Thread Of Deceit

“I don’t have secrets,” he called after her as she started to walk away.

“Yes, you do. Wyoming. You and Terell. The Marines.” She shrugged. “And my name is not Cleopatra.”

He watched as she headed across the room toward the shadowy corner. The little girl spotted her and quickly turned away.

The lightbulb pulls on my eyeballs as though they are attached by strings. I fear they will come right out of my head and leave me blind. Seeing nothing but the darkness. Then I will be even more afraid than I am now.

Quickly, I close my eyes, hiding them safely behind the skin of my eyelids. It’s black in this place, and I can feel the pain. Fear tastes like blood on my tongue. It smells like sweat. Not the good sweat of my father when he comes home from work. This is the bad sweat of thieves and murderers and my father when he has drunk too much beer. Darkness curls around me like monster shadows and demon smoke, choking me and flooding my nostrils with the evil smell.

Afraid, afraid, afraid of this pain and sweat more than of blindness, I open my eyes and stare at the lightbulb. My eyes float upward into the light, the shining and shimmering light. It is so bright that my eyeballs must surely burst open…

…and it is the sun, gleaming on my sister’s white teeth as she laughs. She pulls on my hand, urging me into the light, and I run with her. We race down the beach, our feet flying across the loose sand, our toes digging into the soggy, slushy sand, and now we skip out into the water.

I call to her. Hold my hand, Aurelia! Stay beside me!

A wave rolls in and slaps our legs, and we gasp and cry out in shock and delight. So cold! So wet! Oh, we love this water, and the way it beckons us deeper and deeper.

Come! Come on, my sister calls me.

No, Aurelia, I tell her. I squeeze her fingers tightly with my own. Stay close to me. Stay near the shore where it is safe! In the ocean live big fish with sharp teeth to bite us. In the ocean, coral can cut open our toes and make us sick. Sea urchins can stick their spiny needles into our feet, and jellyfish can wrap their poison threads around our legs. Seaweed can pull us under so that we would drown.

Stay with me, Aurelia. Stay near, and I will keep you safe.

We dance in the waves, my sister and me. We march up and down like soldiers. We play trumpets and guitars in our mariachi band. We chase our children, those naughty waves, as they run away from us and then back into our arms again.

Oh, we are wet, and Mama will be angry!

But the sun is hot, and our skirts will be dry by the time we walk all the way home. The sun beats down on us like the drummer in our band, and we sing to it. We fling water upward into the sky like a baptism. And the droplets shower down on us, shiny crystals, God’s diamonds. His blessings fall on Aurelia and me as we play in the sunshine. As we lift our faces to the sun and laugh at the light sifting through our black lashes. Oh, the sun…

…the round, glowing bulb of light. Now the pain is gone, and the fear creeps away, back into the darkness, and I thank God who brought me the lightbulb.

Chapter Three

“H i, there.” Ana approached the girl.

Brown eyes focused on the basketball game, the child sat on the concrete floor. With her legs tucked to one side, she gripped the hem of her skirt with both hands, as if she could somehow tug it over her knees. She wore the usual white T-shirt, her arms like thin straws hanging from the cupped sleeves.

“Can you please tell me where the bathrooms are?” Ana asked.

The girl said nothing. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip, but her eyes remained glued to the game. Ana considered walking away. Obviously this child wanted nothing to do with her. She had chosen her dark corner, and she intended to stay in it.

Ana’s palms dampened, and she smoothed down her slacks. She, too, had known the need to hide.

“Los baños, por favor?” she asked in her mother’s native Spanish.

The girl’s brown eyes darted to her.

She had understood.

“Sabe donde quedan los baños?” she tried again, keeping her voice casual.

The child looked away. “No se,” she whispered.

Ana smiled. “Esta bien.”

Taking a step closer, Ana eased down onto the floor nearby. She leaned against the cool wall and took off her shoes. “Oh, my feet,” she said in Spanish. “These things are killing me! Take a look how high the heels are.”

She held out a shoe. The girl shook her head, her attention back on the basketball players.

“You’re smart to wear sandals,” Ana continued. “I’ve been up and down the sidewalks today. I bet I have blisters.”

She levered one leg over the other and examined the bottom of her foot. The child’s dark eyes slid across, studying the woman’s toes as Ana checked them.

“There’s a blister. See?” She angled her foot in that direction. “That really hurts. I need to soak it in some warm water. Do you know where I could do that?”

“Down the hall,” the girl whispered in Spanish. “You have to take the steps to the basement.”

“I wonder if it would be okay for me to go barefoot. There are so many rules here.”

“It’s all right. They won’t notice you.”

Ana sat for a moment, absorbing the dark corner where this little one had found her private haven. Where had she come from? Why had she chosen the shadows? And what made Ana’s heart beat so heavily each time those brown eyes focused on her face?

Was it possible this skinny child had a story Ana needed to tell? Carl Webster, her editor, had asked for several articles on the lead paint as well as accompanying sidebars. The deadline was a week and a half away, and Ana had no time to detour into any other subject. In addition to the series, she had to keep up with the small assignments that landed on her desk each day. If she couldn’t produce quality reporting, Carl would replace her. He had made that clear. There was no way Ana could allow that to happen.

Haunted, Sam Hawke had described the invisible children. A small girl with haunted eyes was not worth Ana’s time, was she? Neither was Terell Roberts, who even now—across the basketball court—sat with one child draped over his back, a second in his lap and a third at his feet. He was rubbing the back of the little boy at his feet, and he and the girl on his knee kept tickling each other. Again she felt a vague unease, and she had to look away. Maybe it was innocent. Maybe this little girl in the shadows had nothing to tell.

Ana lifted her hand and touched the cross at her throat. As a child, she had gone to church with her parents and learned about God. But not until later, after her sister’s death, had she given herself to Him wholly, completely, falling into His arms like a drowning woman pulled from the sea at the last moment. The last gasp. The final breath. In that instant, she would have died and been glad. Welcomed the end.

But God had saved her. Truth had dragged her up from the sandy bottom, the clutching seaweed, the deadly undertow. She had seen His hand reaching out to her, and she had taken it. Even now, years later, she recalled that moment when she had chosen to live. And all the way out of the depths, onto the shore and along the pathways of her life, He had stayed at her side.

Now, each morning when she opened her eyes, she searched for God, prayed to Him, and gave herself to Him again. It was the only way she could survive. Her morning run to the river, the articles she wrote, the people she encountered, each activity throughout the day until she dropped into bed at night belonged to Him.

Her faith didn’t sound exactly like Sam Hawke’s. He had spoken of committing his life to Christ—almost as though Jesus were a military commander who required absolute obedience. Ana saw God as the Father. She had met Him one desperate day, and to Him she belonged with her whole heart.

As she studied the skinny girl in her faded green skirt, Ana prayed. Why this child, Father? Why did You draw my eyes to this little one in the corner? Has that huge man across the room harmed her in any way? Can I do anything about it? What do You want of me?

“Could you lead me to the ladies’ room?” Ana whispered the Spanish words. “This is only my second time to visit Haven, and I’m afraid I might get lost.”

“I can’t take you.” The girl hung her head. “Ask someone else.”

Ana relaxed against the wall and lifted her eyes to the water-stained white ceiling. She ought to leave the child alone. Talk to some of the others in the building, concentrate on her lead paint story. Upstairs, she could interview the construction crew. They would know how many rooms had been contaminated with the deadly old paint.

She might even approach Terell again—ostensibly to discuss his background in professional basketball. That ought to produce some interesting quotes. She slipped her shoes back on her feet and started to rise.

“Do you know La Ceiba?”

The birdlike voice stopped her.

“La Ceiba?” Ana frowned, trying to think where she might have heard the name. Wasn’t that some kind of tree? She recalled her mother pointing it out in Brownsville—a tree with palmlike leaves and large fruits. Several Ceiba trees grew in their neighborhood, and when the fruit burst open, the silky fiber pulled away from the seed and drifted on the breeze like clouds you could actually touch. Ana had stuffed the fiber into pillows for her dolls’ beds.

“La Ceiba is a tree,” she said.

The girl looked down, her face sad. “Yes, it’s a tree.”

“Why do you ask me this?”

“Because…because I understand your words when you talk to me.”

Ana wondered what her knowledge of Spanish had to do with the silk-cotton tree. “My mother is Mexican,” she explained. “But I grew up in Texas. It’s a long way from here.”

The girl nodded, twisting her fingers together. “Yes, a long way.”

“Where did you come from?”

The girl shook her head and wedged her shoulders into the corner, retreating into the darkness again. Ana ached to ask more questions. Her reporter’s instinct told her to keep pressing, cajole the information out of the girl, make her give up the story. But she sensed it would do no good now. The door had closed.

“I guess I’ll try to find the bathrooms,” she said, getting to her feet. On an impulse, she put out her hand. “My name is Ana.”

The child lifted her left hand and set it softly in Ana’s right palm, as though she might suddenly decide to climb up out of the shadows and come away with this kind stranger. But at the touch of human flesh, the child snatched her hand away and tucked it behind her.

“Me llama Flora,” she said softly. I am called Flora.

A surge of victory welled up inside Ana. “Goodbye, Flora. Hasta mañana. ”

But the girl’s eyes were focused on the game again. Ana stood and walked down the row of classrooms. She found the stairs, the ramp for the special needs children and eventually the bathrooms. In sad shape, they spoke of hard times in the city. Cracked white wall tiles, missing mirrors, vulgar graffiti scrawled across toilet stalls. Ana gazed at the dank room, thinking of those who had passed through before her, doing their damage, uncaring that others would follow.

How could Sam Hawke and Terell Roberts possibly pull together enough money to redeem this place? It would take gallons of paint to cover the crude messages. Repairing the floors would cost a fortune. Did the plumbing even work? She hoped so.

She turned a faucet and let the cool water trickle over her hands. Hope. This was all any of them had. A thin stream of water. A dusty glint of sunlight. A stranger’s hand in the darkness.

Ana dried her fingers on a tissue from her purse and shouldered her bag. If she hurried, she could get back to the newspaper building before Carl left. She would tell the editor about her interviews and fill him in on her plans for each of the articles. And she would mention the child—the many lost children—who straggled into Haven, put on their white T-shirts and found a place to play or rest for a few hours each day.

Pausing, she studied herself in the cracked mirror over the sink. Her heart told her to follow these children and learn their stories. Her gut told her to investigate Terell Roberts and find out what was going on behind closed doors at Haven. She could ask Carl for more time, but would he give it?

She thought of her editor, dipping a doughnut into his coffee and then chewing as his stubby index fingers punched out a memo on his computer keyboard. Carl was an old-school journalist who focused primarily on putting out the paper each day. He hadn’t responded to any of the story ideas she’d left on his desk, so why would he give her time to follow a hunch now?

But how could she let it go—the invisible child and the too-friendly man and the certainty that not all at Haven was as it seemed? Ana fretted as she climbed the stairs back to the main floor. She couldn’t let it go. She wouldn’t.

As she passed the office, she spotted Sam Hawke, once again stripping off a sweat-soaked shirt. Unconscious as a lion in the bush, he stretched his long arms. Muscles flexed and rippled. He scratched his chest and gave a careless yawn. Then he reached into his locker for a dry T-shirt and tugged it over his head.

Ana poked her head through the door. “Hey, Sam.”

He swung around, recognized her, flashed a look of surprise followed quickly by annoyance. “Are you still here?”

“It’s Flora.”

“Huh?”

“The little girl in the corner. Flora.” Giving him a wave of fingernails, she turned away.

He pressed the phone to his ear and tried to keep his voice light. “So, Stu, what’s going on up there? Any more news on our friend?”

“It’s what we thought. Busted. They caught him. All the papers have the story. TV, too. It’s everywhere.”

Swirling his martini, he watched the olive rotate at the bottom of his glass. “Do they have any idea if anyone else is involved?”

“No leads. At least that’s what they’re saying.” The silence on the other end broke as Stu cleared his throat. “Uh, the Feds…they’ve taken his computer. And his file cabinets.”

“But there won’t be any trouble with that. You set things up the way I told you, right?”

“I did what you said.” Heavy breathing. “Look, I’m getting nervous. I can’t have anyone poking around here. My wife…she wouldn’t understand at all. She’d leave me, and I couldn’t handle that. She’d take the house and the car. I’d have nothing left. I mean…I just wouldn’t want to go on, you know?”

“You want me to have a pity party for you, Stu? If you did what I told you to do, you don’t have to worry. Everything will be fine. You’re not lying to me, are you?”

“No, no.”

He took a sip of his drink, savoring the burn as it traveled down his throat. Of course he shouldn’t have relied on Stu to do things right. He ought to have set up the whole thing himself instead of trusting someone else to help out. This was exactly what happened every time he counted on people to keep their end of a bargain. They let him down. They lied to him.

“Look, Stu, I’ve been thinking about moving the operation,” he said. “I might even retire. I could use a break.”

“Retire?”

“This whole thing is beginning to bore me. Besides, I don’t need the stress.” He took another swallow of the martini and wondered when the alcohol would kick in. His head was killing him, and he’d had stomach problems the past couple of days. Of course, he’d hardly been able to eat, so it wasn’t surprising.

“What about the clients?” Stu asked. “We’ve got six on the waiting list.”

“I don’t care about the clients,” he snapped. “I care about clearing out my house, because I don’t believe a word you said about setting up the safeguards in Springfield.”

“I did! I swear it.”

“Good. Then you won’t have any problem taking the product that’s in storage here. Drive down tonight, and I’ll meet you at—”

“I can’t do that! What if someone’s tailing me? What if they’re watching my house? They could follow me.”

“You idiot. You didn’t set it up, did you?”

“I tried, but—”

“You’d better be here tonight to take these things off my hands, Stu.”

“Don’t talk to me that way. Please. I can’t handle your threats. Ever since this started, I’ve been really down, okay? I mean today…this afternoon…I got out my gun. If things get too hot, I don’t think I can take it.”

“Look, Stu, can you get here tonight or not?”

He heard a sniffle on the other end. “I’ll check with the client. I have to make sure I can work the transfer. I’ll do my best.”

“You owe me, Stu. You owe me everything.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll call you later.”

Fool! He dropped the phone into his pocket and slammed his fists on the arms of the chair. This was so typical. Stu was just like all the others—clients and colleagues—thinking only of themselves and what they could get out of him. If trouble erupted, it would be Stu’s fault, that pathetic liar.

No one understood how hard it had been to set everything up. The whole process functioned like clockwork, and all because of his careful planning. He had figured it out, he had put it in place and he ought to reap the benefits.

Instead, he was spending every waking moment watching his back. If the Feds tracked him down, it would all be over. They would make an example out of him, as they had before. Holding him up like some kind of monkey on display. As though what he did was wrong. They had no idea the service he provided. The good that came of his efforts. It wasn’t only his clients who benefited. Certainly not, but you couldn’t explain that.

It was an economy, and he played the role of the middleman. The producer reaped a huge harvest. And the client gained immeasurably. He was only doing his part to facilitate the process.

He downed the final mouthful of his drink. Time for another trip to his special closet. It was the only way he would get any peace.

Sam stepped out of his office and glanced at the small child nestled in the far corner of the recreation center. Flora. Somehow Ana Burns had gotten the little girl to speak. To give her name. How many times had Sam looked at the child, one of so many he couldn’t reach? Across the room, her dark eyes studied him, pinned him.

Accused him.

Like a bullet fired from an assault rifle, the memory of another child’s brown eyes shot into his mind and tore through his heart, wrenching and twisting it. Unable to shield himself from the onslaught, he saw the girl’s thin fingers reaching for him. Smelled the dust on her soft skin as he lifted her in his arms.

He could hear own his breath, heated and heavy. He heard her cries as blood dripped from a bullet wound in her abdomen. The pain he had caused. The terrible, inconceivable, unthinkable thing he had done.

“Oh, God, help me!” The strangled words wrenched from his lips. Sweating, clenching his fists, he swallowed against the knot of pain in his throat. “Forgive me!”

Propelled by the agony in his chest, Sam strode toward the front door. He passed Duke and the dog’s caretaker without a word. Bursting through the metal detector, he stepped out onto the searing pavement.

“Where is she?” he demanded of the youth at the door.

Raydell straightened. “Who?”

“The reporter? Which way did she go?”

“Down the street. Must have parked around the corner. You okay, Sam?”

He started in the direction Raydell had pointed. “Tell T-Rex I’ll be back.”

“What’d she say to you? What’s she gonna do to Haven?”

Unable to explain, Sam broke into a run. As he rounded the corner, her tan Chevy was pulling away from the curb. He leaped in front of it, slammed his palms on the hood, forced her to stop.

Ana braked, threw open her door and jumped out. “Hey, that’s my car you’re beating on, you jerk!”

“The little girl. Flora. She talked to you? Where’s she from?”

“I don’t know. She speaks Spanish.”

“Spanish.” He let out a breath. “Where does she live? What does she need?”

Ana frowned at him. “Why?”

“I have to know.” He struggled to find a plausible reason. “Maybe I can help her.”

She crossed her arms. “What’s going on, Sam?”

He dropped his head, rubbed his eyebrows, fought the tide of emotion that threatened. “It’s nothing,” he managed.

“You chased me around the corner. I nearly ran over you, for pity’s sake. It’s not nothing.”

He nodded. “Okay. All right.” Filling his chest with air, he forced out the words. “Iraq, ’03. The start of the war. I was there. The girl reminded me of someone.” He paused. “Something happened there. In the desert.”

Ana was silent. Her car engine hummed. People passed on the sidewalk. Staring.

Sam tried to make himself move. Return to his normal life. But he knew if he went back into the center, she would be there. Sitting. Looking at him. Gazing with her brown eyes as if she knew.

“Listen, do you want to get something to eat?” Ana asked. “It’s early for supper, but I’m hungry.”

He considered her offer. A kindness, because she saw his obvious struggle. He didn’t much like the woman, didn’t care for what she was doing, the threat she posed to his dream. But for now, she was better than the memory. Better than going back into the center and facing the demon that wouldn’t let him go—no matter how many hours he spent with a counselor, no matter how hard he prayed.

“Yeah,” he said. He rubbed his hand over the stubble of hair he kept short. “There’s a barbecue place down the street. We go there sometimes, Terell and I. We can walk.”

She nodded, stepped back into her car and eased it into its parking space again. Waiting, he pressed his hands on his thighs, drying the perspiration. Ana shut her door and locked it. She walked toward him. Pretty, kind, wary, concerned. Her eyes were brown, too, but older and wiser. Not so frightened. Not so innocent.

“Barbecue,” she said, joining him. “I hope they have onions.”

Ana tugged another napkin from the rectangular dispenser and blotted her chin. This was a mistake. In the first place, she looked like an idiot—dribbling barbecue sauce from the oversize shredded-beef sandwich. Not that she cared how she looked in front of Sam Hawke. But she did want to be as professional as possible at all times. Hard to do when the man kept staring at her with those faded-denim eyes, as though he could see straight into all the places she kept so well hidden. His gaze made her feel off balance, one minute the intrepid reporter and the next a silly schoolgirl oozing barbecue sauce.

She had hoped to talk with him about the incident on the sidewalk, the memory Flora had triggered. Her motive wasn’t all charitable, Ana had to admit. Without taking up too much of her precious remaining time—she had to eat, after all—she hoped she could actually interview Sam. She wanted to find out more about his reasons for founding Haven, his interest in children, the strict military atmosphere he had created there. If she could dig out some information on Terell, even better. And she could always use more details about the lead paint.

But instead of some quiet neighborhood coffee bar where she could question him to the soothing strains of mood music, they had entered a hectic barbecue joint crowded with customers. The shouts of the kitchen workers, the clang of ladles on white ironstone plates, the whoosh of crushed ice falling into empty glasses and the hiss of soda dispensers filled the small room. On top of all that, rhythm-and-blues music blared from a jukebox.

“Pork, chicken or beef?” someone yelled at a customer. The questions from the cooks came rapid-fire, loud and impatient. “Shredded or sliced? Pickles on that? Onions? Potato salad, baked beans or coleslaw? Make up your mind, fella—there’s ten people behind you! You gonna take all day, or what?” There was no way Ana’s recorder would pick up any information she could use. Her hands were so sticky she couldn’t hold her pen.