Status

Ladykiller: Let me know what you need me to do.

Tyesha816: Can you meet me somewhere?

Ladykiller: Name the place.

CHAPTER 14

I sat on a bench at the Crown Center Square Fountain on Grand Boulevard, a line of shade trees behind me nearly hiding me in darkness. I stared at the water spouting out of the fountains in front of me and felt angry tears welling up in my eyes. This is where I took Kylie on her third birthday. She had played in this very Square with one of her cousins of the same age, screaming with sheer joy whenever she got splashed.

Kylie always loved the water.

I tried my hardest to blink back the tears and stay focused.

The boulevard was deserted. Just me… sort of. There was a staircase to my right leading up to a row of manicured bushes, where Detective Rosan promised me there’d be two cops hiding in wait. Maybe fifty yards in front of me, on top of the Halls building, there was a railing protecting the roof’s edge where a sniper was supposed to be positioned, but I didn’t see him. I hoped he was there. And if he was, would he be able to get a good shot through the trees?

I turned quickly when I caught sight of a man walking casually down the sidewalk. Tonight’s half moonlight wasn’t enough to get a good look at him, but I could see he had on a backpack.

I was startled by my own phone when it buzzed in my hand. I had a text message.

Detective Rosan: Is it him?

I couldn’t tell yet. But as the unknown man drew near, I suddenly realized that he was closer to me than any of the officers in hiding. This man could beat me to a pulp before they cleared the stairs.

The sniper, I reminded myself, taking deep breaths. The sniper will get him.

My thumb instinctively hovered over the “y” on my phone’s keypad. But when the man with the backpack got close enough for me to see his face, my thumb went down to the “n” and I typed in “no.” The man was old with a dirty white beard. Probably just a homeless wanderer.

 A Metro bus thundered down the boulevard then, its headlights and MAX route display waking up the darkness. I had forgotten how loud and scary buses were at night time. It stopped across the street from me, and a couple seconds later it was drudging off again.

And suddenly there was a man standing on the bus stop. No, not standing anymore but running across the street towards me!

I typed in “yes” and hit send as quick as I could. This was Ladykiller racing up to me, tall and slender. I could see the whites of his eyes now as he cleared the curb.

The plan was to sit and talk with Ladykiller for a moment to make sure he was really who he was. Detective Rosan hoped I could even get him to admit that he kidnapped my daughter, and then they would come storming out of hiding with their machine guns out.

Fuck that!

I got up and started running in the opposite direction. I was scared out of my mind.

“Tyesha!” Ladykiller called after me.

I pumped my legs so fast I almost lost my balance. Stupidly, I looked back, my long hair flipping over my shoulder—and I saw Ladykiller gaining on me.

“Tyesha, stop! Come back!”

That’s when I heard the first shot. Ladykiller shooting at me or the sniper shooting at him, I didn’t know. But I was still on my feet. Then I did another stupid thing—I looked back again, I couldn’t help it. Ladykiller was still on his feet too, and a lot closer than before.

As I climbed the stairway, panting as hard as I ever had before in my life, I saw the two officers hustling down with their guns in their hands. I passed them and ran behind the bushes, hunkering down out of sight and not caring about the stench of those officers’ cigarette butts.

“Freeze! Get on the ground!”

I didn’t look. I stayed crouched.

“I said freeze!”

“I didn’t do anything,” I heard Ladykiller say. “What did I do?”

“Hands in the air or we’ll shoot!”

Seconds went by without a word. And then I heard the sound of a short scuffle and what I hoped was Ladykiller being taken to the ground.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.”

“I can’t get arrested,” Ladykiller wailed in a way that made me think he was suddenly sorry for what he did. “I can’t go to jail, please. Tyesha, help me! TYESHA!”

I closed my eyes and covered my ears.

-

Tyesha816: Kidnapper in custody! I’m closer to finding my daughter!

August 19^th, 1:13 a.m.

CHAPTER 15

Questions ran through my mind as I sat inside the interrogation room with my arms crossed on the table, my head down, staring at the gray wall. I was in deep thought, waiting on a detective to come in and tell me they found my daughter.

Why did he take her? How could any man be that obsessed with me? Would they lock him up for life or would they give him a light sentence? Will I have to deal with this again?

I started looking at Ladykiller’s profile page on my phone, trying to find answers. Most of the activity on his page pertained to messages to me or comments on my status updates. It was as if his whole page was created solely to interact with me. I scrolled further back through his timeline, as far back as a year, and I saw a post that I had never seen before. It was a message my mother, Velma Fenty, posted on Ladykiller’s wall. It read: “I said no! I want nothing to do with you or your family! Stay out of my inbox!”

That was strange.

Suddenly, I heard a commotion outside of the room. I got up and went to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. They locked me in!

“What’s the problem?!” I heard Rodrick yell on the other side of the door.

Oh my God! I thought. Rodrick and my mother were waiting in the lobby for them to release me—as if I was guilty of something. I should have told him not to come!

“I don’t wanna hear it!” an officer yelled. “Hands behind your back!”

Rodrick’s voice came back hard. “I’m here trying to find my daughter and yall gone arrest me?! What part of