Roses Are Red

Chapter Seven

I wasn't sure whether I could trust Cedric Montgomery's information, but he'd given me a good hard lead that I had to follow. He was right about one thing: His tip was disturbing to me. One of the people he'd implicated in the robbery was the stepbrother of my late wife, Maria. He'd heard that Enrol Parker might have done the bank in Silver Spring.

Sampson and I spent the next day trying to locate Errol, but he wasn't at home or at any of his usual haunts around Southeast. His wife, Brianne, wasn't around either. No one had seen the Barkers for at least a week.

Around five-thirty I stopped by the Sojourner Truth School to see if Christine was still there. I'd been thinking about her all day. She hadn't answered my calls or returned any messages.

I had met Christine Johnson two years before, and we'd almost gotten married. Then a sad and tragic thing happened, and I still blamed myself: She was kidnapped by a monster who had committed several murders in Southeast. She had been held as a hostage for nearly a year. Christine was kidnapped because she was seeing me. She was missing for a year and believed to be dead. When Christine was found, there was another surprise. She had a baby, our son, Alex. But the abduction had changed her, wounded her in ways she didn't understand, and she couldn't cope with that. I'd tried to help in any way I could. It had been months since we'd been intimate. She kept pushing me farther and farther away. Now Kyle Craig had made it even worse.

Nana usually watched over the baby while Christine was working at the Sojourner Truth School. Then Christine and little Alex went to her apartment in Mitchellville. It was the way she needed it to be.

I entered the school through a side metal door near the gym and heard the familiar sound of basketballs pounding against hardwood and the laughter and joyful screams of kids. I found Christine huddled over the computer in her office. She was the principal at the Sojoumer Truth School. Jannie and Damon are students there.

"Alex?" Christine said when she saw me at the door. I read the sign on the wall: Praise loudly, blame softly. Was Christine able to do that for me? "I'm almost finished for the day. Just give me another minute or two." At least she didn't seem angry about the other night with Kyle Craig; she didn't tell me to leave.

"I came to walk you home from school. I'll even carry your books," I said and smiled. "That's all right?"

"I guess so," she said, but she didn't smile back and she still seemed so far away.