by Kimberly Rae
“It’ll be fine. Like I said, they have few visitors.”
“It sounds like you know the place well.”
He found himself increasingly aware of her presence beside him in the car. She smelled like vanilla and he kept catching himself wondering if her lips would taste like sugar cookies. “I’ve come here every weekend since I moved back to Gainesville.” He turned to park in a space reserved for guests and shut the engine off. “She knows I’ll come spend every Saturday morning with her.”
“Who does?”
“When I was a kid, we had an old radio that only got two stations. One was rap. The other was Southern Gospel. You can guess which one stuck.”
She looked over at him. “Question evasion noted. Who is your favorite singing group?”
“The Mylon Hayes family.” Did she ask because she thought he was making things up to seem more approachable? “After the bombing in Iraq, I was hospitalized with a guy from North Carolina who got his leg blown off. He had all their CDs. When he got an infection and everyone said he wasn’t going to make it, he gave them to me.”
She winced. “Did he die?”
“He pulled through, but by then I’d been transferred to Emory in Atlanta. When I got better, I sent him a new set and kept these.” He ejected his CD and handed it over. “Their newest one, and my favorite, is hymns and classics, but it was in my car and is now at the bottom of a river. I need to order a replacement.”
She looked the CD over then slid it into the case he held. Their hands almost touched and he felt like a teenager on his first date. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly. He got out of the car and kept enough distance between them as they walked to avoid her vanilla smell. Into the building and through the security checkpoint, Meagan followed, looking bewildered. She submitted in silence as the guard hovered over her with his wand. “Clear,” the guard said, and ushered them into the large main room furnished with a warm but hodge-podge collection of chairs and couches, with a baby grand piano in the corner. At the piano, a young woman with straight dark hair and multiple earrings in her left ear played chopsticks until she glanced up and saw them enter. “Cole!” She jumped to her feet and rushed to him, but halted midway. “You’re hurt!” What began as a glad cry switched in an instant to one of despair. She pressed knuckled fists against her eyes. “You found him and he hurt you!” The girl dropped onto a couch and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them.
“No, nothing like that,” Cole said with quick steps closer. “It had nothing to do with him.”
She lowered her hands enough to peek at him. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
Her smile came back. She stood and Cole closed the distance between them. He picked her up and twirled her around once, as he always did, careful not to bump into Meagan.
By the time he set her down, Meagan had edged away from them both until her back touched a bookshelf built into the wall.
He knew he was smiling when he held out his hand and said, “Meagan, this is Sadie, my little sister.”
23
Saturday, January 3
8:30 a.m.
Lucias floated on top of the world. Today was the day. He would take the flowers to Meagan, then he would take the money to the drop-off and get paid. With the commission he made today, he’d be able to buy another bed for the trailer. A better bed, a bigger bed, for when Meagan came to live with him. He couldn’t decide if he should go ahead and buy one and surprise her, or wait until she was with him to help him choose just the right one.
“I’m here to pick up my order,” he announced to a woman in the flower shop who looked strung out on too much coffee. Her eyebrows begged for a set of tweezers and her hair was long overdue for whatever women did to color in the roots. He pulled out a business card and laid it on the counter. “Raymond Lester here,” he said, pulling the lapels of his plaid jacket together in front, enjoying the way the syllables of the name rolled through his lips. His first choice had been the name Norman, but after he watched Psycho several years ago, he decided he didn’t want a name associated with someone frightening like that. People might get the wrong idea. “I called in an order last night for the biggest and best flowers you have.”
“Yes, sir,” the woman said. Her smile was huge and her teeth didn’t seem to all fit inside her mouth. “I wasn’t sure if you was a prank call or not, but I made it up anyway, just in case.” She left the room and returned with a massive collection of flowers held together in a foot-high pink vase. “Is this what you was wantin’? Sure hope so. Took me all morning to put it together.”
He looked over the long stems and full blooms of lilies and roses and a bunch of other flowers he couldn’t name. “It’s perfect,” he said. Meagan would have to love him when she got these. How could she not? He would get to see her reaction in less than fifteen minutes. If she cried with joy, he would remove his grey wig and the makeup that disguised him as older. He’d show her his face and tell her that she was his heart’s desire.
He pulled his wallet from the inside pocket of the tweed jacket. “How much?”
“Well, you said you had a lot of money, and you wanted the best...”
He tapped his foot. “How much?”
She named a price. “That’s ridiculous!” he sputtered.
“Not for all them flowers!” she argued. She pulled the vase from his hands and turned to take it away.
“No, wait.” He put a hand on each side of the vase and tugged enough to keep her in the room. “I don’t have that much on me right now.” She hesitated and he pulled three twenty dollar bills from his wallet and laid them near the register. “You can have that now and I’ll pay the rest this afternoon. I’m getting more money today.”
The woman snorted and pulled the flowers away from him. “Fat chance,” she said. “I’m not stupid. You pay all or nothing.”
“But I won’t have the money until this afternoon!”
She mimicked his voice with a whine. “Then come back and get the flowers this afternoon!”
He snatched his money back and stuffed it into his wallet. “I’ll go get the money now. Don’t sell those flowers to anyone else. I’ll be back by ten.” He ignored whatever nonsense the woman mumbled at him and stormed out of the shop toward his car. His contact wouldn’t be at the drop-off until noon, but Raymond would find a way. Raymond was clever and sneaky. He wouldn’t make Lucias delay the most important moment of his life for something as stupid as money.
24
Saturday, January 3
10:00 a.m.
“Knock-knock.”
“Who’s there?”
Cole’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “Interrupting cow.”
“Interrupting cow wh—”
“Moooo!”
Meagan felt as if someone had thrown her into a snow globe and shaken it up. Cole’s younger sister doubled over with laughter on the couch next to her, while Cole ruffled her hair with his un-bandaged hand. Sadie Fleming leaned her waif-like body over to put her head on Cole’s shoulder. “Tell another one,” she begged.
He wrapped his big arm around her shoulders. She couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds, and curled up next to Cole she looked as small as a child. “I’ve already told you six,” he said with a laugh. “That’s all I know.”
“Then tell me a story.” Meagan watched the girl lift her big, dark eyes in an idolizing gaze at her brother. “The one you used to tell when we were little.”
“Okay, peanut,” Cole said. He pulled her close. “Once upon a time...”
Who was this man? Unable to fully believe Cole’s transformation to loving, caring big brother, despite how his sister clung to him or how tenderness filled his voice whenever he spoke to her, Meagan shifted toward the far edge of the couch in a small, subtle separation from the pair and observed her surroundings. The shelves were stocked full of books, their yellowed pages and worn bindings suggesting second-hand donations. Both the paintings on the walls and the
carpet had seen better days, but whoever had created this haven managed to make the environment positive and homey. Meagan would feel comfortable sending a teen trauma victim to such a place.
Cole had not explained much about Shady Grove, but all the girls who passed by or sat reading in the room were survivors of something terrible. Meagan had worked with enough trafficking victims to recognize the aura of deep pain, shielded but never completely hidden. She knew if she talked to the staff, she would find people with her same passion—to help victims not only survive but overcome. Curious, she rose and approached a woman dressed in baby blue scrubs. “Would you have a brochure or something with information about this place?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not.” The woman smiled as she made a notation on a laminated chore sheet on the wall behind her. “We are a small facility and can only take in a few girls at a time. We take boarders who are at high risk for continued exploitation, and only after extensive profiling. Most importantly, we only take girls who are willing to get clean, stay clean, and follow the rules while they are with us. It’s their choice to stay or not.” A bell hung by a handle on the wall next to the sheet. The woman lifted it off the hook and rang it. “Since Shady Grove opened, we’ve had so many applicants, we’ve never had to advertise. If you’d like to know more, you’re welcome to walk around and ask questions, but please don’t ask the girls about their past. Many of them have been deeply wounded and betrayed, and we try not to trigger those memories.”
At the sound of the bell, two girls put bookmarks in books and returned them to their shelves. Another two cleaned up the checkers game they had been playing. Cole checked his watch and said, “Ten-thirty. Time for your nap.”
The other girls left and the room emptied except for the three of them. “No,” Sadie said. She crossed her arms and poked out her bottom lip. “I don’t want to take a nap today. Not while you’re here.”
“You have to,” Cole said, his voice calm. He uncrossed her arms and pulled her to a standing position. “It’s the rules.”
“Will you be here when I get up?” Meagan feared the girl would burst into tears. She wondered how old Sadie was.
“I promise,” Cole said. “And I’ll make something special for you for lunch.”
Sadie’s eyes lit up. “Mac and cheese?”
He hugged her. “Of course. Now go on.”
The woman in scrubs re-appeared in the doorway and led Sadie from the room. The moment she was out of sight, a shadow seemed to fall over Cole’s face and Meagan saw the pain emerge. He had hidden it well all morning.
Meagan stuck a hand into her yellow bag and brought it out wrapped around a bottle of ibuprofen. “Want some?” she asked.
He glanced down as if he’d forgotten she was there. His gaze stayed on her face for several beats, then drifted to her outstretched hand. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”
She popped the top and dropped two pills into his hand. He took them down dry and almost smiled when her nose scrunched. “Learned to do that in the military. Pain is more readily available than water sometimes.”
“Which branch were you in?” She rose and walked with him from the main room through a smaller sitting room and into a kitchen designed for large-scale cooking.
“Marines.” He gestured around the empty room. “We have the place to ourselves for the next half hour.”
“Why did you leave the military?”
He looked back at her, studying, and she wondered if he could see through her eyes and tell she knew about his injury from the bombing. And about the woman spy. He surprised her with a sudden smile. “Tell you what, you answer five of my questions, and I’ll answer three of yours.”
She sat on a bar stool with a laugh. “I’m no math expert, but that doesn’t seem fair.”
“It isn’t,” he responded with a grin. He used his right hand, the one not bandaged, to pull a box of macaroni and cheese mix from the third cupboard to the left. Retrieving a pot from under the sink, he set it under the faucet, then reached around her for a serving spoon. “But life isn’t fair sometimes. Take it or leave it.”
“You seem to know your way around this kitchen.”
He filled the pot halfway with water and dumped the macaroni in. “I should. I make mac and cheese every Saturday for Sadie.”
“So you’re a nice brother but not much of a cook.”
He put the pan on the stove and set the burner. His smile did not hide the sadness around his eyes. “She was just a kid when our mom left. I was a young teen, but I got a side job sweeping in the back room of a grocery store. The owner paid me off the record to avoid child labor laws. We lived on Ramen noodles most nights, but on Saturday I’d splurge and get a box of mac and cheese, and we’d celebrate like it was a gourmet meal. It’s still her favorite food.” He turned and leaned a hip against the counter as he faced her. “Her short term memories are affected by the years of drug use, so she doesn’t always remember that I come every week. On the bright side of that, it’s special for her every time I come and every time I make this.”
Meagan blinked away tears and swallowed hard. “Where was your father?”
Cole’s face hardened. “Gone most of the time. Making money. Drinking it away. We were better off when he wasn’t around than when he was.”
She could tell more was being left unsaid than said, but didn’t pry further. The macaroni began to boil. She sat up straighter on the stool and tried to lighten the atmosphere. “So you said you had five questions for me? Or were you just throwing out a number?”
He looked relieved at the change of subject. Turning to stir the boiling noodles, his own voice lost some of its heaviness as he said, “I’ll start with five, but often answers to questions lead to more questions.”
She joined him at the stove. “Well, you only get five in our deal.”
He breathed in deep, like he smelled something nice, and she felt her heart engage when he smiled at her. “I’ll take it for now. Question one: who was the white-haired lady in the blue van that came to your house the day I drove by?”
“Oh.” He wanted to ask investigative questions. She told herself to ignore the disappointment that it wasn’t something more personal, and moved to the refrigerator to look for a carton of milk. “We call her the bath lady. She comes twice a week to give Pops a bed bath now that he can’t get around much and his skin is so susceptible to damage.” Meagan set the milk on the counter next to the stove and went back for the butter. “So you won’t have to waste another of your questions,” she said with a glance his way, “she’s not the white-haired lady in the muumuu on the plane, and we aren’t in cahoots or anything. She’s a nurse practitioner and I can give you her name and info. She’d have a solid alibi for the entire time I was in India.”
He stirred the noodles with an absent nod. “That’s good to hear. Question two: did your grandmother really die four months ago?”
Meagan set the butter on the counter, her eyes down. “Yes. Of cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
She kept her face averted. “I miss her,” she whispered.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him set the spoon aside and move toward her, an arm out in the same motion he had used earlier before he hugged his sister. She held her breath, wanting to be held and comforted, but afraid to want either from him. He stopped before touching her, returned to his place in front of the stove, and she let the breath out.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “That must have been hard.”
She nodded and pulled a measuring cup from where it hung from a hook on the wall. With a spoon from a nearby drawer, she measured out a fourth cup of butter. “Did you know your grandmother?”
He shook his head. “No. Not my grandfather either, or any relatives. My dad and mom were both runaways when they met. I wish we had. It would be good for Sadie to have someone besides me.”
Meagan thought of what she had seen over the course of the morning, thought of her own childhood wish for a
strong big brother. “She has a lot, having you,” she said.
His hand stilled over the pot and his eyes met hers. Today they were less green and more hazel, muted by his dark sweater. “Thank you.”
The air was charged with too much emotion. Meagan turned away and hunted for a mixing bowl. “So what’s question number three?”
“Why did you cut your hair and change the color right after you got back?”
She set the bowl on the counter with a little too much force. “Why do you want to know that?”
He went back to stirring.
“The noodles don’t have to be stirred the whole time,” she pointed out.
“I know,” he said. “Usually I bring a book to read while Sadie naps.” He continued to move the spoon in a circular motion, saying, “It looks suspicious. You go to India with beautiful long, dark hair, and when you get back chop it off and dye it a different color. Like you’re trying to look like a different person. Like you have something to hide.”
“Oh brother.” She slapped spoonfuls of butter into the bowl. “You’ve never been a woman in Asia, have you?”
“Uh, no, on both counts.” His grin came back. “I’ve never been a woman or been to Asia.”
She fought a smile. “Well, if you had, you’d learn fast that in the part of India where we work, lighter skin and lighter hair are considered more beautiful.” She touched her bangs, brushed aside now that she didn’t need to hide the bruise any longer. “My natural hair shade is blonde and my natural skin color is pasty white. I went out the first time looking like that and I had men following me down the street, offering to marry me.”
He chuckled and she scowled at him. “It was embarrassing, and it didn’t help that I’m taller than just about everybody in the whole country. My presence causing such a stir created problems with the work we were trying to do with the women in the brothels. So before I left I vowed I was never coming back unless my hair was dark and I had a tan.”