing she saw was out of the ordinary. More single-family homes occupied the block on both sides. Cars in driveways, a few parked on the street. Most were already gone for the workday. There weren’t many kids in this neighborhood; the ones who had been here when the area had been appealing to Vanna and had ultimately led to the purchase of the home here had grown up and gone away to college or moved out. So even though it was the middle of the summer, the block was still quiet, except for the occasional barking dog, a siren of some sort in the distance, and now, her rapidly beating heart. Because something wasn’t right. She couldn’t readily see it, but she felt it and she didn’t like it. She didn’t ... There.
Right there, on the corner at the top of her block, was a car she didn’t normally see in her neighborhood. Not that she was a car connoisseur or anything like that, but there were mostly couples, former families on this block, so the vehicles were SUVs, an old-ass Toyota minivan all the way at the other end of the block, and hybrid vehicles. This was a sedan. An older model, dirty-brown color with Maryland tags. From the distance of three additional houses on each side of the street, she could almost make out two people sitting in the front seat. Men, she supposed, but couldn’t be totally sure.
Men she didn’t know, sitting in a car that she didn’t recognize, on her block.
She thought about going back inside her house and calling ... who? The police? What would she say? Hi, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this car on my block before. Can you come and check it out? They wouldn’t take that seriously. Hell, how many real calls for help went disregarded by law enforcement these days? Too many, as evidenced by so many restraining orders that ultimately ended with the petitioner dead. Plus, she wasn’t really feeling the police right now. What if she called them and they came running over here just to see if she had more of Caleb’s stolen money? No, thank you.
Would she call Aden? Funny how he was the second one she thought of after the cops. Well, no, it wasn’t that funny. He’d been intent on acting like he had a solution to her every problem since he’d been back in her life; it was no wonder she thought of him. Then again, she wasn’t totally comfortable with that particular part of his position in her life right now. Besides, he would be at the gym now—or no, he had another meeting with the marketing department to go over glitches in the new website for the supplemental products and the print ads they would start running at the beginning of next month. Yeah, she knew what was going on in his business because that was one of the many things they discussed when they were together.
So what the hell was she going to do about this car?
Nothing, she decided. She was going to get herself away from the strange car. That seemed like the best action to take. So she opened the passenger door, set her purse and lunch bag on the seat. She kept the keys in her hand because they also had her can of Mace on it, and continued to hold the tumbler with her smoothie in it. At the driver’s-side door, she opened it and slid onto the seat. Pressing the buttons to lock the doors was immediate; then she set the tumbler in the cup holder, started the truck, and backed out of the driveway. She had to pass the car to get off her street, and she told herself not to look to see if she knew the men.
Did it matter if she recognized them? Would she get out and talk to them if she did? What if it was someone she knew through Caleb? Yes, her husband was on her mind again. Dammit! Fear had been a steady part of her diet lately, and it was because of him and this nonsense he’d gotten her mixed up in. Jovani said there were codefendants with criminal records who had given Caleb’s name as part of the robberies. What if they thought she had some of the money too?
What the entire hell?
Her mind screamed those words as her fingers gripped the steering wheel. Of course there was a stop sign at the corner, so she had no choice but to pull up and stop right alongside the ugly brown car. And because curiosity killed the cat—but she prayed it wouldn’t get her—she turned her head slowly until she glimpsed one of the two men in the car.
She yelped when she saw he was staring right back at her.
Then she pressed on the gas and took off, making the widest, wildest right turn she’d ever made and then speeding down the street. She didn’t dare look through her rearview mirror or take a breath until she was three blocks away and had made another turn to get on the highway.
By the time Vanna made it to her office, she’d calmed down somewhat. She hadn’t called anyone while she’d been in the truck, preferring instead to listen to one of her gospel playlists in search of that peace that had been shaken by the ugly brown car.
It was probably nothing, she told herself an hour later as she stared at her computer screen. She hadn’t done a thing except sip on that smoothie since she’d been in the office. That car and that guy, who had been staring at her like he wasn’t a bit surprised to see her glance at him, couldn’t possibly mean anything. But wait—he had looked at her with a sort of smirk, hadn’t he? Now her hands began to shake again, and she cursed.
She reached down and opened the desk drawer where she kept her purse and pulled it out. Digging down to the bottom where she’d felt them this morning, she retrieved the papers she’d gotten last week. They were a mangled mess, so she smoothed them out on her desk, separating them so they looked like a miniature train on the surface. Then she sat back and stared at them.
Her gaze lingered on the caption on the first page, which read: Superior Court of the District of Columbia v. Savannah Laniece Diane Carlson .
In all the years that she’d been working in the legal field, never had she imagined seeing her own name on this type of official court document.
With a heavy sigh, she leaned forward so she could see the words. Then she began to read, her chest hitching when she saw some of the details Jovani had given her in his office. The ears he had on the street had definitely provided him more information than was typed on these forms; still, none of it gave any indication that two men would be sitting in a car on her block this morning.
Because it wasn’t related.
Right?
She desperately wanted to believe that, but the commonsense part of her just wouldn’t allow it to be so. She’d never seen the guy before, and couldn’t see the person in the passenger seat at all. Her glance had been too quick, her foot on the gas pedal too fast, to give her any type of real description of the man. Except that he was Black. That was undeniable, as was the immediate feeling that he knew exactly who she was.
This was ridiculous. All of it was. How in the hell had she gotten mixed up in a robbery, or conspiracy to embezzle, or whatever these papers were calling it? She’d never stolen anything in her life. The office supplies she took from work didn’t count, even in as much as they technically did. Everybody did that, and unless she was taking a computer or some other big item like that, neither HC Sr. nor Jr. was going to be pressing charges against her.
Still, that’s what she was being accused of—stealing.
On a whim, she turned to her computer and pulled up her online banking login. She went into the system and viewed the balance of her checking, savings, and the IRA account she’d opened as a backup to the 401K plan she had through the firm. With today’s current political climate, there was no way in hell she was depending totally on the social security she’d been paying into against her will since her first job when she was sixteen years old.
All the balances looked correct, and as she stared at the numbers on the screen, she wondered who else was looking at these numbers today. Who else was viewing her private financial information?
The phone ringing on her desk jerked her quickly out of those thoughts.
“Hello? Yes?” The two words spilled from her mouth even though she had no clue who was on the other end of the phone, whether it had been an outside call, to which this was the absolute wrong and unprofessional way to answer, or an inner-office call—in which case, her annoyed tone was only marginally problematic.
“Hey,” Sanni said. “You ready for lunch? Want to go out and get some air first?”
A quick glance at the bottom of the screen told her it was indeed almost one o’clock. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been sitting there reading those court documents and thinking about all this mess.
“Yeah, sure. Some fresh air sounds good,” she said. In fact, it sounded amazing.
She needed to clear her mind and get on with her life. Whatever was going to happen with the case was going to happen whether she sat at this desk worrying about it or not. She’d just hung up with Sanni and reached down into the drawer for her purse when it started to vibrate. Not her purse, but the phone inside it.
When she found the phone, she was shocked to see that it was on vibrate. She never kept her phone on vibrate when she was in the office, even though she probably should’ve. And she definitely didn’t put it on vibrate when she was driving. So when had she done it? When she realized the phone was ringing and not just vibrating from a notification, she hurriedly swiped it.
“Hey,” she said a little breathlessly, even though she hadn’t moved from that chair.
“Hey,” Aden said, confusion clear in his tone. “You okay? I’ve been texting you all morning and you haven’t replied. This is my second time calling. I was about to drive over to your office.”
She sat back in the chair and sighed. “Sorry,” she said, and closed her eyes. “I didn’t know the phone was on vibrate, and it was in my purse, in the drawer, so I’m just hearing it.”
“What’s wrong?” was his next question.
Her eyes shot open, and she straightened in the chair as if he could actually see her. “Nothing,” she replied. “I’ve just ... um, been busy this morning. That’s why I didn’t notice my phone.”
He was silent for a beat.
“You don’t sound like yourself,” he said.
She tried to smile. “Then who do I sound like?”
Another moment of silence. “How was your smoothie?” he asked.
“Tastier than I thought it would be,” she answered. And that was mostly true. It had been tasty, but she hadn’t really enjoyed it as much as she knew she would have if all that other stuff wasn’t on her mind.
“Good,” he said. “Listen, I’ve got a meeting tonight, and I’m not sure how long it’ll last—”
“Oh, that’s fine,” she hurried to respond. “We don’t need to hook up every night. We’re not that serious. Besides, I have some stuff to do tonight too.”
She was talking fast, so she forced herself to take a deep breath. He took those seconds to go silent again. She was just about to tell him she was heading out for lunch, because suddenly this conversation seemed awkward. Or perhaps it was just the mood she was currently in, who knew.
“I was going to ask if it would be okay to stop by when I was finished with my meeting,” he continued. “I’d like to put eyes on you just to make sure all is well.”
Guilt stabbed at her. She knew she was overreacting and overthinking, and she willed herself to stop both right this minute. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a really rough morning. But I did plan to stop by to see Granny after work and maybe take her out for something to eat. So how ’bout you just call me when you’re finished with your meeting and we’ll see how both of us are feeling then.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he replied, but he didn’t sound as certain as he usually did.
Vanna didn’t have the energy to question him at the moment. Possibly because she knew that would only end up in a deeper discussion as to what was bothering her. And she didn’t feel like that right now. What she wanted most at this moment was to get out and get that fresh air Sanni had just mentioned. To talk to the other woman about her problems rather than sit and stew on her own.
“Okay,” she said, and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll talk to you later.”
There was another moment of silence, which was starting to irritate her. What was he thinking? What did he want to say that he was holding back for whatever reason? And why did she even care?
“I’ll talk to you later,” he finally replied. “And Savannah?”
“Yes?”
“You know you can call me if you need me. Whatever it is, whenever you need me, you can just call,” he said.
“Ah, yes ... yes, I know,” she said, then disconnected the call.