But a younger version of the uncommunicative girl Courtney met with every month?
A chill skittered through her, a physical sensation that made her breath catch hard. Grabbing the photo she’d taken herself, she placed them side by side, swung her gaze between them, made sense of the truth before her eyes.
There was something about the way the features came together that warned not even eight years could transform this child into the young woman who visibly reined in inconvenience each time they met.
Glancing up, Courtney saw her disbelief reflected in Giselle’s expression. “Are you sure? This can’t be possible.”
“Apparently Araceli’s file wound up on a compliance officer’s desk. Turns out he used to be in the classroom before he went into staffing. He looked at the Araceli in the file and questioned whether she was his third-grade student. The classroom photo was his, but he still wasn’t sure. He contacted the photography company on the off chance they had records since they’re not based locally. You’re looking at what he found.”
A rare piece of evidence left after the hurricane. Courtney stared at the proof again and latched on to the first thing she could in the midst of her racing thoughts. The most irrelevant. The least horrifying.
“Why was a compliance officer reviewing Araceli’s file? I should have been included.”
“No meetings were scheduled because of this situation. Araceli, or the girl we thought was her, got into a fight with a weapon during summer classes.”
The zero-tolerance policy changed the rules when a weapon was involved. “What weapon?”
Giselle scowled. “A chair. But given the way she used it... She has to be moved.”
“Okay.” Courtney rubbed her temples, willed her brain to reason. “Then where is Araceli, and who is this girl?”
“If we knew, we wouldn’t have a problem.”
That stopped Courtney cold. A powerful wave of vertigo rolled through her.
Two girls. One name.
A missing child.
Her heart pounded so hard each beat throbbed as reality narrowed down to the terrifying implications.
A missing child.
Details didn’t matter. The situation simply didn’t get any worse. Letting her eyes flutter shut, she blocked out Giselle’s expression, the hard-won professionalism that wasn’t concealing her panic.
Inhaling deeply, Courtney willed herself to think, to ask the questions that were critically important now that a child was missing.
“Has anyone spoken to the Pereas yet?” She forced the words past the tightness in her chest. “What about this girl?”
“The FBI will conduct the investigation.”
“Not the police?”
“We have nothing on Araceli but what’s in this file,” Giselle explained. “She crossed state lines during the hurricane evacuations. The investigation is out of police jurisdiction.”
The hurricane.
Another euphemism. There had been hurricanes before and since, but Katrina was the hurricane. Giselle didn’t have to say another word because again, her expression reflected the helplessness and horror of an event that had been far beyond the control of the people involved, an event that had challenged everything from their comfy worldview to standard business practice for this department.
All hard-copy documentation had been lost in the flooding. Out of the five thousand plus kids in foster care at the time, two thousand had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, then many shuffled again a month later because of Hurricane Rita.
Kids had wound up spread over nineteen states in that mess, and social workers such as Courtney, Giselle and Nanette had tracked them all down again. The aftershocks were still being felt to this day, along with memories of the litany of priorities that had dictated their lives as they functioned from evacuation shelters because offices and homes had been flooded, cell towers had been down, and the city had been under martial law.
First, we keep you alive....
Then we get you safe....
Then we work on your health and medications....
Then we figure out where you belong....
Recalling that long road back to a functioning system brought another realization, one that hit with familiar category-five velocity.
The hurricane had been eight years ago.
“Tell me we have some other documentation, Giselle,” she demanded. “Tell me we’re not operating on what Nanette pieced together after the hurricane.”
Giselle spread her hands in entreaty, motioned to the desk. She didn’t have to say another word because they were both thinking the same thing.
The only person who might shed some light on this situation had died on the side of the road, surrounded by strangers on a drizzly February morning.
“Her work was stellar.” Giselle assumed the crappy responsibility of verbalizing the doubt that would be cast on someone not able to defend herself. “I won’t believe this situation is a result of negligence. That goes against everything I know about her.”
“You’re right. Absolutely right.”
“The FBI will want conclusive proof, but we don’t have any. Nanette looks culpable. This department looks culpable.”
Which circled right back around to the we.
Giselle was responsible for this department and everything that took place within. Courtney was responsible for this case and everything that had taken place since Nanette.
A child was missing.
The only answer that mattered, the one that left her doing exactly what she’d been told not to do—panicking—was the very one she had no answer for.
What were their chances of finding Araceli alive?
“We had no way of tracking Araceli after the hurricane.” Giselle riffled through documents one by one. “We can’t prove Araceli’s the child on one document in this folder. We can’t prove we placed the real Araceli with the Perea family. We can’t prove she’s the Araceli in this Red Cross database.”
Her voice escalated. “We can’t prove she evacuated to the Superdome with her foster family, then got separated on the buses in Houston. We can’t prove she went to Atlanta after being evacuated during Hurricane Rita. We can’t prove she was the child we got an emergency injunction to remain out of state until the Pereas moved out of the FEMA trailer and back into their home. We have no idea who we’ve been shuffling around because the last known photo of Araceli is from third grade.”
The papers were now all over Courtney’s desk. Papers that proved nothing conclusively—except that Araceli Ruiz-Ortiz had gotten lost somewhere over the course of the past eight years.
Courtney walked to the window that provided no escape. She saw nothing but eight years stretching out like a lifetime, and all the horrifying things that could happen to a girl alone. The passage of time was marked only by the silence echoing as she mentally replayed every horror story she’d ever heard.
The young girl in Florida who’d been adopted by her longtime foster family and was tortured and starved to death instead of living happily ever after.
The twins who were kept in cages in the basement under the care of foster parents who’d been taking kids into their home for four decades.
The nearly three hundred kids who’d been placed with a sexual predator over the sixteen years it took social workers to figure out that many of these kids were being molested.
Negligence. Incompetence. Heartlessness.
Horror stories.
Most social workers weren’t the careless or inept monsters showcased in the media. The majority were the ones the general public never heard about. Social workers who maneuvered deftly through the obstacle course among laws and legalities and court decisions for kids they were responsible for protecting.
Most social workers cared more for needy kids than th
ey did their own paychecks, because no one got compensated for all the work. Most didn’t mind the long hours, and usually found a way to squeeze in just one more kid when they were already burdened by a staggering caseload.
Given the crushing demands of the job, it wasn’t hard to see how mistakes could happen even to the most caring and competent social workers. They managed needy kids’ lives the way an air traffic controller oversaw airspace: the consequences of one oversight, one distraction, one error could result in the loss of human life.
The life of a child.
Courtney’s thoughts slowed enough to finally see the street through the window. DCFS offices were located in a utilitarian building on Iberville Street north of all the French Quarter action. From her second-floor window, she overlooked the stone wall of the cemetery, discolored and stained like the mausoleums within, many overgrown with weeds protruding from odd places.
Interstate 10 ran the length of the cemetery and all the way to Florida. The green directional signs were the only splash of color in a scene that had never looked so bleak, washed in gray skies that promised rain. Somehow it fit that she couldn’t look at the interstate without thinking of Nanette.
“What happens now?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “How do we find Araceli?”
Giselle could only spread her hands in entreaty. She had no clue, because how on earth did one go about tracking down a child who had potentially been missing for eight years?
How could they even hope to find her alive?
* * *
“DAMON’S COMING TO get me, right?” Marc DiLeo forced out the question through gritted teeth.
After all these months, he should have been used to asking. He wasn’t. He resented the hell out of it.
Especially something as simple as a ride when he owned a Jeep and a Harley.
His older brother, Nic, glanced away from the road as they were driving down Canal Street in Nic’s police cruiser. At least no one could see them through the heavily tinted glass.
Did anyone even care that he was being chauffeured to his therapy session because he couldn’t drive himself?
No. It only felt that way.
“Damon’s teaching a class,” Nic said. “Anthony will pick you up, and if he can’t get away, he’ll send one of the guys.”
Great. Now Marc’s ability to burden everyone reached beyond family into the periphery, to the guys who worked in his younger brother Anthony’s automotive garage.
This was his mother’s fault. She’d bullied him into leaving Colorado Springs for rehab. Not that Marc had put up much of a fight. He’d been in a medically induced coma when many of the decisions about his care had been made. After the haze of anesthesia and painkillers from four surgeries had worn off, all the decisions had been made.
That had been the time to reassert control over his life. Only he hadn’t had any fight in him.
So his mother had seized the opportunity to bring him home to New Orleans. And everyone paid the price because she was the only one of the bunch who didn’t drive.
“Tell Anthony not to bother,” Marc said. “I’ll take a cab.”
“Don’t start with me. Everyone wants to help.”
Help? This family would kill him with their help, which was why he had moved to Colorado Springs in the first place. “I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass an older brother could be. Good thing you’re the only one I have. If I changed my name, I’ll bet none of you could find me.”
Nic gave a disgusted snort. But he glanced at the road. He scowled harder when some idiot in a showy Bimmer sliced out of one lane and cut into the other, forcing the Yukon in front of him to brake, and by default him.
“You know, you’re a cop,” Marc said. “You could pull that guy over and give him a ticket.”
“You know, you’re a jerk. You could try saying thanks for everyone’s help and leave it there. No one has a problem getting you to and from your sessions.”
“Wrong.” Marc had a big problem.
Nic braked hard, and Marc instinctively grabbed the oh-shit handle to hang on as the cruiser swung toward the curb so fast the tires screeched. Marc’s cane hit the door with a clatter. The cop lights flashed with an accompanying whoop of a siren, scaring the hell out of some pedestrians who broke formation on the sidewalk and scattered.
Nic didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “Have all those painkillers rotted your brain? Do I need to throw your sorry ass in detox?”
Sorry ass was right. Marc couldn’t rebut that fact, but he wasn’t listening to Nic rant, either. Guess this was his stop. He reached for his cane and the door handle. The handle moved, but the passenger door didn’t open. Nic controlled the locks.
“Isn’t there some law against double-parking?” Marc said. “You’re a cop. You should set an example by observing the law.”
“I’m not a cop,” Nic growled. “I’m the chief of police, which means I get to do whatever the hell I want. And right now I want you to listen to me.”
Great. Marc’s day was crashing and burning and he hadn’t even gotten to physical therapy yet. Okay, to be fair he had practically begged for this confrontation. Nic’s patience had been simmering for weeks. He was the oldest brother, and used to stepping in to clean up everyone’s mess in this family. He’d been doing the job since their father had died, leaving their mother with a bunch of little kids who had needed caring for. The years since hadn’t done much except shorten Nic’s fuse.
Marc was usually exempt from the bullying because he was next in line to the throne, the only one who had been old enough to work and make a difference, which took some of the responsibility off Nic’s shoulders.
Not today. Today, Marc had pushed too far.
“I want to know what the hell is wrong with you,” Nic demanded. “I want to know why you’re such a miserable pain in the ass to everyone who is going out of their way to help you.”
“That answer should be obvious.” It was stretched out awkwardly before him, braced at the knee and ankle for support. His busted and surgically pieced together right leg that impeded him from doing just about everything from walking to sleeping because of the never-ending pain.
“That’s your leg, Marc. I’m talking about your shitty attitude.”
Marc didn’t bother replying. The shitty attitude and the answer would be the same. One minute he had been chasing a skip toward the Mexican border over rough terrain. The next he was ejected from his Jeep at ninety miles an hour.
At least the skip hadn’t bolted. The border patrols had had to cut him out of an SUV.
Now, four months later, the skip sat in jail awaiting trial, and Marc was an out-of-work bounty hunter who could barely stand to take a piss let alone drive, living with his mother in this city he’d put behind him long ago.
“You’re not usually so dense,” Marc said. “I didn’t realize becoming a father dulled the edges.”
Nic clutched the steering wheel, knuckles white, visibly restraining himself. Probably wanted to throw a punch. When all else failed, restrain the idiot pissing him off. Made him a helluva cop. Probably would have thrown a punch, too, if all his high-tech computer cop gear hadn’t blocked a decent shot.
“All right, Marc, you listen to me. And you listen good because I will not repeat myself. This is your one and only warning. Next time I will knock you down and keep you there while everyone you’ve been rude to takes a swing. You hear me?”
He expected an answer?
Nic exhaled hard, frustration radiating like heat off asphalt. “I get that it’s taking you a long time to heal. I get that your leg hurts and the therapy is only making the pain worse. But you’re alive, and you have a lot of people who care about you, even though you’re pushing everyone away. The next time you want to open your mouth, just remember that if anything more than a thank
-you comes out, my fist will be going in.
“You’ve got Mom worried sick. No one will drop by the house because you’re so miserable to be around. You’ve even managed to piss off my daughter, who’s in love with everyone and everything in this family. Really, man, you’re making a hell of an impression on your niece. That make you proud?”
Pride would imply Marc cared. And Nic’s daughter, Violet, was an impressionable teenager who needed a good dose of reality. She’d lived most of her life without knowing her father or this crazy family. She might have been better off living the rest of her life without knowing them.
“Do you hear me, Marc? I’m not playing. Knock it off with your pity party before you alienate everyone and wind up alone with your busted leg.”
“What makes you think that’s not what I want?”
A valid question. But Marc miscalculated the protection of the cruiser’s computer gear because the next thing he knew, Nic’s fingers were tightening around his collar until he swallowed hard against the pressure.
Damned painkillers were slowing his reactions.
“Get. Over. It.” Nic spit out each word, the veins bulging in his temples.
Marc wouldn’t give his brother the satisfaction of a reaction. He would sit here and asphyxiate. No sweat. A corpse in the front seat of the police chief’s cruiser. Nic was the only one with a problem here.
He knew it, too. His gaze narrowed as he reined in his anger, emphasizing the point with another twist that nearly crushed Marc’s windpipe.
Finally, Nic eased his grip. “You get what I want?”
Under normal circumstance, Marc wouldn’t have taken this crap. But circumstances weren’t normal. He couldn’t throw off his brother. Couldn’t even argue because Nic was right. Marc was a miserable asshole. He knew it.
The drugs were making his brain rot because he didn’t care.
“Unlock this door before I put my fist through the window and you get blood all over your front seat.” He forced the words out through his raw throat.
He wasn’t playing, either. What was one more injury when he was a damned cripple already?
Love In Plain Sight Page 2