Low Tide (22 page)

She breathed in the scents of Sky’s too-sweet body spray and Kyle’s freshly shampooed hair, and let them push back the faint aromas of copper and burnt powder and cat pee.

F
or the next two days, Maggie shuffled her kids from ball games to pool parties and finally, to church summer camp for a week. She’d worked in her garden and around the yard. She’d had dinner with her parents to reassure them that she was, in fact, alive and intact, but she’d stayed to herself for the most part. She’d done what she could to not think too much.

Wyatt had called twice to check on her and fill her in on the news during the first two days of her required week’s leave.

Maggie had shored up the fencing on the south side of the chicken yard, planted coral and lilac begonias in the boxes hanging from the deck, done seven loads of laundry, cuddled Coco within an inch of insanity, and cleaned out and scrubbed the fridge.

Now, late in the afternoon on Friday, she was headed into town to buy herself some of the foods that she loved and the kids couldn’t stand. Overhead, clouds the color of newly-paved road filled the sky, and Maggie looked forward to curling up with a book and listening to the storm.

She had just stopped at the red light at 98 when her cell phone rang. Maggie looked at the number, then grabbed the phone.

“Grace?”

“Ms. Redmond, they’re taking my children!” Grace sobbed. “They’re just takin’ ‘em!”

“What? Who?” Maggie could hear one of the kids crying in the background, and people talking.

“Children’s Services! They just came and said they’re taking my kids!”

The light had turned green and a car behind Maggie inched forward. Maggie ignored it. “Are you back at the house?”

“Yes, we came back yesterday,” Grace said. Then she yelled to someone else. “You just wait! I got the law on the phone! You don’t go anywhere!”

“Grace, I’ll be there in three minutes. You tell them I’m coming and they are not to take those children off the premises.”

Maggie reached over and turned on her dash light, then gunned through the light and turned onto 98.

She got to Houser Street in fewer than three minutes. She pulled up to the edge of the yard, and parked behind an Apalach PD cruiser. Mike Waddell was standing by the open passenger door. In front of his car were a tan sedan with its passenger-side doors open, and a white SUV with a man waiting in the driver’s seat.

Maggie grabbed her ID out of her purse before jumping out. “What’s going on, Mike?” she asked, as she headed for the yard. He opened his hands and shook his head.

Maggie walked past the tan sedan. Baby Rose was in the back in a car seat, a young blonde woman in the seat beside her. Maggie walked past them and into the yard, and hurried toward the group of people collected there.

Grace was in her same yellow sundress and bare feet. She still had her phone in one hand, and she had the other arm wrapped around the shoulders of the little girl who was standing in front of her, hiccupping and gulping air.

A short, doughy woman stuffed into beige trousers and a silk blouse was holding a finger up at Grace and talking. Next to her stood a blond man in his fifties, who was holding a file folder in one hand and the little boy’s hand in the other.

“Ms. Redmond!” Grace yelled as Maggie came to the group. “Tell them to get my baby out of that car!”

“Who are you, please?” the dumpy woman asked Maggie, looking disinterested in the answer.

Maggie pulled her ID and opened the leather case. “Lt. Redmond with the Sheriff’s Office. What’s going on?”

“We’re removing the children from Miss Carpenter’s custody.” The woman said it as though Maggie ought to know already.

“Why? Do you even know this girl?”

“She was negligent in having them in this…environment, and in having them here in the middle of a violent arrest. This is not a safe situation for the children.”

Maggie swept a hand toward Grace. “She risked her
life
to get these kids out of their situation!”

“She risked their lives by having them in it,” the woman said, her voice raised.

“They were being held against her will!”

The woman took advantage of the fact that Grace reached up to wipe her face, and she pulled the little girl to her, handed her off to the blond man.

“No!” Grace yelled. “These are my children!”

“Mama!’ the little boy cried.

“Mr. Howard,” the woman said to the blond man, and he started walking the kids to the SUV.

“Please! You don’t understand—”

“You don’t understand, ma’am,” the woman interrupted.

“Where are you taking the children?” Maggie asked her.

“They’ll be placed in a caring foster home for the moment, and we’re in contact with their father’s parents. We’ll be discussing possible placement with them after proper screening.”

“Sure, ’cause they did a great job of raising
their
kid!” Maggie snapped.

“Miss Carpenter will be permitted to present her case,” the woman said. “Everyone’s just going to have to trust us and trust the process.”

“Trust you?” Grace shrieked. “Three of my teachers called you people and you still left me with my daddy so he could keep putting his hands up my dress! You don’t care! You take kids away from good parents and leave them with animals!”

The woman didn’t deign to answer, simply started walking toward the tan sedan.

“No!” Grace yelled.

Maggie followed the woman.

“Hold up,” she said, and the woman stopped, throwing a sigh in Maggie’s direction.

“Can I take the kids? I’ll take them,” Maggie said it before she’d even thought it.

“No, you will not, and this is not the purview of the Sheriff’s office.”

“She loves her children!” Maggie said, forcing herself not to yell.

“Love isn’t everything,” the woman said, and Maggie wanted to punch her sanctimonious face. She held up a hand instead. “Wait here. Do not move.”

She jogged over to Mike and spoke quietly. “This isn’t right, Mike.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he said, almost whispering. “They call and ask for an escort, we have to come.”

“Who can we call?”

“I don’t know. I mean, we’re usually the ones that call
them
, you know? I don’t know who you call
about
them. A judge maybe?”

Maggie rolled her eyes and thought a minute, but came up empty. When she turned around, the woman was getting into the front passenger side of the sedan and the blond man had started the engine.

Maggie jogged to the passenger window.

“What’s your supervisor’s name?”

“Nancy McFarland is our director. You’re more than welcome to discuss this with her, but this isn’t actually your problem.”

Maggie felt dangerously close to pulling the woman out of the window by her face. “Yes, it is.”

“Wait!” Grace shrieked, and Maggie turned around. Grace was running out the front door, a blue teddy bear clutched in her hand.

“Wait!” Grace yelled again, and ran to the back window of the car, which was closed. “Tammi needs him!’ She put a palm on the window, but the blond woman didn’t lower it.

“Give it to me, please,” the other woman said, her hand out the window.

Grace put the bear in her hand and the woman tossed it onto the seat beside her. Grace leaned toward the window and looked in the back seat.

“Don’t be scared! Don’t be scared, Mama’ll get you!”

The window hummed closed in Grace’s face and the SUV and sedan pulled away. Maggie stood there with her hands on her hips for a moment, then looked at Grace, who was watching the kids ride away.

“I’ll get someone to help us, Grace. I promise. They’ll be back.”

Grace turned to her, her pale, thin face wet with tears.

“They don’t come back,” she said. “When they leave them, they never come back to get ’em, and when they take ’em, they don’t come back, either. I’ve known these people all my
life
!”

Grace’s face crumpled and Maggie stepped to her and put her arms around her. Grace leaned against her, her face in Maggie’s shoulder, and let out just one wail. Then she straightened up and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“Grace? I’m going to find someone to help you. And I’ll speak on your behalf. We’ll go to court if we have to.”

Grace nodded, but Maggie wasn’t sure she was listening.

“You shouldn’t stay here by yourself,” Maggie said. “Do you want to come with me? Do you want to stay the night?”

Grace hugged her arms around herself and stood up a little straighter.

“No ma’am. No, thank you. I’m stayin’ right here until you or somebody brings my kids back.”

Maggie didn’t know what else to say. She reached out and squeezed Grace’s birdlike shoulder. “You call me if you need to. I’ll call you as soon as I know something, okay?”

Grace nodded and Maggie hesitated a moment, then headed for her car.

“Sorry, Maggie,” Mike said as she passed.

She nodded, then got into her Jeep and pulled away.

M
aggie pulled into the Piggly Wiggly almost automatically, although she’d lost her appetite for spinach pizza and Ovaltine.

Once she parked, she grabbed her phone, slid through her contacts list, and dialed the State’s Attorney’s office.

“State’s Attorney’s Office,” a woman answered.

“Is Patrick Boudreaux in, please?”

“I’m sorry, he’s left for the day. Can anyone else help you?”

“No, thank you.”

“Would you like to leave a message?”

“No. Thanks.”

Maggie hung up and sighed. It was after five. The storm clouds were so low that she was pretty sure she could reach up and see how full they were. It was almost dark, though hours early for darkness.

She got out of the car and went in to find something that would make her feel like everything was as it should be.

Thirty minutes later, Maggie ran to the Jeep just as the first few huge drops began to fall. She tossed the bag onto the passenger seat and climbed in, and the sky fell the instant she closed her door. The rain sounded like hoof beats on her roof, and across the parking lot, the Sabal palms were thrashing.