Redemption (Iris Series) (48 page)

Janie linked arms with her and they all walked inside.  Janie asked the waitress if she wouldn’t mind heating up their plates and when Natalie looked at Ayanna, she smiled and nodded.  “Everything okay?”

“Yup,” Ayanna said, trying not to alarm anyone.  “Something just came up that we had to take care of, Nat.  Sorry.  Is it okay to heat them up?”

“No problem.” She took their plates and walked back to the kitchen. 

“I’m going to call Jonathan really quick, okay?  I’ll be back.”

“Stay inside, Yan,” her mother said.

“I will.”  Ayanna smiled at her mom.  “Don’t worry.” 

Ayanna walked to the back hall where the restrooms were located, pulled out her phone, and dialed Jonathan. 

“Hey!  It’s early,” Jon said when he answered.  “Is it not going well?”

“Things with my mom are going fine.  But,” she hesitated, “I wanted to call you to tell you about something that happened.”

“What?  Are you okay?”

“I got another message.”

There was a moment of silence and Ayanna could tell he was trying to process what she’d just said.  “I don’t understand.  What do you mean you got another message?”

“I mean, I was sitting at dinner with my mom and Janie, my phone pinged to tell me that an email came into my blog...and it was another one from Robert’s laptop.”

“What?!  What the fahck?!  How is that even possible?!  What did it say?”  He sounded like he was ready to kill someone.

“Calm down, okay?”

He took a deep breat
h.  “Where are you right now?”

“I’m at the restaurant by the restrooms.  I just met with the police.  They’re already on it, champ, so relax.  I’m okay.”

“
Fuck.
  I’m coming there right now.”  She could hear the rustle of his clothes and the clanging of his keys.

“No, you’re not.  It’s okay.  We’re going to finish our dinner then I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

“Tough shit, Yan.  I’m coming.  And I want to know what that message said.  Now.”

She bristled.  “Listen, I know you’re upset.  But you need to fuckin’ stop for a sec, Jon.  I don’t want you driving like a maniac.  I’m fine.  We’re all fine.  I’m in a public place, we’re going to finish our dinner then I’ll call you.  I just didn’t want to wait until the end of the night to tell you.  I promised you I would tell you these things when they happened.”

In her mind’s eye, she could picture him running his fingers through his hair.  He let out another breath.  “Okay.  Good.  Thank you for calling me, but just humor me, okay?  I’ll come now and sit at the bar or something until you guys are ready.  I can’t
not
come.  What did the cops say?  And you haven’t told me the message yet.” 

Ayanna could hear the ding of the elevator doors from their apartment complex in the background.  Her emotional side loved that he was coming, charging in to be her champion once again, but the rational side needed to slow him down a bit, and telling him the message would freak him out.

“Yan?  I’m serious.  What did it say?”

She looked up to the heavens for strength and sighed, ignoring his last question.  “The police are going to look into Robert’s wife.  They think now she was the one who sent the first message.”

“Shit,” he sounded distraught.  “Please tell me the message.  Was it another death threat?” 

She could tell he was struggling to keep it together.  There was no way she was going to tell him the message right before he got in the car.

“Why don’t you come over and I’ll show it to you when you get here.  I kind of want you sitting in a chair rather than driving heavy machinery.  I don’t wanna be blamed if you total that car,” she said dryly.

“Why are you joking about this?” he growled. 

“I don’t mean to be, JBG, but in all seriousness, I don’t want you driving while you’re upset.”  She was so exasperated by him and turned on by his protectiveness at the same time that she was a jumble of nerves.  “I’ll see you in a bit.  I’m gonna head back to the table.  I’m sure they’re wondering where I am.”

“Hey.”  She heard another ding from the elevator, which meant he was entering the garage. 

“What, JBG?”

“I love you.  Be aware of all your surroundings…”

He continued to warn her just as she
was
becoming aware of her surroundings and noticed a woman peeking around the door from the ladies’ room, looking right at her.

She imagined the music from the shower scene in
Psycho.

Because staring from behind the bathroom door...was Robert’s wife.

“Baby,” Ayanna whispered interrupting Jon’s diatribe.

“What, babe?  I can’t hear you.”

“Call the police.”             

There was a pause.  “Did you say call the police?”

Ayanna turned away from the restroom for a moment and whispered more vehemently into the phone, “Call. The. Police.  Tell them to come to the restaurant.”

She heard him getting into his car, and then the squeal of his tires as he peeled out of the garage.

She glanced back to the restroom only to find Robert Rivera’s wife standing right behind her.  Ayanna slipped the phone in her purse and looked at the woman.  She looked calm, a little confused, and definitely off her rocker.  Like she was on something.

Then, like a scene in a movie, the restaurant lights went out and the emergency lights flickered on.  The voices in the restaurant became louder.

Ayanna had no idea what this woman had in store, but Ayanna was going to be ready for it.  She decided to take the bull by the horns, so to speak.

“You’re Maria.  Robert’s wife.”

The woman cocked her head.  “I
was
Robert’s wife.”

“What do you want?”  Ayanna could feel the electricity in the air as her muscles tensed.  At that particular moment, there were no people near the restrooms and she didn’t know how long she would have before this woman became unhinged.  Ayanna didn’t want anyone to be hurt and she was surreptitiously looking at the woman for a weapon.  So far, she couldn’t detect one.

“I want,” psycho woman paused, “you dead.”

She said it so matter of factly, that a chill ran through Ayanna.  Ayanna, however was no push over, and all she could think of was Emily saying the victim needed to act decisively and quickly, and to distract the attacker with words.

“Yeah?  Well that’s not gonna work for me, Mrs. Rivera.”

Just as she was saying
Mrs. Rivera
, Ayanna hauled off and punched the woman across the side of her head sending her down like a sack of potatoes.  The adrenaline pumped through her and she figured she would rather be safe than sorry.  Hell, she could always apologize later if she acted too rashly. 

But she didn’t think she did.  Bat Shit Crazy Lady had just told her she wanted her dead.  That was reason enough to crack her in the head as far as Ayanna was concerned.

Jumping on the woman immediately, Ayanna took the long strap of her purse and wrestled Robert’s wife onto her stomach to wind the strap around her wrists behind her. 

“Yannie!”  Her mom was running toward her.  “What happened?!”

“This is Robert’s wife,” Ayanna grunted while tying the strap around Maria’s wrists.

“Oh, my God.  Are you hurt?!”

“No.”  Her mom leaned down to help secure the woman.  The voices in the restaurant began to get louder, but in the midst of the murmurs she heard some louder shouts.  And smelled the undeniable acrid odor of smoke.

“It’s time,” Mrs. Rivera said, with a creepy smile on her face.

Ayanna looked at her mom, who said, “We need to get out of here.”

Before Ayanna could ask what had happened with the lights, she looked out into the restaurant and saw Janie running toward them.

“What the hell…?” Janie began then looked into Ayanna’s eyes.  “There’s a fire,” she said slightly panicked.  “The wait staff is trying to get everyone out.”  Janie had wet table napkins in her hands and handed them to Ayanna and her mother.  “Tie these around your nose and mouth.”

They hurriedly tied them around their heads, looking like a surreal version of Charlie’s Angels.

“It’s time,” Bat Shit Crazy Lady repeated with a smile.

Ayanna wasn’t about to wait around.  She and her mom grabbed the woman to stand her up, readying themselves to get out of the increasingly smoky restaurant with Janie and the other 50 patrons.  Because they were towards the back, Ayanna began to lead them to an exit door in the opposite direction from the front entrance. 

The process would’ve gone quicker had Robert’s wife not dropped to the ground making herself dead weight and difficult to move her.  The smoke was building, and there was an electrical smell in the air.

“What did you do?” Ayanna asked the psycho, knowing in her gut she had something to do with it.  They were met with a smile that chilled Ayanna to the core.  They had to get out.

They were practically dragging Robert’s wife and finally reached the exit in the back hall, but when they pushed on it, it wouldn’t budge.

“
Fuck,
” Ayanna ground out.  She was trying to remain calm, but now that they were that much farther from the only other exit Ayanna knew about, it was getting harder to think straight.  Then she remembered.  “There’s another exit in the kitchen.” 

They began dragging Maria down the hall while she continued laughing then coughing, and Ayanna was beginning to think it would be better to just leave her there.  However, if she let her go, the psycho might get up and try something else.  Thinking of the adage
keep your enemies closer
, Ayanna almost felt they would be safer from her if they kept dragging her. 

The smoke was thickening around them and thankfully the wet napkins were helping, but when they added in the exertion of running and pulling Robert’s wife along with them, they all knew they needed to get out of there as soon as possible.  The rushing sound of fire reached their ears and a wall of heat met them as they got closer to their destination.  The smoke had begun to limit their sight as the
eerie emergency lights illuminated their path to the kitchen.

When they burst into the kitchen, they could see staff with fire extinguishers aiming at the floor to stop the flames crawling up the walls, but the fire was now too big and was raging out of control reaching past the kitchen and into the restaurant.  In the midst of the chaos, Ayanna saw and heard Catherine screaming at everyone to leave the fire and get out.  The fire was bigger than a typical kitchen fire from splattered oil.  It looked like it had been set.

The kitchen staff was coughing and made a beeline to get out the kitchen exit door, but it was stuck and not opening no matter how hard they pushed on it.

Ayanna knew without a doubt that Robert’s wife had staged every aspect of the evening.  Blocking the exit doors, starting the fire then somehow knocking out the sprinkler system which hadn’t gone on when the fire began.  Even sending the threat to her an hour earlier was orchestrated to heighten her anxiety that evening.

Ayanna, her mother, and Janie were now hitting full blown panic mode.  She could hear sirens in the background, but she was now pressing the napkin closer to her nose and mouth so she could keep it together long enough to get out.  The three of them were practically crawling out of the kitchen to get toward the main restaurant entrance, all while pulling Robert’s wife after them. 

They had finally made it into the main seating area of the restaurant which was close to empty.  It looked like most everyone had made it out.  Flames were all around them and now that the front door was within view, they ran in crouched positions for the door with Ayanna leading the way.  Letting go of the wound purse strap around Robert’s wife, Ayanna ran toward the double doors of the entrance.

Just when they were a few feet from the outside, Robert’s wife fell into Ayanna knocking her down holding onto her with her legs, while trying to release herself from the clutches of the purse strap.

Ayanna began tearing at her, screaming to get away from her, kicking and slapping but Maria wouldn’t let go.  Ayanna was finding it harder and harder to breathe, but she fought for all she was worth until she felt someone pushing and hitting along with her.

She turned to see her mom, and felt a wave of love for Ina Sarin.  She appeared, swooping down like an avenging angel and fought alongside her to help disentangle her from Maria.  They were all coughing uncontrollably, and when Janie realized what was happening, she came back to help as well.

An enormous roar sounded through the room while pieces of the ceiling began to fall just at the time they’d all freed themselves from the tangle of arms and legs.  Ayanna looked up to see a large section of the ceiling beginning to fall right over where her mom was crouched.

“Mom!” she screamed.  That was all Ayanna could get out before she was forced to watch in horror as a huge piece fell from above, covering Maria completely and pinning her mom’s lower leg under it.