In Love and Rescue: When love is the perfect rescue... (15 page)

A light bulb went off in Desmond’s head. “This doctor, what did he look like?”

Twila rubbed her forehead as she tried to remember. “I don’t really know. He never took off the mask when he came to talk to me. All I remember is that he had some weird looking eyes. They were almost like...purplish.”

Larke frowned. It was unusual that a doctor would deliver news to a waiting family member and
not bother to remove his mask.

“Did you see him again after that?”
She asked.

“I didn’t,” Twila
answered. “After that, we just dealt with the funeral home.”

Larke jotted down a few more notes. “We also heard that an outside source took care of her hospital expenses. Is that true?”

Twila took another gulp and nodded. “Yeah. A policeman from Jamaica.”

“Did he say why?”

She nodded again. “He said it was because he was the last person to see Taina alive and she had been such a sweet girl. Plus, it’s not like we’re rolling in money around here. Granddaddy and Grandma are living off of social security and I work part-time at Texaco. We were grateful for the help.”

Larke turned to Desmond. “The odds of us getting those hospital records are pretty slim since it’s a private hospital,” she pretended to whisper.

Twila shook her head and raised her hand. “I thought so too. See, I was trying to do some detective work myself and went down to the hospital to ask them to release my sister’s records. They kept dragging their feet, but I took the bus down there every Friday to try to pick them up. The thirteenth time I went, a nurse pulled me to the side and gave me a blue folder. On an index card, she scribbled down three words, stapled the card to the folder and shoved me out the door. I haven’t been able to figure out what the words mean, and I haven’t been able to find somebody to help me read her records.”

Desmond leaned forward. “Do you still have them? I might be able to help.”

She nodded, hopped down off of the railing and disappeared inside of the house.

“That nurse knows something,” he whispered. “I can bet information was falsified on the report and she knew it, felt guilty and tried to help Tw
ila out. Good call on this lead, baby.”

He froze.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“You can call me bab
y,” she reassured. “I don’t mind.”

He
reached across and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

They looked up when they heard footsteps approaching
and found Twila’s grandfather standing in the doorway, his gaze again fixed on Larke.

“You’re dead,” he repeated, but this time motioned for them to follow him inside. They cautiously did so and ended up running into an elderly lady emerging from the hallway.

“Twila just ran past me and quickly told me who you were,” she greeted with a wave. “My name is Cora and this is my husband, Eldridge. I am Taina’s grandmother. Please, have a seat.”

Eldridge stomped his foot and shoo
k his head. “No, do not sit.” Then he pointed to the television. “Look, young lady. You are dead.”

Larke’s eyes traveled to the television set and sure enough, her picture was on the screen. Only, the image of her that was being broadcast was the one that was currently still on display at the courthouse. Behind it was a video of a past interview she’d conducted on the courthouse steps about her opinion of the jury’s verdict after the
Jarvis trial was over. On the other side of the screen, smoke billowed out of the window of the bungalow resort where she’d been staying. The headline at the top read:

BODY CONFIRMED TO BE THAT OF FEDERAL PROSECUTOR.

“What is this?” She asked mainly to herself, walking closer to the television. Eldridge turned up the volume.

After going missing about a week ago, reports have confirmed that the charred body that was recovered from the bungalow pictured here is that of Assistant US Attorney Larke Holiday Tapley. Several sources have reported that she’d taken a leave of absence and flew to Jamaica for a few weeks to escape the tension surrounding the conviction of Edward Jarvis on first degree murder charges. There are no reports yet on what started the fire, but officials on the island speculate that it was faulty wiring from a gas stove in the unit where Miss Tapley was staying. There is also no word yet about whether the police suspect foul play. More details will be revealed as they surface.

“What is this?” She repeated a bit louder.

Eldridge placed
a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You are dead they say, but you are here.”

She looked up at him, but the television again commanded her attention when her family appeared on the screen. Her father was standing at a podium and speaking into a series of microphones, his eyes red around the rim. Next to him, her mother and Wren held onto each other for support, and Jay
stood off to the side with his hands dug into his pockets, a mixture of anger and sadness on his face.

Larke sank to her knees on the floor.

“We would like to thank everyone for their kind words and prayers during this difficult time,” her father was saying. “Larke was our everything. It is tragic that something so unfortunate would take her from us, but we know that she’s well taken care of where she’s gone.”

He looked to the sky.

“We love you, sweetie.”

He then walked away from the microphones to wrap his arms around his wife and daughter. He reached for Jay who shook his head
, and jogged through a crowd of people, out of view. Larke touched her fingers to the television screen and Twila reappeared with the folder in her hands. She looked at Larke on the floor in front of the TV.

“What’s going on?” She asked. Then
, she made out what was on the screen. “Is that you?”

Larke was still in a trance after not only having witnessed her own supposed demise, but the tragic looks on her family member’s faces as they were notified of the loss. Her heart pained to know that they had to suffer over something that wasn’t remotely true. Then
, with the way Jay had stormed off, she could only imagine what was going through his head. He was in his senior year of high school and had been getting some of the highest grades he’d ever gotten during his entire high school tenure. He was also making headlines on the varsity team and they were a favorite for going to the Championships this year, so she didn’t want to think about how this news was possibly going to affect him.

“What’s really going on here?” Twila asked, kneeling next to Larke on the floor. “Are you two really working with a private investigative agency?”

Larke slowly shook her head. “No, Twila, but we really are investigating your sister’s death. My name is Larke Tapley and this is Desmond Harding. We have reason to believe that your sister was intentionally killed to cover up a larger operation involving Edward Jarvis and Delgano Richards.”

Twila’s heart skipped a beat. “The police officer tha
t paid for my sister’s services? I let my sister’s murderer finance her funeral?”

Desmond walked over to them. “There’s no way t
hat you could have known, Twila.”

His reassurance
fell upon deaf ears.

Twila stood
and shoved the folder into his chest. “Here is what I have,” she said, her voice strained. “I also included some of Taina’s things that I found, but I haven’t had the stomach to go through them yet. If you need anything more, I’ll do whatever I can to get it to you. Just please, help me close this chapter in my life. I can barely eat or sleep knowing that I wasn’t there at my sister’s bedside when she died. Then to think that man came into my living room offering his condolences knowing that he had a hand in—”

“Your living room?” Desmond interrupted. “He was here?”

“He was here,” Twila emphatically replied, pointing to the floor.

Desmond’s eyes darted around the room. Moving swiftly, he dropped the backpack on the floor and fished out a
small, black electronic device.

“W
hat did he do when he was here?” He asked. “Did he walk around the apartment at all? Was there any point and time that you guys left him alone?”

She thought for a minute. “Yeah, he had another gentleman escort me downstairs to look at funeral packages with my grandmother. He stayed up here to wait for us to get back.”

The machine beeped and Desmond cursed. Larke, snapping out of her trance at the look on his face, stood and walked over to him.

“This place has more bugs than a New York City landfill,” he revealed, pointing to several locations
where the apartment had been wired. Suddenly, Larke spotted movement out of the corner of her eye through the living room window. The front door then violently swung open, and a cylindrical object came flying into the room. She quickly pushed Twila out of its path while Desmond grabbed her around the waist, dropped to the floor, and covered her body with his. The object landed with a crash at the far end of the room and immediately engulfed the carpet in flames.

Desmond eased up and quickly glanced over Larke to make sure she was okay before searching the room for Twila and her grandparents. Twila had managed to crawl over to Eldridge near the open patio doors and Cora was already on the patio panting with her hand over her chest. He stuffed the folder into the backpack and pulled out the gun.

“I’m going to set off the building alarm,” he announced. “The people running out should cause enough of a distraction for Twila and her grandparents to make it safely down to the bottom floor until help arrives.” He handed the backpack to Larke. “They won’t risk hurting them or the tenants, causing a scene, and tracing it back to Delgano’s men. They will, however, come after you. So, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I want you to get them down to the bottom floor.”

Larke secured the
pack over her shoulders. “No problem.”

“Good,” he replied. “I’m going to secure the area then come get you downstairs.”

She turned to leave but Desmond grabbed her forearm. “But, please be careful. I couldn’t live with myself if...just please be careful.”

She flashed him the most confident smile that she could muster. “And you come back to me in one piece, Harding.”

He released her arm. “Anything you say, baby.”

With that
, she was off in the direction of the patio.

Twila scooped Eldridge up into her grasp and Larke peeled Cora away from her frozen position against the wooden rail. She waited until she heard the building alarm go off before heading down the back steps with the group, Twila right on her heels. The other tenants began to rush from their
units and when they noticed the smoke coming from the apartment, their exits became more frenzied.

Larke didn’t exhale until she felt the
soft cushion of grass and earth beneath her feet, and heard the approaching sirens in the distance. When she looked up at the unit that they’d just vacated, a fiery explosion burst through the window. Several people screamed as shards of glass and ash showered them on the lawn, and she helped them move farther away from the building to avoid the falling debris. Another blast resounded, more tenants screamed, and a baby began to wail.

Staring up at the destruction, everything seemed surreal. The entire back corner of the apartment was now covered in flames and a strong tug of guilt pulled at Larke’s chest as she realized that Twila, Cora
, and Eldridge no longer had a home because of her. If she hadn’t stepped foot into their lives, none of this would have happened. If she hadn’t even pursued the Jarvis case in the first place, then this entire ordeal could have been avoided. However, even through all of her guilt, she knew that it was her duty to get justice for Twila and Taina. There was a larger purpose to be found in all of this chaos and she knew that no one else in her office would have taken Twila as seriously as both she and Desmond had. Even her assistant Joni Westinghouse, a paralegal and law student, wouldn’t have taken Twila on as her first case.

Joni.

She’d forgotten all about her assistant. Was she the one who’d made the call to Desmond’s agency?

The emergency personnel had finally made their way up the hill
, and the police partitioned off the area with yellow caution tape while paramedics hopped out of their ambulances to tend to the residents. Larke flagged one down.

“Are you hurt ma’am?” He asked, quickly checking
for any overt signs of injury.

“No, but
please check on this couple.” She pointed to Cora and Eldridge. “The blast happened very close to them, so there might be some minor bruises and cuts, and perhaps some smoke inhalation.”

He nodded and called one of his colleagues to help tend to the elderly couple. When they were fully distracted, she started her walk around the perimeter to look for a break in the tape that she might be able to sneak through. Desmond hadn’t appeared with the residents on the floor which meant that he was
more than likely still upstairs. If he was still upstairs, then he could be hurt and if he was hurt, she had to go find him.