LITMIR.BIZ

      7

      The two little girls sat on a street curb nearly hot enough to burn the backs of their thighs. Mia felt sweat roll down her face and she wiped it away with a skinny forearm. Miss Cathy—as she made them call her—didn’t like kids in the house.

       There’s a water hose out back if you’re thirsty. You can come in at dark. Have dinner and wash up. No talking. Go to bed.

       Mia felt a sickness in her stomach. She didn’t like it here. Three days had passed since the lady who frowned and wore too much perfume dropped her off.

       “Don’t be scared, Mia,” her new friend said, taking her hand. The girl had scraggly, reddish hair and was about her same age. There were a lot of kids who lived in the house. None of them were Miss Cathy’s own children. Mia felt tears sting her eyes.

       “It’ll get better, you’ll see.”

       A car came down the residential street, a powder-blue hatchback with a white racing stripe and loud engine. It slowed as it went past. The driver stared at them, turning his head to look for as long as he could. His face was in the shadows, but something about him made her want to run and hide.

       The car stopped and began to back up.

       Mia jerked awake on the couch. Sitting up in her living room, she ran a hand over her face, her heart thudding. The dream had been so real.

       She hadn’t thought of Miss Cathy’s in years. She had lived there for only a few weeks, her first in a long line of foster care homes. But Mia didn’t recall a red-haired girl ever being there or a man in a car at all. She wondered if Dr. Wilhelm’s therapy session had confused her subconscious.

       One thing was for certain; it had exhausted her more than she realized.

       She’d lain down after Eric’s departure, expecting to doze for only a little while. But apparently she had been asleep for hours. Outside, the sky had grown black, bathing the room in shadows. Mia stood and bumped her shin on the coffee table in her haste to get to a lamp. She’d never liked the darkness. She released a pent-up breath as soft light filled the space. Based in reality or not, the dream had brought back old memories she had worked hard to suppress.

       Two days before her sixth birthday, the Florida Department of Family and Child Services removed Mia from her mother’s home, relinquishing her into foster care. Luri Hale had been a mess, unable to care for herself, much less a child. Abandoned by her husband, jobless, given to binge drinking and interchanging bouts of mania and depression, she had made Mia’s young life a maelstrom of uncertainty. During Luri’s up periods, their filthy apartment hosted an endless parade of strange men. And when the crash—the corresponding down period came—it was much worse. Mia was left alone with her mother’s drunken sobs and abusive outbursts.

       The removal by DFACS came after Mia, dirty, barefoot, had been caught shoplifting food from a neighborhood grocery store.

       Still, foster care had been a rough ride, with families often taking children only for the modicum of cash they brought in. And Mia learned quickly not to get too settled anywhere, since the following week or month might mean a move somewhere else, including back home whenever Luri regained custody of her before losing her again. Because she refused to give up her rights, Mia had been ineligible for adoption. Not that many couples were looking for kids who weren’t babies or toddlers, especially ones who weren’t blond-haired and blue-eyed.

       Mia knew Luri was still alive, living somewhere near Brunswick, Georgia, an hour and a half up the coast. But she never saw her, hadn’t spoken to her in years. Even now, she felt a sense of anger and loss for the family she’d never had.

       Wandering into the kitchen, she noticed the blinking light on the phone console, indicating two new voice mails. The phone’s ringer was on low—had the calls come in while she’d been asleep? She pressed the button and waited for the first message. It was from Grayson, who was checking in on her. He’d heard about the ID on Pauline Berger’s body, he said, and wanted Mia to call him back. Concern threaded his voice.

       She would call him, soon. An image of the woman’s corpse filled her head and sent a shiver running through her all over again.

       Mia moved to the second message but was met with only silence—a good ten seconds of static-filled dead air before the voice mail system cut off the connection. She checked the caller ID screen, which read Unknown Caller. Zeroes were displayed where the number should have been. She received calls like that all the time, everyone did, and she hated that she was letting some telemarketing firm put her even more at unease. The draining therapy session, the strange nightmare—all of it had shaken her a bit. Mia realized it wasn’t Grayson but Eric she wanted to call. She shoved away the impulse, however, not wanting to seem anxiety-prone and needy.

       As she went to the fridge and rummaged through the Thai leftovers from the previous evening, her mind returned to the little red-haired girl. Even now, she could almost feel the child’s thin fingers grasping hers, could see her clear hazel eyes.

      It’ll get better. You’ll see.

       Mia only hoped the dream-child was telling her the truth.

       Eric had taken his beer out to the deck of Cameron and Lanie’s house. The couple lived in St. Augustine, south of the Jacksonville area in a weathered, Craftsman-style waterfront home that overlooked the Matanzas Bay. The home had been built in the 1920s and passed down through three generations of Vartrans. A short distance away, the lighthouse on Anastasia Island was visible, its still-operational beacon glowing like a bonfire in the dark night.

       “You know that thing’s haunted,” Lanie said, following his gaze as she came out onto the deck from the kitchen. She cupped the mound of her belly and eased down onto the step next to where he sat. Her blond hair lifted in the warm, brackish breeze. “As the story goes, the lighthouse keeper’s young daughter drowned in the bay and her ghost can be seen on the observation deck from time to time.”

       Eric raised his eyebrows. “Do you really believe that?”

       She smiled slightly, shrugging. “I’ve never seen her but it’s good for tourism.”

       “Where’s Cameron?”

       “Doing the dishes for his poor, knocked-up wife. I thought I’d come out here and check on you.”

       Eric had found out at dinner that Lanie was due in early August, and she was having a baby girl. He had known Lanie for nearly as long as he’d known Cameron. During the years in which they’d been partnered, it had often been the four of them on weekends—Cameron and Lanie, Rebecca and himself. Cameron had served as a groomsman at his and Rebecca’s wedding. Sitting on the deck with nothing but quiet and the water’s dark beauty stretching out in front of him, he could easily understand why his friends had made the choice to return home.

       “How are you, Eric?” Lanie nudged his shoulder with hers. “I mean, really. How are you?”

       “I’m okay.”

       When she continued to gaze at him, concern on her face, he added quietly, “It’s been almost three years, Lanie.”

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