CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After answering questions from the police, Von drove Janita and Hawk to his sister’s house, expecting to drop her off and then take Hawk Webster to his parents’ home.
But when they got to her small cottage, the house they both grew up in, Von was surprised when they both got out.
So was Janita. He’d been holding her hand in that backseat of that SUV during the entire drive to her house. Now he had his hand on her lower back after they got out of the SUV. And it felt too good to Janita to give up. She didn’t object or even question it.
But Von did. “I’ll wait for you, sir,” he said to Hawk.
But Hawk wasn’t going anywhere soon. He needed to know why he was having such intense feelings for her.
It couldn’t be just because she rescued him.
He had intense feelings for her before that rescue.
Or was it more because that rescue revealed her character?
He wasn’t sure, but he liked the revelation.
“You needn’t wait on me,” he said to Von. “I’ll get home.”
Von found it all strange and odd altogether, but his sister seemed okay with it. So he knew he had to be okay too. “I’m gonna go by the office and log in what happened today. The office is only a few blocks from here so call me when you’re ready. It’ll be nothing for me to come and get you.”
Hawk was about to object, to make it clear he knew how to get around, but Janita stepped in. She knew her baby brother. “That sounds good, Von,” she said.
Von knew Hawk didn’t like it, but too bad. He wanted to make sure that lover boy didn’t play with his sister’s emotions like all those other lover boys had. He wanted to keep tabs on that man.
“Drive carefully,” Janita admonished, Von said he always did, and then he drove away.
Hawk snorted. “He thinks I have ill-intent concerning his beloved sister.”
Janita looked at him. Well, do you? she wanted to ask. But she held her tongue and they made it up to her small front porch with the wooden planks for flooring, and into her small three-bedroom, two-bath home.
“This is right charming,” Hawk said when he saw all of the old-styled furnishings and the old fireplace. It reminded him of his maternal grandmother’s house when he was a little boy. “But why the plastic on the sofa and the chairs?”
“My parents put it on and I never took it off.”
“Oh.” Hawk was surprised. “Your parents live here?”
“No no. My mom died when I was eight years old and DeVontay was two. She had cancer.”
Hawk knew that had to be difficult. An eight-year-old girl losing her mother? It had to be. “Sorry to hear that,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“What about your father?”
“He never got over my mama’s death. He wasn’t the same anymore. He went to work every day. He provided for us. But he lost any connection to us. Then he had a heart attack when I was sixteen and . . . And that was the end of that.”
Hawk stared at her. “Who took care of you and your brother?”
“I did. In many ways, I took care of my father until he died too. I cooked, I cleaned, and I eventually worked at the factory at night to help make ends meet. And I stayed in school.”
Hawk was impressed. “Good for you.”
“A social worker came by the house after Daddy died, but I was so scared they were going to break up my brother and me that I told her my aunt was on her way from Michigan to take care of us. So the social worker said okay and left. She never came back. Probably had too many cases to be worrying about some sixteen-year-old and her ten-year-old brother. But that was fine by me.”
She said this and smiled, which warmed Hawk’s heart. She was from tougher stuff than most. He loved that about her.
“Von refused to live in the same house he was born in,” she continued talking, “so he got an apartment as soon as he turned eighteen. That left me here. But I’m never in this room anyway,” she added.
“Where do you hang out?”
“Back here,” she said as she led him across the living room, one step down, into a small den with wood paneling on the walls. It had two very old and dated recliners, a table in the middle with stacks of papers on it, and a large TV. “This is where I hang out.”
Hawk smiled at the old-fashioned room. “The seventies are calling,” he said.
She laughed. “I know.” She was nodding her head as she looked around too. “I know.”
Then the laughing died down and silence ensued as they looked at each other. Both were still dusty from their ordeal in that hole. “You need a bath,” she said to him with a grin on her face.
“Why don’t you run me a bath?” he asked her.
A part of Janita was shocked that he asked her to do such a thing, but another part of her wasn’t shocked at all. That part of her was happy he asked. “Sure thing.”
“I’ll call my father and see if there’s been any news,” Hawk said as he pulled out his phone. Janita left the den and headed down the hall to the bathroom.
Hawk almost sat down on one of those recliners as he phoned his father, but he caught himself and remained standing. He began walking around the small room as his father’s phone rang.
There were pictures on the wall of Janita and DeVontay as children, and her attractive mother and father.
They were always smiling in those pictures as if they were one happy family.
As if, unlike his family, they didn’t have to mask the shame of their father’s actions by smiling and putting on fronts and going to weddings of his out-of-wedlock children they would rather eat worms than go to.
His father finally answered his phone. “Did you and the brother-and-sister sleuths find her?”
Hawk knew he was being sarcastic so he didn’t respond to that question. “Any news?”
“Nothing,” his father said. Hawk could hear the stress return in his voice.
“There’s still not even a ransom demand.
Donnally and his men are setting up a communications post here at the house so that if the call comes in, they can record it and try to trace it or whatever they’re trying to do. The FBI is on their way too.”
“The FBI?” Hawk was surprised. “But I thought they only came into the picture if there was some interstate or federal-type crime.” Then Hawk’s heart dropped. “Are you saying they believe Mom is no longer being held in Brackenridge? That this wasn’t local?”
“Nobody knows that, but that’s what I ordered Donnally to tell the Feds. Between you and me and this phone I don’t think his team is up to the job.”
“I already knew that. I thought you were relying more on your security team.”
“I am. But they’re turning up blanks too. The FBI have more resources. I want them involved.”
“I agree,” said Hawk. “Good move, Pop.”
It took a lot for him to give his father any kind of compliment. Their relationship was too fraught with trauma for that. But his father was stepping up for his mother. That mattered too. “Call me if anything happens.”
“Where are you?”
He wasn’t about to tell him where. “I’m in town,” was all he said.
“Donnally said you nearly got your ass stuck in some hole at Ellen’s. Be careful son. I cannot take another tragedy right now.”
Hawk was offended. “Mother isn’t a tragedy. She’s coming back home.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just . . . I’m scared for her.”
Hawk eased his defensiveness. And nodded his head. “I am too, Pop. I am too.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” his father said, and ended the call.
Hawk held onto his phone a moment longer. It had been years since he and his father had a civil conversation. And to have one under these circumstances negated the beauty of it. All he usually got were orders from his old man. But that was how he rolled. He never made anything easy for any of them.
Hawk put his phone away, made his way out of the den, and down the narrow hall to the bathroom. Janita was down on her knees, swishing around what looked like bubble bath, and he smiled. “I haven’t had a bubble bath in decades,” he said.
She looked at him with a smile so gorgeous that it beautified her face. “You’re long overdue. I have one every night.” Then she stood up. “It’s ready for you.”
He pushed from the doorjamb and made his way further into the bathroom. They were toe to toe and those overwhelming feelings he felt for her returned. “Why don’t you go first,” he said.
“No way. You’re my guest. My guest goes first. And actually, there’s a second bathroom. I’m going to take my bath there.” Then her look turned serious. “Any news?”
He exhaled, and shook his head. “Nope. But at least the FBI is getting involved.”
“That’s good news, right?”
“They have a wider sweep, so yes. But we still haven’t heard from those kidnappers.” Then he smiled.
Which Janita found very odd. “What’s funny?”
“My mother is a force of nature. I suspect those kidnappers will be releasing her soon just to get some rest.”
Janita found herself smiling too. Then they both laughed. In the little time she’d known his mother, she knew how exacting she could be too.
Then the laugher died down as reality set in again. She patted his muscular chest. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said as she began to leave.
But he took her by the hand and pulled her back in front of him. “Join me,” he said.
They were eyeball to eyeball. And Janita was amazed at how much she wanted to say yes. But she knew she had to say no. Every man she’d ever been with used and abused her, especially after she said yes. She was done with that. “Not a good idea,” she said.
“Definitely not,” he agreed. “Join me,” he said.
Janita stared at him. He admitted he would give her nothing in return, but he was still man enough to admit he wanted her?
Then his look changed to a kind of vulnerability she hadn’t seen in him before now. “I need it, Janita,” he said to her.
It seemed so uncharacteristic to her that she found herself searching his eyes for the meaning of it.
But he quickly pivoted back to his old confident, maybe even arrogant self again. “Let’s dirty up the water together because you need a bath too.”
She grinned. He had such an odd charm. But this man was off limits to her and she had enough sense to know it even if he pretended not to know.
Her grin was gone. “Still not a good idea,” she said.
Then she told him to leave his dirty clothes on the outside of the bathroom door so she could wash them, and then she left the bathroom.
Hawk was stunned that she turned him down outright once again. But oddly enough, he wasn’t sure if he was pissed with her, or pleased. Probably a little of both.
But truth was he didn’t just need to be with her, but he wanted to be with her too. And like every Webster, what Hawk wanted, Hawk got.
He got in that bathtub alone. But the night was young and he was certain his loneliness was very, very temporary.