Authors: Liz Talley
“Why are you going to a school? Is this where your witness is?” Annie asked.
“I’m going to school next year,” Spencer said. “Kindergarten.”
Nate didn’t answer because his mind was too busy working out how he’d do this. He hadn’t called the woman to tell her he was coming. He wanted to catch her unaware, perhaps even study her for a few moments. He’d learned early on to not give suspects time to prepare. But this wasn’t a suspect. Not really.
“Do you mind waiting?” he asked Annie as he pulled into a visitor parking space and scanned the area. He hadn’t formed much of a plan on the way down. Hard to with Annie sitting next to him and Spencer chattering in the backseat. He felt off-balanced.
She shook her head, her gray eyes questioning. “No problem.”
“I gotta go potty, Annie,” Spencer said, wriggling in his booster while grabbing the crotch of his shorts. “Hurry.”
Annie unbuckled, looking at Nate. “We’ll go inside and find a restroom while you take care of your business. Mind leaving me your keys?”
He sighed. “Sure.”
After passing the keys to Annie, he climbed out and pressed the map on his iPhone where he’d uploaded the plans of the school
—which was so easy to do it was scary. Sally Cheramie’s room sat in the back, near the playground. Normally, he’d check in, but he didn’t want the front office to alert her to a visitor.
Annie took Spencer’s hand and tugged him toward the front of the school, and he watched for a moment before ducking around the corner and heading toward the back of the building. He kept an eye out for security, feeling a little creepy sneaking around like a common criminal.
The double doors at the end of the building were propped open with a rubber door stop, something that made the school vulnerable—but for the moment he was relieved a custodian had forgotten to remove the appliance. He entered the building, which smelled of paint, crayons and Lysol. Vibrant artwork hung on bulletin boards lining the hall and the tiled floor glinted from a recent waxing. No one traveled the second-grade annex, but plenty of activity took place behind the classroom doors he passed on his way to Cheramie’s Cowpokes room.
Outside Room 103 he paused. A half window in the door revealed a cheerful classroom painted in bright yellow and green.
Twenty-some-odd kids sat in desks working on an activity, as their teacher circled the room, peering over shoulders, making suggestions and smiling in encouragement.
Sally Cheramie.
She was tall and willowy, with dark hair that brushed her shoulders. She wore a simple sleeveless dress and a wide gold bangle bracelet that looked nice against her tan skin. Practical flat sandals adorned her slim feet. She looked nothing like a shyster. More of an elegant, warm-hearted elementary school teacher…who happened to be fairly attractive.
Nate felt the presence of the man before he spoke.
“Excuse me. You got business with Miss Cheramie?”
Nate turned to find a custodian clad in a chambray shirt and tan trousers clasping a rolling trash can in one hand and a broom in the other. He was big, black and suspicious. And he looked ready to wield the broomstick against any intruder.
The door opened at his back.
“Clarence?” Sally’s voice floated over his shoulder, rich, mellow and very much of the bayou. “Is there a problem?”
Nate spun around. “No problem.”
The woman stood with one hand on the doorknob, the door half-open. She hit Nate with eyes that were exact replicas of Darby’s. Nate felt the floor actually shift beneath him.
He swallowed, but said nothing. He didn’t think he could.
“Sir?” Sally said. “Are you okay? Have you checked in as a visitor in our office?”
He shook his head, unable to take his eyes off her. He never thought it could happen—that he could simply look at a person’s eyes and identify him or her. But he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was looking into the eyes of Della Dufrene. Not to mention, she looked too similar to the woman standing next to Martin Dufrene in the wedding photograph sitting on the mantel at Beau Soleil.
He’d found his sister.
* * *
“Sorry, ma’am but we can’t let people come in off the streets to use the restroom. It’s not safe for our children.”
Spencer wiggled. “I gotta go! Hurry!”
A woman stepped out from an inner office. “Is there a problem, Lacy?”
The younger woman shook her head. “This woman wants to let her kid use the toilet.”
The older woman, who wore a pressed suit, looked at Annie.
“Are you a parent? I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Iris Guidry, the counselor.”
Annie shook her head. “No, I’m with someone who is visiting, and Spencer—” she looked down at the squirming five-year-old
“—has to use the restroom.”
“Oh, well, let the child go to the toilet,” Mrs. Guidry said, gesturing to the restroom located off the office.
Spencer tore loose and ran to the bathroom. The door slammed shut and everyone in the office jumped including Annie.
“Well,” Mrs. Guidry said, crossing her arms with a smile. “Guess he did have to go. Now, who did you say you were with?”
Annie felt something niggle at the nape of her neck. Nate hadn’t wanted to reveal what he was up to, so what did that mean?
Should she tell Mrs. Guidry the counselor the truth? Or make something up? The latter. “We had to drop lunch off for one of the teachers. I’m actually heading out right now.”
Mrs. Guidry frowned. “Which teacher?”
Jeez, elementary teachers could teach FBI investigators questioning technique. They could probably sweat an ax murderer. “I don’t know her name. I’m with my boyfriend, and it’s his sister or something.”
The bathroom door opened behind her. She didn’t care whether Spencer had washed his hands or not, she wanted out of there.
“Okay, so thanks for letting us use the facilities. Come on, Spencer.”
“Where’s Nate, Annie?” Spencer asked, drying his hands on his shorts.
“He’s dropping off lunch, sport. Let’s go.”
“Who’s he dropping off lunch to? I didn’t know he had lunch. I’m hungry,” Spencer rambled as she grabbed his arm and tugged him out the office door. Nate hadn’t come in the front door. Had he gone around back?
She should go back to the car, but some weird curiosity pushed her to turn right instead of left. She walked swiftly down the hallway, ducking her eyes when a teacher leading a group of rowdy kids passed her. She glanced down the branches off the main hall, but didn’t see Nate. When she reached the end, she looked right and saw him standing in the hall in front of an open doorway with an attractive woman and a janitor.
She glanced behind her. Mrs. Guidry headed toward her, her heels clacking against the polished floor. Uh-oh.
She dragged Spencer with her as she headed toward Nate. “Hey.”
He turned to look at her. The other two standing with him did also. Spencer slid in the Crocs he wore, but she pulled him behind her anyhow.
“Look it, Annie!” he cried. “Will I get to do that when I go to school?”
He pointed as something on the wall. “Sure, bud.”
She reached Nate and stopped. Spencer slammed into the back of her thighs. For a moment all four adults stood looking at each other.
“What’s going on here?” the lady in the white sundress asked, studying Nate then Annie.
Annie glanced at Nate who looked as if he’d swallowed a bug, before meeting the woman’s equally confused gazed. The janitor held his broom in attack mode, and the clack of Mrs. Guidry’s shoes grew nearer.
“Nate?”
The woman brought a thin hand to her chest. “Nate?”
He looked at the woman then at Annie. “This is, um, this is—”
“What the devil’s going on here?” Mrs. Guidry demanded, pushing the janitor back and glaring at Nate. “I’ve called security.
You’re not allowed to be on this campus without checking in to our office with a valid driver’s license.”
Nate reached into his back pocket. Annie felt the janitor’s body tighten. Nate drew out his credentials. “I’m Nate Dufrene, an investigator for the St. Martin Parish’s Sherriff’s office.”
The young woman in the white sundress had grown pale. She shut the door behind her with a click as Mrs. Guidry took Nate’s badge and looked it over.
“Fine,” the counselor said, handing it back to him. “Now, what business do you have at Galliano Elementary and why didn’t you bother to check in in the office? This woman here said you were bringing lunch to your sister.”
She didn’t give Nate time to answer. Instead she spun to the teacher. “Sally, is this your brother?”
Sally licked her lips, shifting her blue eyes from Mrs. Guidry to Nate and then back again to the counselor. “I don’t know.
Maybe.”
Mrs. Guidry crossed her arms and shook her head. “You’re telling me you don’t know if this is your brother or not?” she muttered.
Nate interrupted. “I’m her brother.”
Annie didn’t say anything, mostly because it was the oddest situation she’d ever been in and she wasn’t quite sure she understood what was happening. Spencer wiggled like a fish on a hook so she let go of his hand. He flew to the bulletin board nearest them and studied the artwork.
The young teacher shook her head. “You don’t know that. Not for sure.”
Nate’s brow furrowed as he watched the woman he’d declared his sister.
Everyone else stood still as mud, the tension so thick it held them in place, riveted, waiting. Nate clasped the woman’s elbow and she flinched. He held tight, turned her slightly, while reaching for the shoulder strap of her dress. “You have a strawberry birthmark—” he tugged the linen material aside “—right here.”
Annie’s mouth fell open as she stared at the mark on the right shoulder blade of the woman and realized the implications.
Sally jerked, stepping backward, colliding with the door at her back. For a moment, she stared at Nate before her blue eyes filled with tears. She shook her head. “No. I can’t deal with this. Not here.”
Nate’s own eyes looked damp. “Della.”
The woman vehemently shook her head. “No.”
Nate closed his eyes and a soft laugh escaped him. “I told you to stay on the patio. You never listened to anyone.”
At his words, the young woman fell against the wall and slid down until her bottom hit the tile. A soft sob shook her shoulders as she covered her face with her hands.
“I remember your eyes,” she said, in between her hands. “I can’t believe it, but I remember you.”
Nate bent down and lifted his sister from the floor of the hallway, wrapping his arms around her, drawing her close. He breathed in deeply as he rocked her, eyes closed as he squeezed her tight. Then he said something that nearly broke Annie’s heart in two pieces. “You didn’t die.”
Annie looked around the group standing frozen in the hallway of Galliano Elementary. Mrs. Guidry swiped at the dampness on her cheeks and the janitor’s mouth hung open. Spencer skipped from bulletin board to bulletin board, and a face peeped over the edge of the glass in the classroom behind them.
Finally the janitor broke the silence. “Are we being filmed on TV or something?” He periscoped his broad head side to side.
“’Cause this feels like something I’ve seen on Maury Povitch.”
* * *
“And you seemed the type to have a plan,” she said as they backed out of the lot. He belatedly glanced back at Spencer to make sure he was secured properly, but Annie had proven she hadn’t allowed the strange moment to affect her. Spencer was harnessed snugly in his seat. She may think she wasn’t good at taking care of Spencer, but she was.
“I actually had a plan. To observe then confront.” But it hadn’t been a good one. Too many unforeseen complications like janitors, kids and nosy school counselors. Not to mention, Annie had distracted him with the way she moved, smelled and laughed.
Every moment on the way down had been bittersweet, remembering the feel of her skin against his, the way she moaned when he moved inside her, then knowing he could never feel that again. That thought had his head cloudy. He shouldn’t have insisted she come with him. If she’d stayed—
“It went very well.” She interrupted his thoughts. “What happened back there was a miracle.”
He felt her gaze on him. His emotions still thrashed inside him. It all felt too much. Too intense. Too gut-wrenching. Too euphoric… Too guilty. He hadn’t believed it could ever happen. He’d convinced himself his sister was dead. If he hadn’t believed that, maybe he would have found her sooner. There were so many questions to be answered, but for the moment all that reverberated inside him was he’d found Della.
“A miracle,” he repeated, his voice breaking with the words. Something washed over him again, turning him soft, but he couldn’t stop it.
He braked at a red light. He didn’t want to look at Annie, didn’t want her to see the raw emotion, but he couldn’t help himself.
He glanced over and their eyes met. Something happened. Something as profound as the moment he’d shared moments ago with the sister he’d last touched when he shoved her to the ground and told her to get lost over twenty-four years ago. The moment between Annie and him wasn’t combustible as it had been the night before, more like an invisible hand brushing over them, smoothing, uniting, bonding them into something more than what they’d been before.
Annie’s lips curved and she laughed.
He’d never seen her laugh like that. Joyous. She felt what he felt and it caused something to expand inside of him, growing, filling places that had been hollow for so long.
Then it overflowed and he joined her in the laughter. “Holy cow, I found my sister, Annie. She’s alive.”
She wiped tears from her cheeks. “I know. I can’t believe I witnessed that. And that janitor—” She dissolved into giggles. He wiped his tears and allowed himself to enjoy the normally serious woman chortling over how amazed Clarence was. “He kept looking for cameras.”
A horn sounded behind them indicating that light change, and he pressed the accelerator, heading north.