Оценить:
 Рейтинг: 0

Undercover in Copper Lake

Год написания книги
2019
<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 11 >>
На страницу:
3 из 11
Настройки чтения
Размер шрифта
Высота строк
Поля

That was why Sophy wanted them: no one else did.

“Will you be over for dinner?”

Dinner at her parents’ house was another Sunday tradition. Her older sister, Reba, and her family always came, too—four kids who adored their aunt Sophy. Maybe they would be a good influence on Dahlia and Daisy. “I plan to, but it depends on how things go at church.” Whether the girls tried to escape, went on a rampage, maybe burned down the sanctuary. They could well be the first kids ever kicked out of Sunday school in Copper Lake and banned from returning. Even the Lord’s patience had limits.

Matching stomps sounded in the hallway—amazing how much noise two skinny little girls could create—and Sophy’s fingers tightened. “Here they come, Mom. I’ll let you know about dinner.”

As she laid the phone down, she watched Daisy and Dahlia enter the room. As far as she could see, they’d done as she’d instructed. Their teeth had been brushed, if the toothpaste stains on Daisy’s chin were to be trusted. Their hair was combed with zigzag parts and bangs wetted and pasted flat against their foreheads. Their dresses were on, though Dahlia’s belt hung untied from two slender loops and her sweater was askew. They even wore shoes—ratty sneakers Dahlia had brought with her and bright yellow flip-flops Daisy had fallen in love with when they went shopping.

The best advice Sophy had been given so far: pick her battles carefully. She wasn’t going to argue about shoes.

“Wipe your chin,” she said, handing a napkin to Daisy. “You look lovely. Let me grab my stuff and we’ll go.” She slid her cell into a pocket of her purse, handed each girl a breakfast bar and grabbed her Bible, then went to the door, undoing multiple locks, ushering them out.

“Why’re you taking a book?” Daisy asked. “You plannin’ to read while we have to go to Sunday school?”

Sophy blinked. “It’s a Bible.” Seeing no comprehension cross their faces, she explained, “This is the book we study at church.”

Still no understanding. It was hard to imagine the girls having zero exposure to something as common as the Bible. Sophy had received her first one—white leather with her name embossed in gold—her first Christmas with her new family. She still had it.

But Daisy and Dahlia were Holigans. Enough said in this town.

It was entirely possible to live life comfortably in Copper Lake without a car, though naturally Sophy had one. Her apartment was above her quilt shop less than half a block off the downtown square. Her favorite restaurants and the businesses she primarily dealt with were within a few blocks. The house where she’d grown up and the elementary school she’d attended were along the way to church. The grocery store was a nice walk away, and living alone, she didn’t have to worry about buying more than she could carry.

But she wasn’t alone anymore, she reminded herself as she took Daisy’s hand, waited for Dahlia to claim the other one, then headed across Oglethorpe with them. They might be skinny little girls, but they’d increased her shopping list by about 500 percent. Instead of frozen dinners and ice cream, she now had to buy milk, fruit, veggies, snacks, green and yellow and red foods, chicken fingers and hot dogs and hamburger fixings.

It was almost like having a family of her own.

“Why do we have to walk everywhere?” Dahlia asked, scuffing her feet along the pavement.

Sophy kept her voice measured and calm. “I like walking.”

“I do, too,” Daisy echoed. “It’s fun.”

“Daisy!”

“Sorry!”

Dahlia’s chiding and Daisy’s apology were so habitual that their voices overlapped. They were close, not only in age but also in heart. It was a good thing, since they didn’t appear to have anyone else.

“Daisy’s allowed to have an opinion of her own,” Sophy said, earning a scowl from the older sister.

“We don’t walk nowhere ’less Mama don’t have the money for gas.” Daisy hopped over a crack in the sidewalk where a tree root reached for the surface, then swiped a strand of hair from her face with the hand clutching half an oatmeal bar. “When is she comin’ home this time?”

Her chest constricting, Sophy avoided looking at either girl. They were young, but they’d experienced things no kids ever should. If she lied, they would recognize it, or at least suspect it. “I don’t know.”

Truth was, Maggie wasn’t coming home from jail this time, not unless she had something substantial to offer the district attorney in exchange for leniency. This was the third time she’d been caught making meth in the house with the girls. With a lengthy list of previous offenses, this one would surely send her to prison.

Before either girl could respond, Sophy gestured to a house fifty feet ahead of them. “Bet you didn’t know that’s where I lived when I was a little girl.”

Dahlia’s look and shrug made clear her response: Bet we don’t care. Daisy, though, stared wide-eyed. “It’s got a porch. And a swing. And grass and flowers. And it’s yellow. That’s my favorite color.”

From their time spent together in the quilt shop, Sophy had learned that Daisy’s favorite color changed on a whim. Yesterday it had been lime-green. The day before it was red stripes with purple polka dots. “I used to sit on the porch swing and pester my sister while my dad mowed the grass and my mom knitted in that rocker. We had a big ole Irish setter who stretched out across the steps, so we always had to climb over him to get in or out.”

Her smile was a little pained. Those had been happy times, doubly precious because of the heartache she’d been through leaving North Carolina and her first family behind. She still loved her birth mother, two sisters and brother, still resented the hell out of her birth father, but she would forever be grateful to her Marchand family.

“What’s an Irish setter?” Daisy asked.

“A dog.”

The girl sighed longingly. “We had a dog once. She licked my face and slept on my feet and had really stinky breath. Her name was Missy, an’ I loved her. But she had babies, and we had to move, and Mama said she couldn’t come, so we left her behind.”

For the hundredth time in a week, Sophy wondered how the Maggie she’d known in school had turned out to be such a poor excuse for a mother. Sure, her situation at home had been tough. She’d been born into the world with automatic strikes against her. But people could overcome their upbringings. Sophy’s sister, Miri, was a perfect example.

When their father abandoned them to the care of their mentally ill mother, Miri, ten years old at the time, had taken charge. When the state had terminated their mother’s rights after a failed inpatient treatment, Miri managed to stay with her, doing whatever it took to survive and keep her safe. When their mother had died, Miri had buried her, mourned her and finally, for the first time ever, begun to live her life.

Now she lived in Dallas with a job she loved and a husband she loved even more. She used her computer skills to locate men who abandoned their children and denied them support, and private investigator Dean did the rest. Just as Miri had looked out for Sophy, Chloe and Oliver when they were little, she was still looking out for kids, making their lives a little easier.

While Maggie used drugs and drank and neglected her babies.

“Is that it?”

Daisy’s question was accompanied by a tug on her hand, pulling Sophy from her thoughts. She glanced up and saw her church across the street, the redbrick-and-white-wood structure glowing in the morning sun, looking solid and strong and peaceful. She hoped the girls found a measure of peace inside.

Failing that, she hoped they didn’t destroy it.

“Come on, kids, we’re just in time. Let’s get you to your Sunday school class.”

* * *

Sean let himself into Kolinski’s Auto Repair and Restoration, closed the door and walked to the middle of an empty bay before taking a deep breath. Grease, metal, paint, solvents, leather, sweat—it all smelled like home to him. As a kid, he’d spent more hours at Charlie’s Custom Rods than in school, learning the basics of car repair and restoration from Charlie himself. It had been the first practical use he’d found for fractions and the first place he’d felt safe, and he’d known then that working on old cars was what he wanted to do.

Craig had given him the chance to do that and make decent money. This was the best garage in three states for turning old rusted heaps of junk back into the classic beauties they were meant to be, and Sean had pretty much free rein.

Over the legal part, at least. He didn’t mess with the stolen auto parts, and he stayed hell and gone from the drugs. He was a Holigan. He didn’t need cops or pharmaceuticals to screw up his life.

The coated concrete floor softened the sound of Craig’s footsteps, along with the running shoes he wore. He never ran, he joked, but he never knew when the sport might be required, so he was always prepared. “Some people start their days with coffee. You start yours with engine grease. You’re just not happy without it, are you?”

You used to be the same way. When the old man had died and left the broke-down place as his only inheritance, Craig had worked hard to make a go of it. Like Sean, he’d been tinkering with cars most of his life. The work was in his blood.

Unfortunately, it flowed with a good supply of greed. Keeping the garage in the black, building a reputation as the best, making more money than his dad had ever dreamed of—none of that had been enough for him. Once he had a taste of success, like an addict, he’d wanted more.

He had more now. An expensive condo, a collection of restored cars whose value ran into seven figures, a weekend place near the beach, a different gorgeous woman every week, regular vacations to Atlantic Beach, Las Vegas, New York and Miami...and his own secret squad of DEA agents tracking his every move. Would he learn something when he lost it all, or would he somehow manage to skate on the charges and go on with life as usual, if more discreetly?

“Goober said you wanted to talk.” Sean gestured toward the small door in the back that led upstairs to Craig’s big fancy office above. He didn’t need to see the bodyguard to know he was there in the shadows; one or two beefy brawler types went everywhere with Craig. He didn’t bother to see which one it was, either. He called them all Goober to keep from having to learn their names, and Craig kept them from kicking his face in for it.

“I need you to do something for me, man.” Craig tore off a length of heavy-duty paper toweling, scrubbed the surface of the chair behind him, then tossed the paper onto its mate before sitting.

Feeling like a puppet with everyone else pulling the strings, Sean obeyed the unspoken order and sat on the second chair. Damned if he’d clean it like a fussy old maid first. Wadding the paper, he tossed it into the nearest trash can, then laced his fingers loosely together, arms resting on his knees, waiting.
<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 11 >>
На страницу:
3 из 11