Thread of Deceit (21 page)

“You know Flora’s in trouble, Sam. I want to look for her. Let me start upstairs.”

“All our children are in trouble.” He swept the room with his arm. “Brandy’s dad slaps her around, Gerald’s mother is a crackhead, Ahmed lives with his brother in the basement of a condemned liquor store, Tenisha has cerebral palsy, Donnetta is thirteen and pregnant by a pimp…. Shall I go on?” He lowered his voice. “They’re all hurting, Ana. Every one of them. That’s why we’re here—to give them a future and a hope.”

“You’re here for all of them,” she said. “I can only take one. I can take Flora. I care about her, and I’m going to find her.”

“Flora is not your sister, Ana. Nothing you do will bring her back.”

At the words, Ana bit her lip and stared at him. Sam ran his hand down her bandaged arm, lifted her fingers and kissed them. “This is the best any of us can do,” he said. “
Haven.
It’s what we have. It’s what God gave us. We have too many kids and not enough volunteers. We can’t take care of each individual needy child. We have to help them all.”

“Not me. I can help one. I can, Sam.” She pulled her hand away. “And don’t ever mention my sister again.”

His expression softened. “Go look for Flora. Help one, Ana.”

Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the staircase that led to the third floor.

S
am set the schedule book down on the desk in the front office. “Victory,” he said. “Cleopatra’s changing. We might make her into a tenderhearted volunteer yet.”

“What did she do?” Terell asked.

“Before she left Haven today, she went hunting for Flora.”

“The woman’s hunting for a kid.” He chuckled deep in his chest. “And you’re hunting for the woman.”

“Nah. I just want Ana to teach that writing class. I wish she hadn’t gone off without giving me the final word on it. If Granny’s cold keeps her away for a few days, an extra class would help us out.”

“Tenisha can manage the crochet bunch,” Terell said. “She’s talented enough, and being in charge would do a lot for her confidence.”

“Good. I’ll set that up.”

Sam lifted his focus from the schedule book to his friend. Terell was leaning with one hip against the desk, his arms crossed, a smirk tilting a corner of his mouth.

“Okay,” Sam conceded. “You think I like Ana Burns, and you’re right. But she’s not for me. I’m glad she cares about Flora, but I don’t want to get tangled with a woman whose whole life is her work.”

“And this place isn’t
your
whole life? Look, the lady’s got a job. A deadline. That doesn’t make her a bad person.”

Sam had to acknowledge that much was true. “I’m willing to open the door to the right relationship—but this isn’t it. You know how I feel about getting involved. We’re the same, Terell.”

“The same? Did I go off on a picnic today? Did I laze around in the park and enjoy the scenery? No, not good ol’ T-Rex. I was here opening the building and starting up the groups. While I’m patrolling classrooms, breaking up fights and keeping basketball games on a fair rotation, you’re out having coffee with some lady you claim you don’t even like. You order everybody in the building to steer clear of her, and then you turn around and invite her to teach a class. What’s up with that, dog?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Don’t even start with me, because I don’t wanna hear it. It’s love, and no one can explain that.”

“Love? Are you kidding me? I’ve known the woman a week, and she’s driven me crazy the whole time.”

“Like I said.”

“It’s not love, Terell. Believe me. Ana Burns is a pain. She insisted on searching for Flora even though she knew Slater and his pal had already combed the place. Then she vanished. Didn’t even stop in to say goodbye. Nothing.”

“So, the picnic…did you kiss her?” Terell’s smirk split into a wide-open grin. “Come on, man, tell the truth. You kissed her, didn’t you? Ha! I can see it on your face! You kissed the girl, and you liked it. Woo-hoo!”

“Shut up, you.”

“Hey, none of that talk allowed here at Haven. You know better, Uncle Sam.”

“Listen, did you check the parking lot?”

Sam was in no mood to kid around. Despite what he had told Terell, the thought of not seeing Ana again troubled him. Nor did he like the idea that she had walked to her car alone. By the time she had left, it was dark outside, and the hood at night was no place for a lone woman. The suspicion that Raydell had been behind the previous night’s attack ate at Sam.

“I’ll see if anyone is hanging around outside,” he told Terell, “and you take a look in the bathroom and the classrooms. When I come back, we’ll head upstairs, just in case somebody missed the little girl.”

“Meet you right here in fifteen.”

As Sam started for the door, he had to acknowledge the toll their work took on the two men. After putting in so many hours at Haven seven days a week, both men were exhausted. They had set up cots in a large, empty room on the second floor. Despite the discomfort of their feet hanging off the ends of the narrow beds, they usually fell asleep immediately. Sometimes, though, Terell talked about his past life in the NBA and his continuing battle against the desires that pulled him toward addiction.

Sam had suggested they work through a Bible study together, and that took them into the book of Acts. Reading about the early Christians endeavoring to live a life wholly dedicated to Christ inflamed their determination to make Haven a success. Praying, reading, eating and sleeping in such close proximity had taken their friendship to a deeper level—a similar intimacy and support he had known with his fellow soldiers in the Marine Corps—and Sam was grateful.

“You gonna get the lights?” Terell called as he headed for the row of classrooms.

“I’ll do it when I come back inside. I hope I don’t run into that bunch we had out there a few nights ago,” he said, referring to a group of belligerent teenagers who had chosen the Haven parking lot as a place to sell drugs.

“I’ll listen for your death screams,” Terell said as he headed toward the classrooms.

“Funny.”

Sam pushed open the front door. It bothered him that Raydell hadn’t appeared the whole evening. No one seemed to know where the boy was, though Sam heard a rumor that his father had turned up drunk and beaten him to a pulp. That didn’t seem likely, Sam thought as he stepped out onto the sidewalk. Raydell said he hadn’t seen his dad for nearly five years. The man wouldn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere and start knocking his son around.

Unless he had just gotten out of prison. The thought sent a sick feeling through Sam’s stomach. He recalled all too well the many nights his own father wound up in jail for driving with a revoked license while under the influence of alcohol. The man would head straight from the pokey to the bar, then he’d stagger home, tear up the trailer and cuff his three boys around until he passed out on the couch. If Raydell’s father had been in prison, such a scene was possible.

Sam made up his mind to find the young man the following morning. He feared Raydell might have been hurt by his father—or that the boy might have fallen in with gang members on the streets. Worse, the possibility that Raydell had been part of the plan to attack Ana troubled him.

Except for Sam’s car and Terell’s truck, the parking lot was empty tonight. Sam studied the moon and wondered if Ana was safely tucked away in her clean little apartment. He hoped so. A muffled sound drew his attention to the large metal garbage container leaning against a brick wall of the building. Cats, no doubt. He hoped it wasn’t rats. Either way, the pests wouldn’t find much. The trash truck had come around on Saturday.

Sam was headed back toward the door when he recognized the sound in the Dumpster as a sob. A human sob. A chill racing through him, Sam thought instantly of Raydell. Injured? Thrown into the trash? Heart hammering, he hurried back across the parking lot.

What if it was Ana?

Dear God, please don’t let it be Ana, he prayed. Don’t let her be hurt.

Or maybe someone had put a baby in there. It happened. The idea scared him to death. He had no notion of what to do with an abandoned newborn. Call the police? Take the infant to a hospital?

His breath hanging in his chest, Sam peered down into the large receptacle. Someone gasped.

“Okay, who’s in there?” he demanded. “Talk now, or I call the police.”

“Sam, it’s me!”

“Ana?” Her face moved out of the shadows into the moonlight. “What are you doing? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Flora and I are talking.”

“Inside a garbage bin?”

“Shh.” Her dark eyes met his. “I found her here when I was leaving. She’s hiding. Come on in. I’ll tell you what I know.”

Sam stared into the reeking metal container, its walls stained with every kind of nastiness known to man. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was climb down into it. But Ana was beckoning, and he saw that she and the child were seated side by side, the woman in her beige linen Sunday dress and the child in her green skirt, white T-shirt and pink plastic sandals. Both were gazing up at him, their brown eyes large and glowing in the moonlight.

Hoisting himself up, he swung one leg and then the other over the steel side. As he dropped down into the receptacle, Flora whimpered and shrank into Ana. Sam hunkered down, tried to ignore the stench and smiled at the two females across from him.

“Hi, Flora,” he tried, adding the only Spanish he knew.
“Buenos noches.”

Her dark eyes blinked up at him.

“She’s afraid of you,” Ana said. “She says you know the man who hurt her.”

“I do? Who is he?”

“I’m not sure. She keeps talking about Primero and Segundo, the First Man and the Second Man. That’s all I can get her to say.”

“No one I know would hurt Flora. Not ever. Please tell her that.”

Ana translated his message in a soft voice. As Flora responded, she shook her head adamantly and pointed in the direction of Haven.

“She insists the man is inside there,” Ana said. She touched his arm. “Sam, what if it’s Terell? You know my concerns. I’m afraid he may have hurt her.”

“No way,” he flung back.

At the harsh response, Flora cried out and buried her face against Ana’s shoulder.

Ana gathered the child in her arms. “Sam, you’re scaring her.”

“Terell would never mistreat a child. He’s a good man. I’ve known him too many years to believe he would lay a hand on anyone.”

“I don’t think this is physical abuse. I think Flora’s been molested.”

“Terell would
not
do that. He likes women—adult women. That was a big part of his problem in the past. His craving for women, drugs and booze took him far from God. In the past year or so, he’s had to do a lot of repenting. Even though he knows how harmful that life was, it hasn’t been easy for him to surrender. He’s just now getting things under control.”

“That’s what I mean. What if he’s been using the children as a way to—”

“Don’t even think it. He would never do that. Terell is a Christian man, Ana.”

“Christian men abuse children.” She ground out the words. “It’s possible. It happens.”

“I admit a Christian can walk away from everything he knows is right. But for a God-fearing, Bible-believing man to actually touch a child? Like that?”

“Yes, Sam. One in every four adult women has been sexually molested in one way or another. Don’t think it doesn’t happen in the church.”

“How do you know that statistic?”

She looked away. Then she laid her cheek on Flora’s head and closed her eyes. “I know, Sam. Trust me.”

At her words, fear erupted in his chest. Before he could speak, she was at him again.

“I’m talking about Terell, Sam. Flora says there’s a man at Haven who hurt her. Look…look at her arm. I found this child out here cutting herself with a shard of glass. This time she went deep. I know Flora doesn’t want to die, Sam. She’s looking for some way to relieve the stress, the anguish. She needs help—an advocate.”

“I saw Flora’s friend looking for her this evening. The one who drops her off every afternoon. She called herself Gypsy. Tell Flora that Gypsy is worried about her.”

Ana spoke to the child again. Flora nodded.

“Hipsy,” she whispered.

“She’s giving it the Spanish pronunciation,” Ana explained. “Flora’s been telling me about her life. She’s a runaway.”

“Are you sure? They’re usually not this young.”

“Or from Honduras,” Ana added. “Flora told me she did a bad thing at the house where she lived, and after that she ran for a long time down many streets. It was night. A woman driving a truck picked her up on the side of the road and brought her here. She doesn’t know where she is, Sam. No idea.”

“Honduras. She couldn’t have run away from Honduras and hitchhiked to St. Louis.”

“I don’t understand it either. She says she lived in a house in La Ceiba, and she has a…a little sister.”

“Ana.” Sam reached out and touched her arm. The two in the garbage bin, he realized suddenly, had matching wounds on their arms. Flora’s was self-inflicted. But Ana…she had insisted she’d been attacked.

“Flora isn’t sure what happened to her original house and family,” Ana was telling him. “She and her sister rode on an airplane together. I can’t get past that, because every time she mentions the little sister, she starts crying.”

Sam’s heart melted—not only for Flora, but also for Ana, whose own pain and grief were obvious. “What happened after the woman in the truck dropped her off in St. Louis?”

“She slept in a trash container like this for two nights. She was very frightened. On the third day, when she was looking for food, she met Hipsy.
Gypsy.
Gypsy has a bad life, Flora told me, but she is a friend. They sleep in a room together, and they share food. Gypsy brings Flora to Haven and then goes to work during the afternoon and evening. Her employer is a cruel man who scares Flora. Gypsy says that Flora is going to have to work for this man in order to pay for the room and food.”

“The man is Gypsy’s pimp. They’re grooming Flora.”

Ana nodded. “They’ve told her she’s too small right now. She’s only ten, Sam. Gypsy is thirteen.”

He forced down his revulsion at the idea that men would use children in such a way. “Ana, why does she say someone at Haven has hurt her?”

“Let me ask one more time.” Ana bent and spoke in the child’s ear. Flora whispered a response.