I prayed.
I cried.
I lay awake nights.
I decided to make the call.
“Did you, sweetheart? Did you do your best at that time?”
Did I?
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“Aww, Callie.” He held my face and wiped at my tears with his thumb. “There are always ‘what ifs’ in life. You might not have done things perfectly. But your heart was right toward that little girl. It was her father who destroyed her. Not you.”
“I know. But it’s just so hard.” I pulled away from him and fished in my pocket for a tissue. I couldn’t find one, so I used the paper napkin from under my tea mug. “I’m sorry, Todd. I’m not usually so emotional.”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
I blew my nose and stroked Intarsia’s coat, embarrassed now to meet Todd’s eyes. “Not quite what you were expecting to hear, I guess. And I haven’t even told you about the court case yet.”
“Believe me. In my line of work, I’ve heard it all.” He took my hand again and waited until I looked up at him. “I think you have more to tell me, but it’s getting late. May I pray for you before I go?”
How could a girl refuse a question like that?
“Yes, please,” I said, giving him a watery smile.
I don’t remember exactly what he prayed, but I do know that the peace that passes understanding filled my heart and my soul in a way I could not express in words. When I woke early the next morning, I knew I was free from a burden I had carried for a long, long time. Though I hadn’t handled things perfectly, my heart had been right. I didn’t have to keep condemning myself or driving myself crazy with what-ifs. God saw all that had happened, and He would be the one to eventually make all things right. I smiled, thinking of the scene from C. S. Lewis’, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where Mr. Beaver encouraged the Pevensie children to look for Aslan’s return, knowing He was the only one who could set things right in Narnia.
I felt like Mr. Beaver and the children today, yearning to see my Savior, longing for the day when the power of sin and sorrow was broken forever. “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus,” I murmured.
All wrong would one day be made right—if not here in this world, then in Heaven. I could rest in that hope.
But I would not make the same mistake twice, so help me God.
The more I thought and prayed about it, the more I was sure that Sherm’s granddaughter Nicole was being trafficked. I remembered seeing her that day at the bus stop with her suitcase, hunched down with her cigarette, waiting. Waiting for what?
I would not sit by and be silent. I called Todd, pushing aside my sudden shyness when I remembered his tenderness from the night before. Most likely, he’d had lots of practice in comforting distraught people. It was part of his job, right?
“Me again,” I said, picturing him sitting at his kitchen table with his iced tea, Annie by his side.
“Callie! How are you this morning?”
“I’m okay.” I peered at the dark rings around my eyes as I passed my bedroom mirror. “I hadn’t intended to tell you all of that last night. I hope—”
“Hey, it’s okay. Is Mona going to pick you up this morning?”
My van was still impounded until at least this afternoon. Why Sheriff Earl insisted on such a thorough inspection, I still wasn’t sure. “Yes, Saturdays are usually my biggest days so I can’t close the store. And besides, I still haven’t finished the table decorations for Jenna’s wedding.”
“Speaking of flowers,” he said, “would you be interested in attending an event at the botanical garden in Austin this weekend?”
Was Todd asking me out? I gulped. “The Zilker Botanical Garden? I’ve been wanting to go but haven’t made it down there yet.”
“Is that a yes?”
I could hear the smile in his voice. “Um, sure. What time?”
“I have a couple of concert tickets for tomorrow night at the garden. A bluegrass band, I think.” He paused. “We could get dinner in Georgetown on the way down, if you’re up for that.”
I raised my eyebrows at my reflection in the mirror. Was I ready for this?
“Sure. Sounds fun.” What would I wear? I hadn’t been out on a date in years and now I had two dates in one—uh oh. What about Brandon?
“So I’ll pick you up around 4:30,” Todd was saying.
“I’ll be ready, thanks.” I would figure out the Brandon situation later. “But about why I called you…it’s not exactly light conversation. Do you have any time to run by C. Willikers today?
“What happened now, Callie?” His voice was sharp.
“Nothing new. I need to tell you what I planned to tell you last night before I had an emotional meltdown instead.”
He blew out a breath. “I thought for a minute there that we were going to have to hire you a full-time bodyguard. I’ll stop by after lunch. Try not to get into any trouble before then, please.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
What was happening between us? And why did I suddenly have the feeling that somehow Marleigh’s case was not as far in my past as I had hoped?
Chapter Ten
Mona honked to let me know she was in the driveway.
“Out in a sec,” I texted to her. I snapped the girls’ leashes on and headed out the door.
“Did you see Dot’s newest column?” Mona asked the minute I opened the car door.
I shook my head. “Between last night’s deal with my van and dealing with a sick pug this morning, I haven’t even picked the paper up off the driveway. Do I want to read it?”
She grinned at me. “Maybe.”
“What is that supposed to mean?
“Your auntie is a hoot, Callie. She’s got the whole town in an uproar over her advice to ‘Floundering in Flat.”
Great. Exactly what I needed. Uproar.
Flat was a little town down the highway from ours, and there never would be an end to the jokes about it. “What did she say?”
Mona started backing down my driveway. “Well, this poor dude wrote in and asked for advice about his mother-in-law’s obsession with—”
“Mona! Stop!”
Sherm was standing in his doorway, waving at me frantically. I flung the car door open and ran toward him.
“Callie! Call the sheriff!” He yelled. “He’s a-comin’ to git her!”
Who is coming for whom? Nicole?
I sprinted back toward the car for my phone, but Mona had beat me to it.
“They’re on their way!” she yelled.
I turned back to my neighbor’s house.
“Call Todd!” I shouted over my shoulder to Mona. “His number is in my phone.”
Sherm had disappeared back into his house. I yanked the screen door open. I don’t know what I thought I would find, but it wasn’t a wild-eyed Sherm clutching a tiny baby in his arms.
“Take this baby, Callie. Hurry! Hide her somewhere quick. He’s a-comin’ for Nicole, and he cain’t see the ba—”
Without thinking, I grabbed Sherm’s big roaster pan from the kitchen counter. I laid the little one inside and put the lid on. The child never even woke up. “I’m going to go out the back door, Sherm. Where’s Nicole? Doesn’t she want—”
“She’s—”
I slipped out the back door as Nicole entered the kitchen, looking like the cover model for Vogue magazine.
She gave Sherm a quick peck on his cheek. “I have to go, Gramps. I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t look sorry. In fact, she looked—radiant.
“Thanks for the veggies,” I said extra loud, in case whoever “he” was, was watching.
I am carrying an infant in a roaster pan across my yard. Jesus, help me.
Mona, out of her car by now, stood holding the pugs’ leashes and gaping at me. “Callie?”
“I need to take these into the house and we can go,” I said in a singsong kind of voice while trying to motio
n to Mona with my head. “Get my keys,” I hissed.
She unlocked my front door, and I edged past her to set the roaster down carefully on the kitchen table.
“Mona, you’re not going to believe this—”
Through my still-open front door, I watched Sheriff Earl’s patrol car slam to a halt in front of my house as a late-model BMW slid up to Sherm’s.
I pulled my front door closed behind me as I stepped out onto the porch, leaving Mona to discover the contents of the roaster.
“What is the problem now, ma’am?” Sheriff Earl strode up my walkway.
I ignored him, watching in stunned silence, the roaster lid still in my hands, as Nicole waltzed out of the house and down to the BMW, dragging her rolling suitcase behind her.
Beside me, Sheriff Earl turned to see what I was looking at.
Nicole was going back. Back to—that life. Back to—him. And she didn’t look sad about it. I couldn’t believe it.
The well-dressed driver stepped out of the car to hug her, threw her suitcase in the trunk, then waved merrily at the rest of us before slamming his door shut behind him.
“Sheriff! I’m so sorry we bothered you.” I gave him a big phony smile. “I—we—thought Sherm was having an emergency, but it turned out to be nothing.”
“That so.” He hooked his thumb in his belt and gave me a once-over before glancing at my neighbor’s house. “I think I’ll go ask Sherm ‘bout it.”
“Good idea,” I said heartily. “Mona and I were getting ready to head to my shop anyway.” I started backing away.
He grunted something under his breath and swaggered toward Sherm’s.
“By the way, can I pick up my van this afternoon?” I yelled to his back.
He turned. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll have it all ready for you.”
I should have been happy about that, but somehow, I felt like there was a double-meaning to his words. Or maybe I was being paranoid.
Or not. Because it wasn’t until I had explained the whole weird Sherm-baby-Nicole incident to Mona that I realized the significance of what I had noticed earlier.
“Sheriff Earl knew that guy.”
Mona glanced up at me from the newborn who was snuggled against her ample chest. “What?”
“I may not be the most observant person in the world, but I know body language when I see it.” I puckered my bottom lip with my fingers. How could things get any more complicated than they already were?
I let go of my lip. “You know that eye-contact-chin-jerk thing men do? The guy who picked up Nicole did that to Earl.”
“And so?”
“So, that guy was most likely Nicole’s pimp. Or…or owner. Or whatever they call them.” I was horrified anew. “And she looked like she was thrilled to be going with him. I thought that—”
Mona shook her head. “Remember what we heard last night? Those monsters have those girls under their control so much that the girls have some kind of sick loyalty to them.” She pulled the blanket back from the baby’s face. “But this precious little girl is not more than a few days old, Callie. What can Nicole be thinking?”
“And what about Sherm? Do you think he knows?”
If I were a betting woman, I would bet that Sherm still had no idea of the reality of his granddaughter’s situation. When Todd got here, I’d ask him to go with me to talk to him. But I was still bothered by the flash of recognition I had seen between the two men.
“Callie!” Todd pounded on my door.
I hurried to open it.
“Are you hurt?”
He grasped my shoulders, and I smelled the familiar cinnamon on his breath. “I’m fine, Todd.” I pushed my glasses up. “Everything’s under control.”
“I heard the call come in over the radio before Mona called me, and I got here as fast as I could, but I was way out near Cameron and—”
He spotted the baby in Mona’s arms. “What is going on?”
I shook my head. “This is what I was going to talk to you about later today.”
“A baby?”
“No, Nicole.”
He squinted at me.
“Nicole Grant. My neighbor Sherm’s granddaughter.”
The light came on in his gaze. “This is Nicole’s baby? Then why do you have her?”
I took a deep breath. “I think Nicole is being trafficked, Todd.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve seen some things over the last few months that made me kind of wonder, you know? Then when we went to the seminar last night, I think I realized what was going on with her.”
“Wow.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. And after what happened this morning—”
“So what did happen?”
“And so, we need to talk to Sherm.” I rubbed my hand over my forehead, wincing when my fingers made contact with my newest goose egg, the remnants of my meeting with Sister Erma’s back bumper. “Will you go with me?”
Todd paced around my kitchen. “You think Earl knew the pimp?”
“Yes. Or at least had a connection.”
“Sure enough to act on it?”
My pulse jumped. “As in…?”
“As in reporting—”
“Yoo-hoo!” Mona waved to claim our attention. “Y’all can hash that part out later. What are we going to do with this child?”
I grimaced. “Well, Sherm certainly can’t take care of an infant by himself. And I’m hesitant to get Child Protective Services involved until we know what we’re dealing with.”
We both looked at Todd.
He fingered the baby’s tiny hand, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “I’m sure someone from church will be willing to care for the baby for a couple of days if it comes to that,” he said. “I suppose we don’t know when or if Nicole is returning?”
I slumped into my chair. “I can’t believe she’d leave her child and willingly go back to—”
“It’s far more complicated than that, Callie. I’ve worked these cases before and they’re not—”
So he was a cop.
“Auntie told me you were in law enforcement.”
“Not now.” He shrugged.
“But once a cop, always a cop.”
The lift of his brows acknowledged the truth, but I could see that the topic was off limits.
Mona, as always, was far less astute. “Good grief, Todd. Why are you playing around being an EMT in Short Creek if you’re a police officer?
“It’s a long story, Mona. One that I don’t care to relive at this moment.” He turned to me, and I read the weariness on his face. “Let’s go talk to Sherm, Callie.”
Sherm wasn’t there.
“Maybe he’s in there but he can’t hear us knocking.” I stood on tiptoe to try to see through the tiny window at the top of the door. Nothing.
“Sherm?” Todd tried the knob. “Locked. How much do you want to bet that Earl took him to his office?”
I rolled my eyes. “Probably. But I don’t think he’ll get much information from him. You can’t make someone tell you something they don’t know.”
Todd blew out a sigh. “Look. You need to get to your store, and I’m going to go see what I can discover at the fire department. I’ll be back later, okay?”
I nodded. How had things become so complicated? Again? “I can’t believe—”
“Shh.” He touched my cheek briefly, then smoothed a strand of my hair behind my ear. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I hope it’s okay soon,” I murmured. “I’m sorry to be calling you to come to my rescue all the time.” I barely knew the man, and I had already taken up so much of his time in the last few days. “What a way to spend your day off, huh?”
“It’s fine. This whole thing has become way bigger than you.”
Indeed.
Moments later, I stood on Lonnie’s front porch and handed her the baby, while Mona brought up the rear with the formula, bottles, diapers, and wipes that she
and I had hastily grabbed at the dollar store in town.
“I hope Rick won’t mind you taking her for a few days,” I said, sidestepping the cat. “I don’t even know how long to tell you. A couple of days? Maybe a week?”
“Oh, Callie.” She hugged the little one to her, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “He won’t mind. We’ve been praying and praying—”
“You’ve been praying for a baby?” Mona’s eyebrows shot up.
Lonnie smiled. “Not in particular. We’re just…with Jenna getting married soon, we’re going to be empty-nesters; you know? And God’s blessed us abundantly. We feel we have a lot to give.” She smoothed a gentle hand over the baby’s head. “We’ve been asking the Lord to show us what’s next for us. To send us people to love on, you know?”
I’m sure my eyebrows matched Mona’s. “Well, He definitely answered your prayers. I hope we can help her mama come to her senses.”
“We?” Mona’s eyebrows had not yet come down to their normal position.
I shrugged. “Somehow I am involved in all of this. And it’s not as fun as it seems in the Nancy Drew books.” In fact, all I wanted to do right now was curl up in my sunny book nook at C. Willikers with a cup of tea, a pug, and a really thick book. Preferably not a mystery.
Lonnie laughed. “I guess God has decided that you need some excitement in your life.”
“Speaking of excitement…” Mona murmured in a low voice. “Don’t look now, Callie, but there’s a guy watching us from across the street.”
I groaned. This was getting ridiculous. “It’s probably the mailman or somebody.”
“If he is, I want him for my mailman,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
“What?” I made a face at her, then angled my body so I could see the man out of the corner of my eye. I was hoping he wasn’t the rock-throwing dude. I’d had enough head injuries for the time being, thank you very much.
I blew out my breath as the man smiled and waved at me. “That’s Brandon.”
Mona choked.
“Brandon Delacourte?” Lonnie squinted at him. “He’s sure changed from the last time I saw him, if that’s Brandon.”
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