He stared at her hard. “You’re right. Getting laid on a regular basis shouldn’t have been a tough pill to swallow, especially for a teenager who dreamed about sex day and night. And when I found out, I didn’t care all that much. I convinced myself that I was the one doing all the using. I reveled in it and figured I could play the game until a new novelty came along for them.”
“Then why the anger and hatred if you turned the tables emotionally?” Christy asked.
“I started hating them when I realized that when they did happen to see me working at their houses, they acted like they didn’t know me. The anger built slowly and was sealed when one of them treated me rudely in front of her daughter. I’d been in her bed the day before and I was mowing her lawn the next. Her teenage daughter had friends out by the pool and one of them offered me a cold soda. The woman walked outside and told me the water hose was on the side of the house if I wanted a drink. I guess I thought I heard her wrong because I took the soda that was offered. She gave me a disgusted look and pointed toward the hose bib and said, ‘It’s right there, boy.’ She knocked the drink out of my hand and walked back into the house.”
He laughed bitterly. "About a week later, I was working at a house and the same woman happened to be at a pool party next door. The woman whose home I was at was goaded into making a spectacle of me, and the woman who I'd been sleeping with, Fran Burlingame, joined in. I'd turned her down after the soda incident so she jumped on board to try and humiliate me."
"Burlingame. I know that name," Christy told him. "If it's the family I'm thinking of, a grandfather or great grandfather patented some kind of medical device. I can't remember."
"I don't know where her wealth came from. Only that she didn't earn it or deserve it," Anthony replied hastily.
Christy nodded knowingly. “You could get past being used because you felt you were using them too, but you couldn’t get past the lack of respect. They couldn’t even call you Anthony. They called you boy.” Christy’s eyes looked sad.
“Yeah. I never really thought about why before, but that’s exactly what it was and after that, I started looking for it. And I found it more than you’d think. I obviously didn’t sleep with every woman, white or otherwise, that came along, but I watched. I observed and often I was looked down on because of my race. I was certain you were looking at me that way the day you saw me in your driveway.”
“But you were wrong, Anthony. I wasn’t looking down on you. You made me nervous and I guess I was trying to be brave, but I can see why you thought it might’ve been something else.”
She was looking at his chin, and slowly raised her eyes to meet his.
He saw the sincerity in them and said, “And you don’t know how glad I am that I was wrong about you, Owani.”
She scrunched up her face. “Owani?”
“You asked me not to call you Princess, so I’m calling you Owani,” he told her.
“Is it a Cherokee word?” she asked dreamily.
“No. It’s not even a real word,” he laughed. “When we were kids my sister invented a game. She made a board with tokens and everything. She didn’t have any friends before I came along and so she found comfort in the fantasy world she created. Owani is one of the words she made up.”
Christy’s eyes widened. “Does it mean princess?” she asked.
“No,” he answered.
She rolled her eyes but not in a disrespectful way. She was being playful. “Let me guess. It’s a fantasy world and there are usually witches, goblins, dragons and ogres in fantasy worlds. Which one am I?”
“I’ll tell you another time,” he teased. “Owani.”
She smiled and he pulled her in for a kiss when a sharp crack of lightning caused her to jump.
“Where in the world do we go from here?” she asked, pulling back and looking at him. She looked concerned.
An heiress and a criminal, he thought. Not exactly a match made in heaven and by normal standards, one that could only end in doom.
“Let’s worry about it tomorrow,” he said as he pulled her close. She laid her head on his chest and felt the weight of his chin as it rested on her temple.
They both languished in the warmth of each other’s touch, secretly thinking about how their worlds intersected and how long it would be before something or someone tried to rip them apart. The unspoken concern hung in the air, and they both knew the answer. It would only be a matter of time.
Chapter Twenty-One
Naples, Florida 1978
Several more days passed before they finally discovered Van and Vivian’s whereabouts. During that time, they lived a rather normal existence in Anthony’s home. Christy was surprised when he gave her a complete tour of the house, including his hidden safe room. He’d left her alone a few times while he checked on his businesses and the camp. He told her that he expected her to go straight to the hidden room if anyone approached the house. No exceptions. She was to lock herself in and page him. So far, she hadn’t needed to use the room. Nobody showed up the few times he’d left. And she was beyond excited when he returned from one of his excursions with art supplies. During one of their many conversations, she casually mentioned that she found comfort in painting. She admitted to not being very good since she hadn't painted in years, but Litzy had once suggested she give it a try. Christy found that painting helped her cope with her insecurities. Anthony didn’t press her about her fears. He knew she was afraid of thunderstorms and he didn’t pry further.
They fell into a comfortable routine. She spent a lot of her time on the phone, still trying to locate Van and Vivian. Anthony had shown her the safe where he kept the spare phones, and she used the untraceable line more than once to check in with Detective Cochran. She found out that the police couldn’t substantiate the threats to her family, and Nadine and her children were back in their home.
“I can’t say the same for you, Christy,” the detective had told her. “Apparently, your brother and his estranged family don’t appear to hold any interest, but when we questioned the men that are looking for Van, they expressed curiosity about you.”
“So, you’ve identified the people who are looking for Van?” she asked, pretending not to know the answer already. The day after the hurricane threat, X had informed Anthony that Van owed money to two other men. One was a big-time shark with some serious thugs on his payroll who hid behind his pawn shops and meted out loans from the back room. The other one was a bit more serious. A bookie who’d fronted Van a considerable amount of money. He was the one who'd set up the wiretap on the phone at her apartment. X still hadn’t been able to link the two men in business suits who, according to Christy’s landlord, had shown up at her apartment—possibly the same two men who’d shown up when Lourdes was cleaning, claiming to work for Van.
After listening to Detective Cochran repeat what she’d already known, Christy promised that she would stay put in a location she refused to disclose until the threat was gone. She hung up before the detective could question her further.