Lay Down the Law

by Carsen Taite

  Skye’s voice got very quiet, and Lily reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “Your wife is a very lucky woman.” She sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I gave up too easily.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. After all these years, you’re not giving up on learning about your family.”

  “True.” Relieved to switch topics, Lily asked, “What can you tell me about the woman we’re going to see?”

  “Her name is Sister Agatha. She was assigned to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and she helped handle your adoption. She moved to another church shortly after.”

  “How did you find her?”

  “I come from a long line of Catholics, and one of my uncles is a priest. He helped me track her down. But I don’t want you to get your hopes up about this meeting.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sister Agatha is in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. According to my uncle, she has good days and bad, but mostly bad. There’s no way of knowing which until we get there.”

  Lily tried not to be disappointed that the first lead Skye had developed might be a black hole. She spent the rest of the drive thinking positive thoughts. She needed some good news.

  Finally, they arrived at the nursing home. The plain brown brick complex looked dated, and the inside wasn’t much better. Clean, but basic with very few amenities in sight. Certainly not how she would want to spend her twilight years, but she supposed if your mind was gone, what difference did your surroundings make?

  Skye checked in with the receptionist and picked up their visitor badges. An aide led them to the great room where Sister Agatha was waiting. Intent on the playing cards in front of her, she didn’t look up as they walked into the room. Lily stepped closer and saw that she was playing solitaire. “I don’t remember the last time I saw someone playing this game with an actual deck of cards.”

  Sister Agatha looked up and smiled. “They don’t let me have unfettered access to a computer. Guess they’re scared I’m going to do something crazy like post what they’re feeding us on Facebook.”

  Lily returned the sister’s smile. The nun’s face was wrought with wrinkles, and a milky film covered her eyes, but her positive thinking must have paid off because Sister Agatha seemed perfectly lucid. “May I sit down?”

  She waved an arm. “Free country.”

  Lily introduced Skye and they both sat across from the nun. Dressed in charcoal gray sweats and pale pink tennis shoes, she didn’t look much like a nun, but Lily didn’t care about how she appeared now. All she cared about was what she remembered from the past. She looked at Skye and waited for her to announce the reason for their visit.

  “Sister Agatha, we understand that you worked in the adoption program run by Our Lady of Guadalupe about thirty years ago.”

  Sister Agatha plucked an ace of spades from one of the piles of cards in front of her, set it off to the side, and then gazed up at the ceiling for several seconds before answering. “Indeed I did. I remember that. Lots of little babies needing good homes. Some cuter than others, but all deserving.”

  Lily said, “I know you probably worked with a bunch of children, but there’s one in particular we were hoping you’d remember.” She pulled out a copy of her birth certificate and set it on the table. “I was adopted as part of the program, and I’m trying to find out more about my birth family. Maybe this will refresh your memory.”

  Sister Agatha lifted the paper and held it close to her face, squinting as she skimmed the words. “Sophia Valencia. Sophia Valencia. Sophia Valencia.”

  Lily was startled to hear her birth mother’s name spoken out loud. Maybe she hadn’t been clear. She didn’t expect anyone involved with the adoption to know her mother. As far as she knew, her mother had died in the hospital and she’d been placed in the care of the church until the Gantrys adopted her. She started to say as much to Sister Agatha, but before she could speak, she saw the sister’s eyes slide shut and she started to hum.

  Lily looked at Skye and mouthed “help,” desperate to stop what appeared to be the decline of the sister’s mental state. Skye leaned forward and gently said, “It would have been a long time ago. It’s okay if you don’t remember. Maybe you could keep the birth certificate and see if it comes back to you later.”

  Lily watched Sister’s Agatha’s face for any sign that she’d heard Skye’s words, but her only response was continued humming as she began to rock back and forth in her chair. She shook her head in defeat and whispered to Skye, “We should go.”

  “We’ll come back. We’ll pick a different time of day, and I bet that will make a difference.”

  “Okay.” Lily couldn’t match Skye’s optimism, but they really had no choice since it was clear Sister Agatha had checked out of the conversation. She stood and started to walk away when she felt a piercing grip on her wrist.

  “Miss V.V. we called her. So sweet she was. Young.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And scared. So scared.” Sister Agatha delivered the words in a singsong voice. “She kept one V and changed the rest. I’ve got to hide. From all of them.” She started humming again. “Sing songs to my little one. I’ll never know her, but he will keep her safe. He’s her daddy.”

  Lily looked down at the aged and wrinkled fingers still clutching her wrist and worked to sort through Sister Agatha’s jumbled words. Who had to hide? Sister Agatha? Her mother? If it was her mother, her need to hide had disappeared when she died. What was she so scared of before that? Would knowing give Lily insight into her birth mother’s family?

  Sister Agatha released the grip on her wrist and dropped her hands onto the table. She stopped humming and started stacking cards again, apparently resuming her game. Lily took a chance on one last question. “Sister Agatha, how did you know my mother?”

  Sister Agatha placed the king of hearts in a blank spot, drew a set of cards, and placed them back on the deck before meeting Lily’s gaze. “Is it time for my lunch? Please make sure there’s no mustard. I do not like mustard. Thank you and good-bye.” She drew another set of cards and resumed focus on her game.

  A few minutes later, Lily and Skye were back in the car. “I’m sorry,” Skye said. “They told me that this is usually a good time of day for her.”

  Lily stared straight ahead, frustrated at the abrupt end to their visit, but desperate to process what she’d heard. “There’s something there. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

  “It’s possible that she’s confusing your adoption with someone else’s. It was a long time ago.”

  Lily knew Skye’s words made sense, but her gut told her Sister Agatha remembered her adoption very well, so well it had burned through her disintegrating memory to emerge in bits and pieces. It was up to her to put those bits and pieces together, but she needed Skye’s help. “Skye, I need you to get a copy of Sophia Valencia’s death certificate.”

  Before Skye could respond, her cell phone rang. She glanced at the display. “I should get this. It’s that source about the shooting.”

  She answered the call, and Lily watched while she listened to the voice on the other end, offering a few yeses and uh-huhs in response. By the time she hung up, Lily was coming out of her skin. “What is it?”

  “I still don’t know much,” Skye said with a frown.

  “But you know something. Skye, tell me.”

  “Names. I only have the names of who was at the scene, but I don’t know who was shot. A DEA agent, Dale Nelson, and your friend, Peyton Davis.”

  Lily felt the icy prick of fear travel down her spine. For a moment, it paralyzed her. But only for a moment. She picked up her phone and dialed, once again reaching Peyton’s voice mail. She hung up and redialed again. Same thing. While she was dialing the third time, she mustered all the calm she could find and said, “Skye, I’m going to need you to drop me off at the federal building.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Peyton tapped her watch. “I need to get back for the afternoon docket.” After she and the rest of the task force left
the hospital, Gellar had insisted she join him for lunch for what he said would be a strategy session. Instead, she’d listened to his war stories with increasing impatience for the last hour and a half. What she’d rather be doing was working on the case. Short of that, she needed a nap.

  Gellar paid the check and they walked back to the office. They were alone in the elevator when he took the opportunity to emphasize, again, how much he wanted Gantry to go down. “Cyrus Gantry acts like he owns this town, and I want him stopped. Do you understand?”

  Funny how he was in a take-charge mood now despite the fact she’d had to beg him for the resources to see this case through. “Yes, sir.” She injected what she hoped was the right amount of deference into her tone, but no matter what he ordered, she would only go where the evidence led. If something illegal was happening at that warehouse, everyone involved would go to prison, but in order to tie Cyrus Gantry to the crime, she’d have to have some pretty solid evidence.

  The elevator stopped on the third floor, and when the doors opened, Bianca was waiting in the hall, looking anxious. Peyton, standing just behind Gellar, shook her head. Whatever Bianca had to say, she wanted to hear it first, not here in front of her boss. She hoped Bianca could read her signal.

  “What is it, Cruz?” asked Gellar. “You have something to report?”

  Bianca looked at Peyton and cleared her throat. “Uh, not yet, sir, but we have some leads. I’ll make sure you get a briefing by the end of the day.”

  “See that you do.” He turned to Peyton and shook his finger. “Remember what I said. I’m counting on you.” He didn’t wait for a reply before he strode down the hall.

  Peyton waited until he was gone before turning to Bianca. “What is it?”

  “Lily Gantry. Ida called me up to the front desk. She’s here and she has a lot of questions. All I told her was that you weren’t here, but she refuses to leave. Insists she has to talk to you. Now.”

  Peyton held up a hand to stop her while she endeavored to wade through the rushed words. “Wait a minute. Lily’s here? Right now?”

  “Yes. I wanted to get to you first, so you could go in the back. We can get someone from the marshals service to escort her out.”

  Peyton had stopped listening, but she was on the move. She didn’t know if she was propelled by the thrill of seeing Lily or anxiety that she’d shown up here where some would view her as the enemy, but she didn’t take the time to sort through the complexities. A few seconds later, she stepped in the lobby and spotted Lily pacing the carpet. She started to speak, but Lily beat her to it.

  “Oh, my God, you’re okay,” Lily cried. “I was worried sick.”

  “Why?” Peyton asked, genuinely confused.

  “The shooting. I heard you were involved. I’ve been calling and calling, but you never picked up, and I understand you don’t want to talk to me, but I had to know you were okay. I even called the office, but no one would tell me anything.”

  Peyton pulled her phone out of her pocket. Damn. She’d turned it off when she was at the hospital and forgotten to turn it back on when she left. She switched it on and saw a long list of missed calls from Lily’s number. She held up the phone. “It was off. I’m sorry.”

  Lily shook her head. “No, I’m sorry for acting like a fool. Nothing about this day has turned out the way I planned, and when I couldn’t get hold of you, I had to make sure. Is Agent Nelson okay?” She stepped closer. “Are you?”

  Lily’s voice was silky soft, and Peyton wanted to pull her close, hold her tight, and tell her everything was okay. But then she remembered they weren’t alone. She glanced back at Bianca who stood in the doorway, transfixed. Ida, the receptionist, had closed the glass partition, but not completely, and Peyton was certain she’d heard every word. The only way she could head off dangerous gossip was to immediately usher Lily out, and explain her appearance to the others as unexpected and unwarranted.

  But she wanted to talk to Lily. How dangerous could it be to have just a couple of minutes alone? Would a few minutes really jeopardize her case? She was finding it hard to imagine Lily involved in her father’s illegal dealings.

  If you believed that, you wouldn’t have warned her to stay far away from Gantry Oil.

  So far, Peyton had sent mixed signals whenever it came to Lily. She’d broken off communications without explanation and then, when circumstances put them together again, she offered Lily vague warnings to steer clear of her family business. Yet, Lily had shown up here to make sure she was okay. She could have texted, or e-mailed, but she’d shown up in person, worried and anxious. Peyton owed her more than she’d given so far, no matter who was watching and listening.

  She stepped over to Ida’s window and tapped on the glass. “Ida, Ms. Gantry needs a visitor’s badge.” While Lily signed in, Peyton walked over to Bianca, who was still waiting near the doors and, in a low voice, said, “I’ll explain later. I promise.” She didn’t wait for an answer before she led Lily back to her office. Once there, she shut the door and invited Lily to sit.

  “I don’t feel like sitting. I’m too keyed up.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Well, this woman I’m fiercely attracted to blew me off, then showed up last night and bought me a drink. We had charming conversation and everything seemed to be going well until she got a call to go into work. As she was leaving, she gave me an ominous warning about my family.

  “This morning I woke up to the news that the woman I had drinks with may have been shot, and the investigator I hired to find my birth mother’s family has a lead. I paid the investigator to find out if the woman’s okay and then I rode out to Waxahachie to meet with a senile nun who told me a bunch of stuff about my mother that doesn’t make any sense. I only have a couple of weeks to find out what I can or risk losing my trust unless my attorney can work her magic, and what I thought was a simple task may be way more complicated than I thought.”

  Peyton grabbed Lily’s hand and drew her over to the sofa and motioned for her to sit. As she sat beside her, she was careful to make sure she was close, but not too close. “I only caught some of that. How about we take it a piece at a time?”

  Lily let out a breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to dump on you, but what you said last night about my father has weighed heavy on my mind. You can’t drop a bomb like that and walk away. I need to know what you meant.”

  “You’re right. I was wrong and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything at all, not unless I could tell you everything.”

  “So, you’re not going to tell me now?”

  Peyton started to waver, and she cast about for another topic, anything to delay her decision. “First tell me about this senile nun and your mother. And you hired an investigator to make sure I was okay?”

  Lily punched her in the arm. “Don’t act smug. I already had an investigator, but I did ask her to find out if you were the federal prosecutor involved in the shooting. When I heard there was a shooting it reminded me of one that happened last year. A prosecutor was gunned down in front of her own house.”

  “I know. That’s a large part of the reason I have this job.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Lily reached for her hand and held it tightly. “Peyton, really? What happened?”

  Peyton looked down at their clasped hands. Lily’s concern was genuine, but her touch extended beyond comfort. It was like fire. She should draw back before she crossed a line. Instead, she changed the subject. “Tell me about the nun.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. Something’s come up recently that spurred me to find out about my birth family. I hired Skye Keaton, the woman you met at lunch, to see what she could find out. The nun she located, Sister Agatha, helped with my adoption.

  “I’ve always believed that my mother died during childbirth. That the church took me in afterward, but some of the things she said today…I don’t know. I was supposed to get answers, but I wound up leaving with more questions.”

  �
��Maybe your mother knew she was going to die and contacted the church to make arrangements for you.”

  “Her death was sudden, unexpected. She didn’t have a chance to make any arrangements.”

  “And this nun says something different?” Peyton kept her tone soft as she asked, “Who told you the original story?”

  “It’s not a story. You make it sound like I was lied to.”

  “Lied is a strong word, but maybe there was a reason for glossing over what really happened.”

  “What are you trying to say? That my mother had already made arrangements to abandon me, she just didn’t live long enough to carry out her wishes? That my parents have lied to me my whole life about how I came into this world?”

  This was the perfect opportunity to bring up her investigation into Lily’s father and Gantry Oil, but Lily’s desperate plea for reassurance dissuaded Peyton from tackling the subject. Instead, she searched for safer ground. “I’m not saying any of that. I was only thinking that sometimes it’s hard to know what people’s motives are until you have all the facts.”

  “Spoken like a true lawyer. Is that how you approach your job? By getting all the facts first?”

  Now Peyton was the desperate one, seeking a way to steer the conversation away from anything that had to do with her job. She fished her memory and recalled Lily mentioning a trust, an attorney, and something spurring her to search for her birth family. She latched on to the latter. “What was the something that caused you to go looking for your birth mother?”

  Lily looked into her eyes, her gaze long and deep, before she answered. “I love my parents, but knowing I might have other relatives out there, that I know so little about my birth mother…well, I suppose it’s been building up for some time now. Sometimes I think my father is stringing me along with his promise of implementing my alternative energy plan just to keep me from digging into the past. I’m not a child, and I’m tired of being treated like one.”