The Lost Girls of Johnson's Bayou (11 page)

“She was a white girl—wavy brown hair, brown eyes, maybe ten years old. Skinny, but not malnourished. Just one of those active builds, I guess you’d call it.”

Paul nodded. The description fit his sister perfectly. And probably a million other kids, but at least it wasn’t the end of the line for him yet. “How badly was she injured?”

“At first, she was in and out of consciousness, but the pain finally won out and her body gave up. She slipped into a coma and stayed that way for almost a year. The doctors had no idea why, as her injuries had long since healed and all her vital signs appeared normal. She just wouldn’t wake up.”

“But she finally did?”

“It was the strangest thing ever. One day, she just sat up in bed and rang the nurse to ask for an ice-cream cone, of all things.”

Paul’s pulse quickened. His sister’s favorite treat was an ice-cream cone. “Did she remember anything?”

“Not a thing. The police had been so hopeful when she awakened, but it’s like her life before waking up in the hospital had been scrubbed clean out of her mind.”

“So what happened to her after that?”

The woman shook her head. “I’m not sure, really. They moved her to a room in the regular wing, which wasn’t my area. I know she did physical therapy for a while because of the lack of use of her muscles, but I don’t know what happened to her after that. I suppose given that no one came to claim her, and since she didn’t know who she was, that she was placed with a family.”

Paul tried to control his disappointment, but he was certain it showed on his face.

She sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t help you any more than that.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he reassured her. “At least I know she left the hospital alive. That gives me hope that if it is my sister, she’s still alive today. It could have been the end of the line.”

“I suppose you’re right, but it seems like small comfort.”

Paul rose from the table and thanked the woman for her time. As he walked out the door, he found himself thinking that he couldn’t agree more. It was small comfort, but comfort nonetheless.

T
HE NURSE WATCHED
P
AUL through the slats in the window blinds as he got into his car and pulled away. When the man had first approached her years ago, she’d thought him a bit suspicious-minded. He’d told her the real story behind the girl’s past—that she’d been placed in the school by the foster care system to hide her from an abusive father. The man figured if she didn’t remember, that was for the best. Then there was no way her father could find her. As the years went by, no one ever asked about the girl, but he continued to make the annual payments. Finally she decided it was full-blown paranoia, but if the man wanted to waste money that way, she wasn’t going to tell him anything different. After all, she’d kept her end of the bargain.

And now, after all the years, the visit the man had been expecting had occurred.

It took her a while to find the man’s phone number, buried deep in her desk behind years of paperwork, but finally she located the yellowed piece of paper. She pulled out the prepaid cell phone—the only form of communication she bothered to keep these days—and dialed. He answered immediately.

“It’s Nurse Agnes,” she said, using the name they’d agreed on long ago.

“Has something happened?” The anxiety in the man’s voice was apparent.

“A man came to visit me asking about the girl. Claimed he was looking for his sister, as they were separated as kids by the foster care system. It was a good story and he delivered it well. If you hadn’t warned me someone might come asking, I would have believed his story.”

“You didn’t tell him anything?”

“Only what we agreed upon.” She hesitated for a moment, a question hovering on the tip of her tongue. It was none of her business and the man wouldn’t like her asking, but something inside her had to know. “You’re going to keep her safe, right?”

Her query was met with complete silence.

“Look,” she said, “I know you don’t give details, and that’s fine. I just want to know that you’re not going to allow her abuser to find her. He probably hired that man. I want to know that she’s safe.”

“She’s safe.”

The man disconnected the call and the nurse placed her cell phone on the desk. The man had promised he’d protect the girl. He’d paid her all these years to keep her hidden from the man who’d abused her—her own father.

But something didn’t feel right.

A flash of Paul’s face as he told her his story passed through her mind. He was so earnest, so passionate and seemed so sincere. Had she really grown so old and unaware that he’d charmed her into believing his story?

Or was he telling the truth?

T
HE MAN CLOSED HIS cell phone and stared across the town square at Ginny. He wondered if she knew why the man she’d been seeing had come to Johnson’s Bayou. If what he’d told the nurse was the truth, then it was no coincidence that he’d hooked up with Ginny almost immediately after arriving in town. But had he told her why? Or was he just hoping she’d give him information?

Clearly, the lying “vacationer” had decided Ginny wasn’t the woman he sought, or he wouldn’t have tracked down the nurse. The nurse hadn’t told him anything important, but the whole situation didn’t sit well with the man. He’d kept the LeBlanc School secrets for a lot of years, managing to hide everything from the police and others who came behind them.

If the detective succeeded in blowing the lid off the past, the fallout was bound to come home to roost. Two more years and he was set to retire. Was set to leave Johnson’s Bayou and never have to think about the past.

Now he had to do something about the vacationer, or that would never happen.

Chapter Nine

Ginny placed the few items left on her table in the storage container and closed the top. Madelaine was supposed to meet her at her booth at closing time, but aside from a brief wave when she went by earlier chasing after a couple of her best friend’s grandchildren, Ginny hadn’t seen her mother since they closed the café that morning.

She glanced west at the sinking sun and checked her cell phone for the hundredth time that afternoon. No messages. She wondered if Paul had found the nurse and if he’d gotten information. With any luck, no message meant he was still chasing down leads and that he’d find something useful.

She grabbed her storage container and started across the town square. In the meantime, she needed to activate plan B—find Madelaine and invite her to dinner. Then attempt to act normal while the entire time, she’d be wondering what Paul was doing and what he’d discovered. She’d made it to the edge of the square when she heard Madelaine calling her.

She turned as Madelaine hurried across the square, huffing as she propelled her slightly overweight frame at a speed it normally didn’t obtain. “Thought I was going to miss you,” Madelaine wheezed as she leaned over to catch her breath.

“You’re just in time.”

“Got caught watching those grandkids of Carol’s while she tried some newfangled skin care line one of the New Orleans sellers was hawking. Lord, those kids can move. I’ve run more this afternoon than I have in the last ten years.”

“Running is at a premium in the café unless people start wanting to wear their coffee,” Ginny teased.

Madelaine straightened up and laughed. “You’d probably be better than me. You’re still in shape and always had good balance. How were sales today?”

“I only have three pieces left, total. I’m glad I made more than I thought I’d need.”

“That’s great! So…are you meeting your sexy new man for dinner?”

Ginny felt a blush creep up her neck. “He’s not
my
man. And no, he had some business in New Orleans today and didn’t know when he’d return.”

Madelaine shook her head. “Conducting business on vacation. Not a good sign. The last thing you want is a workaholic, no matter how good-looking and charming he may be.”

“I’m sure it was important for him to interrupt his vacation time. But anyway, that means I’m officially free tonight, so I thought I’d see if you wanted to have dinner at Maude’s—my treat.”

“Look at you, Miss Moneybags.” Madelaine smiled. “Sell a little jewelry and suddenly you’re Donald Trump. Well, as much as I’d love to get home and remove this bra and shoes, I’d like someone to cook for me and clean it up even more.”

“Then dinner it is,” Ginny said, relieved that she wasn’t going to have to do any odd maneuvering to convince Madelaine to have dinner with her. She already felt out of sorts, and it was going to be hard to keep that from her intuitive mother. Cajoling her into dinner if she’d said no would have immediately sent up alarms.

“I want to drop this off at the café, then we can go eat.”

“Might be a bit of a wait,” Madelaine warned. “All the visitors got to leave the festival before you, and since it’s the only place in town to eat at night, I imagine they’re going to be doing a booming business.”

“We could always keep summer hours at the café and give people another alternative,” Ginny suggested, already knowing what her mother would say.

“No way! I count the days every year till the festival, when we change to breakfast and lunch only. I like my evenings off.”

Ginny smiled. “Well, I’m in no hurry. Besides, it will probably be worth the wait. I heard they put peach cobbler on the menu for tonight.”

“Peach cobbler! You were holding back on me.” Madelaine tugged on her arm as she began to walk faster. “Let’s get a move on. I don’t want them running out.”

M
ADELAINE LEANED BACK in the restaurant chair and sighed. “I haven’t eaten that much in years, but I just couldn’t help it. Maude really outdid herself. Homemade chicken and dumplings and peach cobbler. She must have been up cooking all night.”

Ginny forced herself to put her fork down before she exploded. “I know. I don’t think I’ll eat again for a week.” She pushed back her chair and rose. “Ask Amy for the bill when she comes by again. I’ll be back in a sec.”

She tried to appear nonchalant as she made her way across the restaurant to the ladies’ room, but every time someone stopped her to chat, she wanted to scream. Just minutes before, she could swear she’d heard her phone signal that she’d received a text message. It had been almost two hours since she’d texted Paul to let him know she was having dinner with Madelaine, and she’d yet to hear a word out of him.

Reaching into her jeans pocket, she pulled out her cell phone and checked the display. “On my way” the message read. She struggled to contain her disappointment that he hadn’t said anything about his investigation, then pressed in his number. Might as well call and ask.

The call went straight to voice mail. Darn. She checked the time on Paul’s message and saw it had arrived a little over an hour ago. He was probably on one of the lonely stretches of highway where cell phone signal faded in and out, and likely still two hours or more from Johnson’s Bayou.

It looked as if she was going to have to hang pictures with Madelaine for a while in order to keep her promise of not being alone. If she’d known for sure Paul wasn’t going to return in time for her to avoid the manual-labor portion of the night, she wouldn’t have eaten as much. All that sugar had her wishing for her bed, not a project with her mother.

She accessed text messaging and sent a message to Paul.

Going to mom’s. Call when you arrive.

As soon as Paul drove into an area with coverage, he’d receive the message. There was nothing else to do now but wait, and wonder and worry, and help her mom hang pictures. Sighing, she left the restroom and pulled out her wallet as she walked back to the table.

“Do you still need me to help hang those pictures you bought?” Ginny asked as she laid some bills on the table.

Madelaine brightened and rose from her chair. “Yes. In fact, I picked up two more pictures at the festival. I think I have enough to finish the dining room.”

“Great. The one room in the house you never use will be the best decorated,” Ginny teased.

An hour later, Ginny wished she had volunteered for something other than picture hanging, like scrubbing the bathroom or mowing the lawn in the dark. Madelaine refused to eyeball the pictures as she usually did, and instead insisted that they measure the wall and do calculations to get everything perfectly balanced.

When the house phone rang, Ginny dropped the tape measure on the table, relieved to have a break. A couple of minutes later, Madelaine hurried back into the dining room, carrying her purse and wearing a worried expression. “Carol slipped and fell in the shower. The paramedics want to take her to the hospital in New Orleans to have her head looked at, but Carol’s keeping those grandkids and can’t reach her daughter. I’m going to run over there and watch them until their parents pick them up.”

Ginny felt a momentary twinge of panic when she realized Madelaine was leaving her alone, but it would have been completely out of character to ask to tag along. Ginny wasn’t overly comfortable around Carol’s grandkids, who relished in practical jokes. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least to find they were behind Carol’s fall.

“I’m sorry to take off on you,” Madelaine said as she pulled her car keys from her purse. “I’ll probably be gone an hour. We can work on this another night.”

“No. That’s okay. I can finish it up myself. We’ve already marked the wall, so it’s just a matter of hanging the brackets and the pictures.” She gave her mom a hug. “Give Carol my best.”

“If you’re gone when I return, I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” Madelaine said as she rushed out the door.

Ginny hurried to lock the door and peeked out the window into the darkness. For a moment, she thought she saw light flickering in the swamp, but she blinked and it was gone. It hadn’t been a beam of light, as from a flashlight, but rather had danced like fire. But fire couldn’t have disappeared so quickly.

Great. Now, she was imagining things. She thought about leaving her mother’s house, but she had no idea where she would go. Maude’s was closed for the night, and the hotel gave customers passkeys to the front door rather than covering the cost of staffing at night. There wasn’t a single convenience store anywhere in town, and the last place that was safe was her apartment.