by Metsy Hingle
Twenty minutes later when she’d put the last of the pastries away, Claire retrieved her purse and umbrella, turned out the lights and exited the shop. There was a chill in the air not at all common for late October in New Orleans, Claire thought as she locked the door. Evidently everyone else had taken the mayor at his word and shut down early because the street was eerily silent. The sky that had been gray an hour ago was now black with a driving rain. The wind whistled down the empty street and sent the banner announcing the special on shirts at the dry cleaners across the street sailing into the next block.
Wishing she hadn’t bothered with the cheesecakes, Claire opened her umbrella and stepped from beneath the protection of her shop’s overhang. The rain fired down on her, hitting her umbrella like missiles. Not that the thing was keeping her all that dry, Claire conceded. Thanks to the wind, the icy rain slapped at her legs and feet. Her shoes were soaked before she’d made it ten feet. Bracing herself, Claire used the umbrella like a shield as she turned into the wind and started down the side street to the parking lot.
When she reached the corner, Claire squealed as the wind ripped the umbrella right out of her hand. Shaken, her heart nearly jumped in her throat when she thought she saw movement at the building’s corner. “Who’s there?” she yelled, and earned herself a mouthful of water.
Whirling around, she ran, no longer caring about avoiding puddles or worrying about the damage the water was doing to her shoes. Her fingers were wet and slick, her pulse frantic when she aimed the electronic key at the truck. The locks snicked open, and Claire scrambled inside, then hit the button, locking herself in. With trembling fingers, she started the engine. When the truck roared to life, she rested her head against the steering wheel and waited for the shaking to stop.
Finally she lifted her head. She was jumping at shadows, Claire told herself, and it had to stop. No one was following her. She’d let talk of the hurricane and the nasty weather spook her. That was all. After several deep breaths, she fastened her seat belt, turned on the headlights and set the windshield wipers on maximum speed. Then she drove out of the parking lot and headed for home.
As she drove, her nerves began to settle. Turning on the radio, she tuned in to a news channel. She listened as a politician tried to explain how the city’s proximity to the Mississippi River, coupled with its below-sea-level position, was the cause of the street flooding that proved to be a problem more often than not during heavy rains. “Of course, it has nothing to do with the city’s lousy drainage system, does it?” she muttered as she negotiated the turn of a street on which the curb was no longer visible due to the rising water.
But maneuvering her Ford Bronco through the rapidly flooding streets helped to calm her, Claire admitted. She winced each time she came upon a stalled vehicle with its hood up and water lapping at the doors. It made her all the more grateful that she had the truck, with its big tires that caused the body and engine to sit higher.
She noted the snarl of traffic lights on the city’s interstate system coming from the central business district and couldn’t help but feel sorry for Matt. The poor darling would most likely be tangled in that mess coming back from the French Quarter. Punching the button on the radio to another station, she caught the end of the newest release by Shania Twain and then listened to the update on the weather while she continued down the water-logged streets at a snail’s pace so as not to flood her engine.
It took her nearly an hour to make the normally twenty-minute drive home. And by the time she pulled her car into the garage and cut off the engine, she was too tired, too cold from her wet clothes and too hungry to be unglued about the weather. After exiting the truck, she entered the security code and let herself into the house.
Claire began flipping on the lights as she walked through the house. Grabbing an apple from the kitchen for herself, she opened a can of cat food and filled the dish Matt had purchased to feed the stray kitten and headed for the patio. She opened the door and peered out into the rain. Poor little thing must be drenched, she thought, as she searched for the kitten that was already beginning to display his macho tomcat tendencies.
“Here, Rocky,” she called, using the name Matt had adopted after the scrawny black tomcat had decided to take on the poodle next door. She could just make out a pair of yellow eyes staring at her from beneath the bench on the deck. “Come on, boy. It’s dinnertime,” she said and made little snicking noises. He didn’t budge. So she set the dish down. “All right. I’m going to leave the door open for you. Come in when you’re ready. Matt should be home soon.”
Returning to the kitchen, she glanced at the security panel and paused. She couldn’t very well reset the alarm with the patio door ajar. She’d either have to leave Rocky out in that downpour or wait until he came in and then reset it. No way did she want the little cat stuck out in this weather. Opting to wait, she picked up her apple and headed upstairs to run a hot bath.
While the tub filled, she stripped off her wet clothes and popped a CD into the disc player. Turning the volume high to drown out the sounds of the storm, she slipped into the warm, bubbling water. Maybe if she was lucky, Matt would come home and join her, she mused. Soaping her leg, her thoughts drifted back to their conversation that morning about babies. If Matt’s baby wasn’t already growing inside of her, she thought, she definitely wanted it to be.
Thirty minutes later, when her stomach grumbled for a third time, reminding her that an apple wasn’t nearly enough to compensate for no lunch or dinner, Claire decided a rendezvous in the tub with Matt would have to wait for another time. After drying off and throwing on a pair of jeans and a sweater, she headed downstairs in search of food.
She’d just settled for a peanut butter and banana sandwich and was about to take a bite when the telephone rang. “Hello.”
“For God’s sakes, Red, where have you been?”
“Matt?” She tossed down the sandwich, her appetite vanishing at the stress in his voice. “What is it? What’s wrong? Have you been in an accident?”
“No,” he spat out the word. She heard him whoosh out a breath. “I’m fine.”
“Then what—”
“Baby, I’ve been trying to reach you for nearly an hour. You weren’t at the shop and you didn’t answer your cell phone or at home. I thought something happened to you.”
“Oh, Matt, I’m sorry,” she said as she walked over to the answering machine, saw the flashing light indicating she had messages. “I forgot to turn the cell phone on and I was in the tub with the CD player on kind of loud. I guess I didn’t hear the phone ringing.”
“But you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. Where are you?”
“I got stuck behind a six-car pileup on the other side of Canal Street. I’m on my way home now. Have you been listening to the news?”
Claire gnawed on her lip. “Not since I got home.”
He sighed. “Red, the hurricane still hasn’t changed course. It looks like it’s going to hit New Orleans. I don’t want to take any chances. We’re going to evacuate. Pack a bag for each of us, whatever you think we’ll need for a couple of days. I should be there in about thirty minutes. I swapped vehicles with Dan and have his SUV. We’re going to my mother’s to pick up her and the boys, then we’ll head north of the city away from the river and the lake.”
“All right,” she said more than a little nervous. “What about Maggie and Dan and little Daniela?”
“They’re safer in the hospital where they are.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I’ll start packing.”
“And, Red?”
“Yes?”
“Turn on your cell phone and have a flashlight handy. The wind’s picking up out here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the power goes out before I get there.”
“Okay. Matt, be careful.” She paused. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. I’ll be home soon. Now go pack.”
Claire raced upstairs, pulled two su
itcases out of the closet and began to pack. She piled jeans, shirts, sweaters, shoes and underwear into the suitcases for Matt and for herself. She added Matt’s shaving kit to his bag of clothes and dumped her makeup bag and hair dryer in her own. Spying the jewelry box on the dresser, she transferred its contents into the jewelry travel pouch and dropped it into her suitcase. After snapping the locks shut, she headed downstairs with a suitcase in each hand, a sense of urgency that she didn’t understand driving her, telling her to hurry.
“We have to hurry. Pack your bag quickly.”
“What can I take, Mommy?” the little girl asked.
“Only what you treasure the most. You’ll have to leave the rest.”
Claire stumbled, dropped one of the suitcases at the bottom of the stairs as the voices echoed in her head. Cold only a few minutes ago, her palms began to sweat. “Snap out of it,” she ordered herself. She had to stop jumping at shadows. Matt was depending on her. Setting down the other suitcase, she started for the kitchen to get her purse when she noticed the framed photograph of her and Matt on the table in the foyer. She picked it up, traced the smiling images posed on a sailboat.
Treasures! These were treasures that couldn’t be replaced, she realized. Treasures from her and Matt’s past. She couldn’t leave them behind. Racing back up the stairs, she grabbed the tote bag she’d spied in the closet and shoved some of the pictures scattered around the bedroom inside it. Then she headed downstairs again and began the process of picking and choosing what to take. She decided on a wedding photo of her and Matt, one of his parents all decked out in evening gown and tux, another of little Nick and Alex. She added the framed drawing inscribed “To Aunt Claire from Nick” and then she headed for Matt’s study.
In there she found several more treasures and added them to her cache. Conscious that she didn’t have much time left before Matt arrived, she scanned the room and saw the framed picture sitting on Matt’s desk. It was of the two of them holding hands as they strolled along a beach at sunset. Leaning across the desk, she snatched it up and turned quickly to leave. As she moved, her belt snagged the knob of the desk’s drawer, and the drawer followed in her wake. It crashed to the floor, its contents dumping onto the carpet.
Claire whipped back around. “Darn it,” she muttered, and stooped down to scoop up the mess. She stuffed pens, paperclips and business cards into the drawer. Then she made an attempt to begin straightening the file folders that had scattered. Reaching to retrieve a large manila envelope that had fallen by the leg of the desk’s chair, Claire snatched it up—and stopped cold at the name of the private investigation firm on the return address. Her heart beat frantically in her chest as she held the envelope in her hand for long seconds.
The shadows at the edges of her mind swirled again, and with trembling fingers she opened the envelope and removed the contents. As she stared at the cover letter bearing a case file number and her name, the mist finally parted. “Oh, God, no!”
She didn’t have to read the cover letter referencing Matt’s request and retainer for the detective agency to do a search to determine the identity of her mother. She didn’t have to read the private investigator’s report where he had narrowed the list of possibilities down to three women who were killed in the hurricane that hit the city two days before she was found in the old church. She didn’t have to read any of it because she remembered. She remembered everything.
Sinking back on her heels, the blood roared in Claire’s ears. On some level she knew that the world hadn’t stopped, that a hurricane was still bearing down on the city. She could hear the slap of tree branches against the house, the lash of wind and rain outside the windows, the insistent ringing of a telephone somewhere in the house. She even thought she heard glass breaking somewhere.
But Claire didn’t seem to be able to move. She could barely breathe as the painful memories came rushing back.
“How could you do this to me, Matt? How could you go digging into my past, start searching for my mother without telling me?”
“I did it for you, Red,” Matt insisted. “You’ve always been so troubled about not knowing who you were, where you came from. I thought if I could find out about your family for you, give you your history, your heritage, it would make you happy. It would put your fears to rest.”
Claire laughed, but the sound held no humor. How could he possibly hope to make her happy, to put her fears to rest, by digging up a past that she didn’t want to remember? “You didn’t do this for me, Matt. You did it for yourself because you can’t accept the fact that you made a mistake when you made a little nobody your wife.”
“That’s not true. You can’t believe that!”
“I can believe it, and I do. Well, I’m going to make it easy on both of us, Matt. I’ll save you the trouble of telling me you made a mistake and want out of this marriage by being the one to leave.”
He grabbed her by the arm, his eyes blazing with temper and hurt. “I’m not letting you go.”
Claire looked at the hand wrapped around her arm. “You can’t force me to stay.”
“I love you, Red. And I know you love me.” He pulled her close and kissed her hard, deep, endlessly.
With a strength and skill she didn’t know she possessed, she forced herself not to respond, when what she wanted to do was fall into his arms and beg him not to let her go. When he finally lifted his head, she made her voice as cool as a February wind, “If you’re finished, I’m going to go pack.”
He flinched as though she’d slapped him. And blocking out his protests and pleas for her not to leave, for her to at least talk to him about this, she packed her bags and walked away from him and out of his life.
At the feel of wet fur brushing her leg, Claire opened her eyes and saw Rocky. His black fur was all spiky and glistening from the rain as he stared up at her with serious gold eyes. Sobbing, Claire clutched the wet cat to her and began to cry.
She’d been deliberately cruel to Matt that night to make him hate her, because she’d been too ashamed to have him learn the truth. While the child she’d been hadn’t understood and had remembered little of her mother, the adult she had become knew from those few memories that her mother had been a prostitute…a prostitute who had abandoned her child and had never come back for her as she’d promised.
How could she possibly agree to start a family with Matt knowing that…knowing that inside her she carried that bad seed just as her foster parents had accused? She couldn’t. And Matt had wanted children so badly that she knew she had to let him go. She couldn’t…wouldn’t deny him. So she’d left him.
But what if she’d been wrong? What if her foster parents had been wrong about her? She thought of Maggie’s baby at the hospital today. No matter who little Daniela’s parents were, it wouldn’t have stopped the baby from being the innocent little angel that she was. Was it any different with her? Had she allowed one warped couple’s sense of values to nearly destroy her marriage to the man she loved?
Claire jumped as the phone on the desk started to ring again and Rocky leaped out of her arms. Matt! Matt must be trying to reach her, she thought. Swiping the tears from her eyes, she pushed up to her feet and reached for the phone.
A hand clamped down on her wrist. “Hello, Mary Kate.”
Claire jerked up her gaze, and she stared at the man who’d come into her shop claiming he wanted to buy a cup of coffee and cheesecake. “Wh-who are you? What are you doing in my house?”
“Now is that any way to greet an old friend?” He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. Then he peeled off the dark glasses and she stared into cold blue eyes. “Remember me now?”
“Carl,” she whispered. Her blood turned to ice in her veins. And suddenly the past—all of her past—came back to her in a rush. “You’re the man who killed my mother.”
Ten
“Damn it, Red. Why aren’t you answering the phone?” Matt muttered as he listened to the phone ring. Hunched over the steering wheel so he could see throu
gh the rain pounding the borrowed SUV, he swerved to his right. And making a silent promise to his brother-in-law to take care of any damage to the vehicle, he drove with two wheels on the curb in order to get around the two flooded cars blocking the street.
When he came to the downed tree in the middle of the road, he cut the connection on the phone. Shifting into four-wheel drive, he climbed the curb and chastised himself for sending Claire home to an empty house. He should have sent her to his mother’s. Better yet, he should have just said to hell with the restaurant and gone to get her himself.
Maybe Claire had claimed that she was fine and maybe she had been better during the last couple of heavy rains. But this was a major storm—one that was sure to leave Claire scared spitless. Hell, it had him scared spitless!
He drove along the neutral ground that served as a median and green space for the avenue, which at the moment looked like a graveyard for cars that had tried but failed to escape the high water. When he saw the dangling wires on the utility pole, Matt kicked into reverse and maneuvered his way between a Toyota hatchback and a Mercedes and shot back down to the street.
On the move again, he punched in the programmed number to connect him to Claire’s cell phone. And when the phone picked up after two rings, relief rushed through him. “Jesus, Red, I’ve been trying—”
“Hi, this is Claire Gallagher,” her recorded voice began. “I can’t take your call right now, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll call you back the first chance I get.”
Matt swore, tossed his phone to the passenger seat and punched the gas. He knew the faster speed would create a wake that would send the already-high water lapping at people’s doorways. He was sorry for that, truly hoped it didn’t cause any damage. And if the cops decided to ticket him for the infraction, they would just have to add fleeing the scene of the crime to the charges, because he didn’t intend to stop again until he reached home and Claire.