CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Von hurried behind the wheel of their SUV while Janita opened the back passenger door for Hawk.
But when Hawk got inside and she was about to close the door, he stopped her. “Sit back here with me,” he said as if it was an order.
Von looked through the rearview mirror at his sister. She was as shocked as he was.
But Janita viewed Hawk, because he was Mrs. Webster’s son, as her client too. And if the client wanted her in the backseat, that was where she sat. “Yes sir,” she said as she got inside and sat on that backseat beside him.
She, in fact, sat very close beside him since he was sitting in the middle, was leaned forward, while she sat as far against the door as she could, leaned back. And Von drove them away.
They rode in silence, driving down every side street they came upon, but to all three of them it felt kind of pointless by this point. It felt like trying to find a needle in a haystack in the ocean.
After nearly an hour of this, Hawk then sat back, crossed his legs, and looked at Janita. Up close, her eyes seemed filled with so much compassion and concern. She was, in a way, as devastated by what happened as he was. She took her job to heart. She didn’t phone that shit in.
His mother, he was beginning to realize, was in good hands.
“You’re not her assistant,” he said.
Janita always wanted to correct that record. “No sir.”
“Why did my mother claim you as her assistant rather than her bodyguard?”
“Probably because she didn’t want to deal with the she’s too young to be your bodyguard backlash.”
She was probably right, he thought. “Did you search to see if there were any cameras at any of the businesses that surrounded that clothing store?” Hawk asked her.
“I did, yes sir. My brother and I searched every inch of the area surrounding that boutique. Oddly enough, there was only one camera and it was on the front of the building. That van was around the side of the building where there were no cameras that we could find.”
“Tell him how we searched that entire area, Neet,” Von said.
She thought she had just told him that very thing, but she knew Von was as nervous and scared as she was. “We tried to find cameras from other businesses as well,” she said, “but there were no other businesses along the route that we believe that van had taken.”
“Like they had mapped it out with precision,” said Hawk.
Janita nodded. “Yes sir.”
“What about businesses further away? Did you check those cameras? They might capture that van on its way to that boutique.”
“I tried, sir, but most of those businesses wouldn’t allow me to view their cameras. But I mentioned it to the police.”
“And?”
“Chief Donnally told me to mind my own business.”
Hawk’s jaw tightened. He knew how nasty that town could be toward people of color.
The only reason he and his siblings weren’t mistreated was because the cops, and the citizens, were afraid of their father.
But they knew it was a privilege no other blacks in town enjoyed. “Take me to that boutique,” he said.
And Von, who was excited to be driving The Hawk around because his favorite singer and crush, the beautiful Kemberly, was signed to Eagle Records. “Yes sir,” he said, and took off.
But what Janita noticed as they drove to the boutique was that Hawthorne Webster continued to stare at her. It took her a minute, but when she got up the nerve, she looked at him. And even in the backseat of that car, where there was no natural light, his chocolatey brown eyes still sparkled.
But it was only when she looked at him did he ask her a question. “How old are you?”
Von immediately looked through the rearview. What did that have to do with anything? Then he wondered if Hawk Webster was interested in his sister. Could it be possible???
But Janita knew that was an impossibility. He didn’t give a damn about her. He wanted to know her age because he was still questioning her competence. “I’m twenty-eight.”
“That’s kind of young to own a security firm,” he said.
Janita looked at him. She was a bit offended. “I once heard your mother say you were nineteen when you started your record company.”
“That is true. But I deal in music and dreams. Not life and death.”
“Dreams are life and death. Especially when they don’t come true.”
Hawk thought about that young man who tried to kill him because his dreams were “kicked around.” And he knew she was right. “What did you do before you opened your security firm?”
Here we go, she thought. He was really going to look down on her when she told him the truth. “I worked in a factory.”
But Hawk wasn’t displeased at all. But impressed. “What happened? You woke up one day and decided you wanted to become a bodyguard instead?”
“I felt I could do a good job at it, so yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
“How did you swing it so young? Financially I mean.”
“I started working at that factory when I was sixteen. And I also made t-shirts with catchy phrases on them and sold them on street corners after work. At night and on the weekends, I was a rideshare driver. I hustled. And I saved every dime I could. It took me a minute, but once I felt I had enough to buy an SUV and cover the rent and the bills for a couple years until we could get off the ground, I stepped out on faith.”
“Are you?”
Janita looked at him. “Am I what? Faithful?”
“Off the ground?”
She hated to admit it, but she was nobody’s liar. “Not quite, no.”
“Not even with my mother as your client?”
“We only got that contract three months ago. Word hadn’t spread yet.”
“It’s about to spread now. But not in a good way for you, I’m afraid.”
He was blunt. She liked that. Even though it was inwardly devastating to her. “Yes sir, I know,” she said, and then scrunched up her face.
She wasn’t exactly in the same league, beauty-wise, with the women in his world.
And she didn’t have the kind of meat on her bones that he tended to prefer.
But there was something genuine about her that he did like.
And he liked it from the moment he met her a month ago.
And the fact that she took full responsibility for what happened to his mother was a plus in her favor too.
But Janita felt she owed him and every one of Mrs. Webster’s children her apology. “I know this is a very trying time for you and your family. And I know you love your mother dearly.”
Janita noticed that Hawk’s manner seemed to take an exception to what she just said. Which confused her. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Love is a rather strong word,” Hawk said.
Janita couldn’t believe it. What kind of people were these Websters? Even Von looked at him through the rearview. “You don’t love your own mother?” Janita asked him.
What is love, Hawk wanted to say. “My relationship with my mother is complicated.”
When she continued to stare at him, and he could see her brother taking peeps at him through that rearview mirror, he decided to explain.
“When I was growing up, she preferred to be my friend rather than my mother. I had enough friends, I kept telling her. I needed a mother. But she just couldn’t grasp what that meant. ”
“She let the nannies raise you?” Janita asked.
“No,” Hawk said. “She raised me. She was always there for me and my siblings.”
Janita looked perplexed. “She raised you. She was always there for you. But she wasn’t a good mother?”
“My father took parenthood to one extreme by being so exacting and strict. My mother took it to the opposite extreme by letting me do whatever I wanted to do. We were friends, not mother and son. She took it to the opposite extreme.”
“Maybe because she felt she had to balance out your father’s extreme?”
“Yeah maybe,” Hawk said. That had crossed his mind too. “But mainly I disagreed vehemently with some of the choices she made.”
Von looked through his rearview again. But this time at Janita because they both knew what choices he was talking about. It was no secret in Brackenridge that William Webster got around.
“Love is a strong word,” Hawk said to put a period on that uncomfortable conversation.
Janita knew how to read a room, so she left it alone.
But for him to not be able to say that he loved his mother unconditionally was inconceivable to Janita and DeVontay.
Before they died, their mother and father were their heartbeats.
The idea that they wouldn’t cherish their own mother or love her unconditionally was unheard of to them.
But Janita knew rich people were different. They just were. So she moved on. “I just want to say that I’m so sorry I failed your mother. And I know it doesn’t matter now, but I can’t express to you how terrible I feel about it.”
But her and her brother’s security lapses were still inexcusable to Hawk. “You’re right,” he said flatly. “It doesn’t matter now.”
Von glanced at his unfortunate sister. She took the rap for him, and that nasty family still didn’t give her any grace. “It wasn’t all her fault,” he said.
“Yes, it was,” Janita fired back at him. He knew how she hated appeasement. “I messed up. I told you we aren’t going to dress that up and pretend there was blame to go around. I’m to blame. It starts and stops with me. And now Mrs. Webster is missing. This man has every right to be angry with me.”
Hawk looked at her. In his world, nobody took the blame for anything. Making excuses was the name of the game. It was refreshing to see somebody refusing to play that game.
And they rode the rest of the way to Ellen’s Boutique in silence.
But a part of Hawk felt a sense of regret about how he had responded to her.
As if he was beating her down when she was already beating herself down quite enough.
He wanted to say something to her. He wanted to tell her how he appreciated that she was stepping up even though it was after the fact.
Even though she bore some blame just as she said.
But that was why he didn’t say a word. He didn’t care for appeasement either.