Hero

Chapter Seventeen

Tonya didn’t realize she had a message on her cell until she was at work, getting ready for the first of a series of meetings with the firm of Deloitte & Touche for a surprise audit of their accounting system.

As usual the past few weeks, it had been hectic getting Tess out of the house. The little girl was at the age where she was trying to test her limits with her parents. She and Gerald were always quick to correct Tess, but lately she’d been trying both their patience. This morning had been worse. Tonya had lost her temper and swatted Tess’s rump, something she swore she’d never do. Not that she had anything against a good swat on the rump, just that she believed it should never be done in anger. She’d apologized to a crying Tess in the car and told her that even though she was sorry, she wanted Tess to understand why she’d gotten swatted. Tess had nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Yes momma, you swatted my butt because I wasn’t listening to you and daddy…I wasn’t getting ready for school.”

So they’d talked about it on the drive to school, and after dropping Tess off with a hug and a kiss, she’d driven to work and started stressing out about her job. She’d forgotten about the surprise audit, and normally she would have used the morning commute to prepare herself mentally for it. Instead she’d been distracted by the family havoc. God, she wished she didn’t have to work. Gerald was working two jobs—his day job as an administrator for an insurance company and his night job, his dream job, as a professor of History at Penn State. That was what Gerald Brown really wanted to do; be a teacher. His specialty was American History, including pre-Columbus history, and a course in African American History, a course he’d laid out the syllabus for himself. The drawback was the teaching gigs were part-time, and Gerald was working his ass off to impress the Department Chair. One of the tenured professors was retiring this year and Gerald was up for the job. If he could get it, Tonya could either quit her job or take a less demanding position elsewhere. And when Gerald gained tenure…

In short, they were overworked and overextended and Tonya knew it. If they could only have more time for themselves…for family…

Tonya quickly dialed her voice mail as her colleagues filed into the conference room. When Mike’s voice came through she didn’t recognize it at first, then a spike of alarm went through her. She quickly rose to her feet and left the conference room.

She listened to the message a second time to confirm what she’d just heard.

“Tonya, you ready?” Her boss, Chad Duncan, was entering the conference room with her co-worker Bernie Hill. Chad’s tone suggested that he was waiting for her.

“In a minute,” she said, dismissing him by turning her back to him. She quickly speed-dialed Mike’s number and waited for it to ring through.

It rang three times.

“’Sup?”

“Mike, it’s Tonya. I just got your message.”

“Tonya! Man, I was worried as hell last night when you didn’t call me back.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

Mike quickly told her. He saw one of the nurses enter momma’s house. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later there was a lot of noise coming from the apartment, what sounded like yelling, then a scream. Mike had stormed upstairs and pounded on the door but nobody answered. Then Natsinet answered the door—well, she spoke to him from the other side of the door. Said everything was okay, that momma just had a bad nightmare.

“She wouldn’t let me in to check, told me she was gonna call the police.”

“Then what?”

She needed to get out there as soon as possible.

Mike told her the rest and Tonya relaxed a little. Chad poked his head out into the hall, watching her, but Tonya ignored him. Fuck his skinny ass white-collar bullshit.

“I hung out ‘til about two but everything seemed okay. Light came back on and I didn’t hear anything. Went upstairs and even listened. Didn’t sound unusual. Like she was maybe cleaning or something.”

“Cleaning?”

“Cleaning, washing dishes, somethin’ like that.”

“You go over there again?”

“Not yet. I wasn’t sure if maybe I was over-reacting.”

Tonya thought quickly. Natsinet wouldn’t let Mike in to the apartment. No arguing that. She could call and tell her Mike could go in, that might help. She was about to suggest this to Mike when Chad interrupted her.

“Tonya? We’re waiting!”

Shit!

“Listen, Mike, I gotta go, but I’m gonna call the apartment and tell Natsinet you can go in. Wait for my call, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

“And Mike?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. I’ll call—”

Chad again. Impatient.

“Tonya!”

Tonya lost her temper again and shot her boss a smoldering glare; part of her instantly regretted it.

That fucking asshole, she thought as Chad stormed back into the room. This is fucking great, now that fucking asshole’s gonna get on my ass for giving him an attitude. Christ, I wish he’d just fire me and get it over with!

Mike must have heard the exchange.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I gotta take care of something first real quick and then I’ll call you back.”

“Okay.”

“Give me an hour.”

They hung up. With a feeling of apprehension, Tonya entered the conference room, already coming up with a plan to worm her way out of today’s meeting and get out of here. Chad could fuck himself if he didn’t like it. If Big Mike called, she knew something was wrong. He wouldn’t just call her like that if he didn’t think it was serious.