The Fire and the Veil (Veronica Barry Book 2) (33 page)

When Veronica looked down at the paper, her throat closed. She stared at what her hand had drawn. It was a number. A ten digit number. A
phone
number.

Swallowing to loosen her throat, Veronica punched in the number and held the phone to her ear with a shaky hand.

“Hello?” a woman answered.

“Uh, yes. I’m looking for Maya Nakaela,” Veronica said.

There was a long pause.

“Hello?” Veronica said.

“How did you get this number? It’s unlisted!”

“Maya Nakaela? Is that you?” Veronica asked. “Oh my god, I’m so glad I found you. Oh, I’m so sorry, I have bad news.”

“Who is this? How did you get this number?”

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Nakaela. Your sister… there was a fire.”

Another pause. “Who. Is. This.”

“I’m sorry. My name is Veronica Barry. I live in Sacramento—I’m a teacher. Lola Hekili is one of my students.”

“Lola…?”

“Yes. And I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.” Veronica took a deep breath. There just was no good way to deliver this news. “It’s your sister and her husband. There was a fire. They didn’t survive.”

“What…?”

Veronica didn’t answer, but looked at the trees above her that shaded the picnic table. She allowed the news to sink in. Then she continued. “Ms. Nakaela, where are you? How soon can you come to Sacramento?”

“I’m in Hawai’i. I don’t know how soon I can get there.”

“It’s Lei,” Veronica said. “She’s gone into the foster care system here. The police arrested Paul Carver in connection to the arson.” But he would get out before long, Veronica thought. Unless she could come up with some proof that he lit that fire.

“Paul… oh god,” Maya said. “And you said Lei is in foster care? What about Lola?”

“She’s in juvenile hall. They suspect her, Ms. Nakaela, but she’s innocent, I promise you.”

Another silence, broken only by faint sounds. Veronica thought perhaps Maya was crying.

“If you come here,” Veronica said, “You can at least take custody of Lei. CPS and the courts like it best when a child goes to relatives.”

“Of course,” Maya said, her voice broken. “Of course. What did you say your name was?”

“Veronica Barry.”

“Thank you, Ms. Barry. Uh… I’ll get a flight right away.”

Veronica gave Maya her number. “Is this number I called your cell?”

“Yes,” Maya said. “I still don’t understand how you got it. I just moved. And I just switched carriers and got the number unlisted—so many telemarketers got a hold of the old one. How did you get this number?”

Veronica sucked on her lip. “I guess I was just meant to find it,” she said.

Chapter 23

Maya called Veronica an hour later and told her that her flight would land at eight thirty that night. She would check in to a hotel close by the airport and they would meet up the following morning to talk to social services. Veronica promised to try to find out the name of the social worker in charge of Lei in the meantime.

After spending the morning in and out of Daniel’s room, Veronica finally gave him a kiss goodbye and took a cab home.

The cats greeted her, rubbing up against her legs, and when she let Harry in he couldn’t contain his joy. He bounced and leapt, trying to lick her face. “Down!” she ordered, but her heart wasn’t in it. She hugged him and let him cover her face with puppy kisses. “I wasn’t gone that long, bud.”

She stroked Binky and Blossom for a few minutes and refilled everyone’s dishes. How normal this all felt. Except she was supposed to be at school. Two sub days in a row—and now with Maya coming she’d have to take another tomorrow. It couldn’t be helped, and she had accumulated quite a few sub days during her three years at Eleanor Roosevelt, but after breaking her arm she’d already used up half of them. She sighed. Being a full-time psychic made being a part-time teacher more of a challenge than she’d ever anticipated.

After getting the animals all situated, she took a shower and a nap. Her cell phone woke her two hours later. It was Melanie.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Melanie said as Veronica rubbed her face to try to wake up properly.

“What?” she asked.

“The M.E. found blunt trauma to the heads of the victims of the Carver house fire,” Melanie said.

“What? Really?”

“I’m reading the report right here,” Melanie said. Veronica pushed herself to a sitting position in bed, disturbing the two cats who lay curled on either side of her feet. Melanie continued, “I had to threaten Betty to make her let me borrow it. Let’s see… I guess he went in on Sunday, which is pretty unusual. He did the autopsy and found the trauma. It took him a while to write up the report.”

“What does it say?” Veronica asked.

“Veronica, he ruled that the shape, angle of impact, and force of the trauma were consistent with the use of fists and perhaps a foreign object! …But that it was unlikely to be due to a collapse of the ceiling!”

“Oh my god.”

“No way are they going to be able to convict Lola of this now. Listen to this. ‘Angle indicates a person of over six feet in height.’ V, she’s going to be okay!”

Veronica closed her eyes, a lump forming in her throat. “Oh, Mellie. This is amazing news.”

“Now I don’t know that it means they’ll be letting her out all that soon. I couldn’t tell from Tawna’s files if she even has a lawyer yet.”

“But it’s something. At least it’s something,” Veronica said, her voice feeling choked.

“Yeah, I thought you’d be glad to hear about that.”

“Thanks, Mel.”

~~~

Melanie came by after work and drove Veronica back to the hospital that evening, just before the end of visiting hours. They both visited with Daniel and chatted for a while with his parents. He was doing well, according to the nurses. No one knew when he’d be released, however—he had an IV drip for antibiotics and another that fed him, and it seemed he’d need those for a while.

The next morning Veronica dropped Melanie off at work, after Melanie agreed to let her borrow her car. Veronica drove to the Fairfield Inn in Natomas, near the Sacramento International Airport. Veronica recognized Maya from the photo. She waited in the lobby, both hands clutching a red leather purse in front of her. Veronica waved.

“Ms. Nakaela,” she said as she approached.

“Please, call me Maya.”

Veronica smiled at her. Maya managed a faint smile in return, but her face looked haggard and her eyes full of grief.

“I’m Veronica.”

Maya shook her hand. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“I called around yesterday,” Veronica said. “The social worker assigned to Leinani’s case is named Rachelle Lincoln. I told her you were coming.”

“What did she say?”

“We have to go meet her,” Veronica said. “There’s paperwork to do, but she said when we’ve done it, we can go see Lei. And Lei is in a short-term placement. Rachelle said she didn’t think it would take long to sort out everything so Lei could go home with you.”

Maya nodded. “Shall we go meet with this Rachelle, then?”

Veronica grimaced. “I was hoping, actually, that you might be willing to make another stop first.”

Maya cocked her head to the side.

“It’s Lola,” Veronica said. “They wouldn’t let me visit her, because I’m not family. But now you’re here. And she needs to know what’s been going on, Maya. She’s not doing very well.”

Maya nodded. “Alright. Let’s go see her first.”

~~~

Luckily, the man in the front area of Thornton Youth Center was different from the one Veronica had encountered with Khalilah. Veronica let Maya do the talking, and was relieved to see that she had brought along paperwork proving she was Lola’s aunt: birth certificates for herself and her sister, her id card, social security card, and some other papers.

“Visiting hours start at 4pm this afternoon,” the guard said. “You should schedule an appointment now.”

Maya glanced over at Veronica in dismay. “I thought we could see her now.”

“Not outside of visiting hours, except on court days,” the man said.

Veronica sighed. “Okay, we’ll have to come back. Let’s go do that paperwork now, okay?”

Maya nodded quickly and scheduled her visit for that afternoon.

As they left, Veronica said, “I’m sorry, Maya. I should have checked into the visiting hours.”

Maya shook her head. “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

Veronica glanced at her and stopped by Melanie’s car. “I just felt a connection to Lola, I guess. And I heard about what happened, and…”

Maya frowned at her over the car’s hood. “Not many teachers feel a connection with Lola,” she said. “Terri has—had been having a lot of trouble with her for years now.”

Veronica nodded. “Let’s go somewhere and talk, Maya. I think you need to know a little more about Lola.”

~~~

As they sat in a Starbucks, sipping their drinks, Veronica told Maya what she knew about Lola’s home life. Maya took the information about the abuse Lola and her mother had suffered at the hands of Owen and Paul Carver fairly well, Veronica thought.

“She never told me,” Maya said.

Veronica nodded. “Yeah, I imagine Terri was living in a pretty dark place.”

“She had a lot of health problems,” Maya said, her eyes filling. “I used to ask her about her health all the time. I don’t think I asked her very often about how things were going with Owen.”

Veronica shook her head and put her hand on Maya’s. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

Maya pressed her lips together and gave Veronica a pained look. “I think I suspected. Lola started acting out, and Terri would call and complain about it, and I kept thinking, what has set this girl off?”

“There’s more,” Veronica said, gazing at Maya. She wondered how the woman would take the news that Lola was gay.

“More?” Maya said.

“I think Lola has suffered a lot, as well, because she’s different from a lot of girls.”

“Different how?”

“She’s gay,” Veronica said. “I wouldn’t out her to you, Maya, not normally. I think everyone should have a chance to come out on their own. But I’m hoping you’re going to be able to take Lola back with you and Leinani. And you’re right, she’s not an easy kid to deal with. I think you need all the information you can get.”

Maya raised her chin and gazed at Veronica. “I see,” she said. Then she gave a short laugh. “Wow.”

Veronica watched her. Maya looked around the cafe, then her eyes came to rest on Veronica again.

“Are you going to be okay about this?” Veronica asked, her concern for Lola driving her.

Maya nodded. “I’d better be. My wife might call me a hypocrite if she found out I have a problem with Lola being gay.”

Veronica exhaled. She hadn’t expected that. Her cell buzzed. She looked at the display. It said “Khalilah.”

“Excuse me,” she said to Maya, and stood up to take the call outside. “Hey! How are you?” she asked Khalilah as she exited the cafe.

“Veronica, I’m so glad I got a hold of you.”

“Is everything alright?” Veronica leaned back against the wall outside.

“Oh, I’m fine. I mean, I’m a total wreck, you know, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to relax again for as long as I live. I don’t suppose one recovers overnight from being hit and tied up and threatened with death.”

“I can imagine,” Veronica said.

“But look, that’s not why I called.”

“What do you need?” Veronica asked. “I have some errands to run today, but if you want I could come over to your place later, if you want some company.”

“No, it’s not that—although, honestly, that does sound nice. So I might take you up on the offer. But that’s not why I called. I had to tell you the news, Veronica. It’s Amani.”

“Amani? Is she alright? Did they arrest Jahid?”

“She’s fine, and Jahid is fine. I don’t think he had anything to do with Hamza’s—with any of that. No. Amani has decided to give a statement. About your student, Lola. She called me a few moments ago to tell me.”

Veronica pressed her fingers to her mouth, breathing in.

“Veronica, are you alright?”

“Oh, Khalilah,” Veronica said. “Are you sure?”

“Look, Amani said she’d go to the police station if I could give her a ride. As I understand it, Jahid is at work. He spent the whole day yesterday answering questions and she doesn’t want to make him go back to the station so soon. Do you want me to come pick you up?”

“Are you sure you can drive?”

“Actually, no, but my brother will drive me.”

Veronica straightened. “In that case, I’ll meet you there. I have Melanie’s car, and someone is with me who will be very interested in meeting Amani.”

“Who?”

“Lola’s aunt. She’s hoping to take Lola and her sister back with her to Hawai’i, once everything gets straightened out.”

“Alright, well, I’m going to have to wait a little while for Fayid to get out of work so he can drive us. Unless you want to pick me and Amani up?”

“You know, I think I’ll do that.”

Veronica returned to the table where Maya waited and explained as much as she could about Amani and Lola’s alibi without revealing that much of the information she had came from her psychic visions.

“So I know you’re anxious to get the paperwork started for guardianship of Lei,” Veronica said, “but I think maybe we should start by driving Amani to the police station. The sooner we get Lola released, the better.”

Maya nodded quickly. “Absolutely. If it takes an extra day to get Lei out of foster care, it’s worth it to get Lola out of the hall.”

~~~

As Veronica stood to the side with Khalilah and Maya and watched Amani give her statement to a clerk in the DA’s office, she considered the young woman. She wore her full abaya, all black, so that only her eyes showed. When they met Amani in the motel and when Veronica had seen her in her vision, Amani had been unveiled. Veronica wondered if she would ever choose to discard her veil again in the future.

Perhaps now she wouldn’t want to, since Hamza could no longer use the traditional laws of his tribe to bully her into doing things she didn’t want to do. Maybe Amani would find a way to have the kind of life she wanted without giving up the parts of her culture that she liked. Maybe the veil was one of those parts. Veronica found it hard to imagine, but even Yesenia wore a headscarf, and she seemed like a modern woman. So you didn’t have to choose between the two, did you?