The Kindness of Strangers (29 page)

There. They’d said it. The gerbil wheel went crazy. Something was screwed up in a big, bad way. But maybe . . . maybe this meant he wasn’t in as big of trouble as he thought.

He pressed a hand to his chest, wanting the wheel to stop. “I don’t wanna go back to school.”

Reece nodded at Jordan. “You can be privately tutored. We already looked into that. I can talk to your teachers and get your assignments.”

Nate had told him he’d found the disks. But Nate had also told him there were no pictures of Jordan’s mom.

How long before his mom realized that nobody had seen that disk?

And where was it?

Jordan didn’t know for certain whether or not Danny had nosed into his backpack, but he knew for damn sure that someone had gotten there before Nate.

Chapter Fourteen
Sarah

S
arah stood in the Children’s Services lobby waiting for Reece. He was twenty minutes late, and it felt like an omen: She wouldn’t be allowed to foster Jordan. She hated the weak part of herself that wondered if she should wish for that? If she didn’t get approved, she’d be saved from her own insanity, saved from having to eventually deal in some fashion with Courtney.
And
she would still be on Nate’s side, able to commiserate with him about how unfair it all was.

But the prospect that she might be denied made her chest ache. She clutched a bulging manila envelope containing all the documentation the agency requested, but her hands felt slick on the paper, and she tucked the envelope under her arm and wiped her hands on her tan linen pants. This morning she’d recognized a realization that she
needed
to foster Jordan, to deal with and process in some way what had happened. She didn’t want to think too much about that realization; it scared her. She wished Reece would get here.

She ought to be relieved for a moment to rest, to simply stop moving. Her schedule was insane today, and the addition of Jordan threatened to make more days like this one. She mentally checked off what she’d already accomplished:

1. Made and delivered ten pounds of cilantro-lime crab salad for a corporate lunch.

2. Met with Ali over lunch to get her fourth and final personal recommendation for her fostering file.

Still to do today:

3. Meet with Reece to deliver her fostering file paperwork.

4. Meet with Dr. McConnel, Jordan’s therapist. (Sarah prayed Dr. McConnel was on schedule, or the remainder of the list would be thrown off.)

5. Pick up Danny and take him to
his
therapist on the other side of town.

6. Get back to the house by six for the home visit. Nate had promised to have dinner ready. Sarah guessed the social workers would be seeing them how they really operated.

Something Ali’d said at lunch nagged at Sarah. When Sarah had worked up the nerve to announce, “I got asked out on a date,” Ali had responded with, “He asked you already?”

Ali had grinned and leaned toward her. “This is sooo cool. What did you say? What did you tell him?”

“How do you know about it?” Sarah felt the sweetness of her secret tainted. “He told you?”

“He just wanted to know your circumstances, if you were available. Tell me, what did you say?” Ali clapped her hands together like a little girl.

“I said I couldn’t.”

Ali’s face fell. “Why?”

“He understood. He’d just been at the school that day with the whole Danny fiasco. I only said not right now.”

“Wait a minute. Who are you talking about?”

“Detective Kramble.”

“
Kramble
asked you out?”

Sarah blinked. “Who were
you
talking about?”

Ali laughed, and Sarah felt her stomping her feet under the table.

“Who did you think I was talking about?” Sarah insisted.

Ali grinned and looked around the crowded diner. “Oh . . . I just thought you meant someone else. No big deal.”

“Who did you mean? Someone from the hospital?” Sarah tried to run through all the doctors and technicians she knew, but they were all way too young or married.

Ali leaned across the table again. “You said
no
to Kramble? What’s wrong with you? He’s got a good job, he’s great with kids, and my God, Sarah, are you
blind
?”

Kramble’s long dark lashes and broad shoulders flooded into her memory. But she shook her head. “If you think he’s so sexy,
you
go out with him.”

Ali made a face. “Very funny. Not my type, remember?”

“Of course. And that’s precisely why
your
endorsement of him as datable material doesn’t carry much weight.”

Ali grinned. “Oh, come on. Can’t
you
appreciate an attractive woman and recognize her beauty even if it would never cross your mind to sleep with her?”

Sarah realized how she’d been tricked. She’d allowed the subject to shift. Who had Ali been talking about? Sarah caught her beleaguered reflection in a glass lobby display. Who would be interested in her? Was it the radiologist who x-rayed Nate’s jaw after a hockey fight last year? She’d forgotten his name, but he was cute, and he’d been flirtatious.

And now that she thought about it, Kramble
was
sexy even if it was hard to separate his sexiness from the fact that he was a child-sexual-abuse detective, a person possibly abused himself. Even though some dangerous unknowns prowled the edges of the fantasy, her fingers longed for the furry down that his shirt collars hinted at, promising fine softness across his chest, growing coarser, she imagined, beyond his flat stomach.

Roy’s belly had been soft. Not fat, but soft. Comfortable. Just like their sex—no talking, no wondering, no figuring it out. She could lose herself. It was joyful.

With Kramble it wouldn’t be comforting. It would be new, unfamiliar, slightly terrifying. But . . . the terror made her feel alive. Just the possibility made her feel lighter. Younger. More beautiful. She turned her head to the side, still examining her reflection in the display window, but the new angle caused the reflection to shift, and her face was replaced with an image of Reece approaching the front door, arms laden with file folders.

God help her, was it
Reece
? She fought the urge to run away and hide. She felt naked facing him with this thought in her head.

She turned to see him push the door open with his back. “Thanks for waiting, Sarah. Sorry I’m late.” He shook his head. “A little visit this morning turned into a removal. Took the police forever to get there. Follow me.”

She did, relieved to be behind him as he led her down a narrow hallway.

“You removed kids from their home?” she asked.

“Yup.”

“God . . . why?”

He sighed. “The usual. Inadequate guardianship.”

They reached his office, and he unlocked the door and dumped the armload of files on his already cluttered desk. He sat down, his face drawn and weary. Sarah sat in the chair across from his desk in the tiny room. “What’s that mean, ‘inadequate guardianship’?”

He rubbed his face with his hands. “This morning it meant Mom was too stoned to keep her robe closed while we were there. No food in the cupboards or fridge.”

“Why did you need the police?” Sarah pictured a SWAT team busting down doors.

Reece took his hands away from his face and leaned back in his chair. “You think it’s easy to take someone’s children away from them? It doesn’t matter what twisted things they do to their kids themselves, they’d easier let you cut off their hands.”

Sarah looked at Reece with newfound respect. She tried to picture someone taking her kids away. She scratched at the hint of a scab remaining on the back of her hand and looked around the tiny office while he dug through some papers on his desk. There was little decoration. Some photos of kids on a bulletin board, yellow and orange Post-it notes all over the walls, most of them with names, addresses, and phone numbers. A few had fallen to the floor, which made Sarah vaguely anxious.

He picked up a pencil and looked across the desk at her. “Okay. Let’s check this off.”

She reached into her crammed envelope. “I have everything you asked for. Here are medical reports for me and the kids. All healthy.”

He chuckled. “I figured.”

“Verification of car insurance, verification of income, copy of my driver’s license, my substitute-care plan—oh, and did you get the criminal-records check for Lila Ripley, my neighbor? She’s the substitute-care provider. She and Gwinn Whitacre.”

“Yeah. They both checked out clean. So did you.”

“Did you expect otherwise?”

He raised his eyebrows in mock seriousness. “You seem the dangerous type to me, Sarah Laden. I had no idea at all what I might unearth on you.”

She liked that thought, and she liked that Reece might think it, but she laughed and said, “Please. Here’s the copies of my utility bills and proof of residency. I don’t have pet vaccination records because Libby, our vet, says there’s no shots a rabbit needs.”

He laughed and held up his hands as if in surrender. “I wish everybody was as good at this as you.”

The envelope was empty. “Well . . . that’s everything. What now?”

“Just the home visit this evening and a final crash-course pep talk.” He sorted through the documents, assembling them in a specific order, then set the stack of papers aside. “Have you had lunch?” His tone was hopeful and implied that he was starving.

Sarah smiled an apology. “I just came from lunch with Ali.”

“Yeah? Oh. Well.” He picked up the stack again and shuffled Sarah’s documents around on the desk. Did he suspect Ali’d spilled his secret? Sarah felt certain he was the one Ali had meant.

“But, Reece, if you haven’t eaten, I can get a coffee or something. I have more than an hour to kill before I meet Dr. McConnel, and it doesn’t make sense to drive home, then drive back to this side of town.”

“You sure you don’t mind?”

“Not a bit.”

She rode in his car, which was clean but full of files, empty water bottles, and a clear plastic bag of lollipops. He had a bumper sticker that read,
CHILDREN SHOULD BE SEEN AND HEARD
. . .
AND BELIEVED
. He drove her to a small dive of a place painted teal with pink shutters. Sarah was glad she’d already eaten—until she stepped inside. The aromas sent her back to summertime meals in her Grandma Ruthie’s kitchen. She was sorry to order only coffee.

Reece ordered fried chicken livers and Swiss chard. “You grow any greens in that garden of yours?” Reece asked.

“I grow some mustard greens that’ll kick your butt.”

“I’ve got a great recipe for greens,” he said. “You start with some olive oil in a pan.”

She nodded.

“Sauté some onions in there. Throw in some garlic—”

She had to laugh. “You know that’s the start of every good recipe in the world, right, Reece? You could throw your shoes in there and they’d taste good!”

He laughed, a rich, resonant sound that bubbled up from his belly.

“You should make this recipe for me,” she said, a thrill rippling through her.

He raised his eyebrows, and she froze. She’d let Kramble’s offer make her giddy. God, was she
flirting
? Flirting with her possible foster kid’s case manager? That was classy.

“Sure,” he said. “I’d love to.” He smiled.

Sarah turned her coffee cup around in its saucer. “Maybe once Jordan comes to live with us—I mean, if I pass this inspection.”

“Sarah, don’t you get it? There’s still the home visit, but unless we discover that you’re running a crack house or keeping seventy-four cats or something, you passed.”

“Really?” It seemed anticlimactic and unreal. She didn’t feel terror or excitement. She really didn’t feel anything except this vague weight of,
What have I done?

Reece watched her, and Sarah felt as though she were standing before an open oven. She touched her cheeks, but Reece looked down at his plate, spearing up more greens.

Sarah cleared her throat. “So what happens next? How soon will a trial start?”

“Good question. Bobby Kramble’s been an amazing advocate for Jordan, and he’s committed to getting this trial under way as soon as possible.”

A surge of pleasure moved through Sarah at hearing Kramble spoken well of. And she liked that Reece called him “Bobby.”

“I like how he’s been with Jordan,” Reece said. “He’s gone slow, invested time in the kid, built a relationship with him.” He sipped his iced tea. “Even so, this mess’ll probably drag on over a year. At least. You need to start assessing how long you’re willing to have Jordan in your home. And how you might feel about adoption.”

The room slanted. “Adoption?”

“Don’t panic. I just want to be honest with you. My official recommendation is that Courtney’s parental rights be terminated. Mark’s aren’t even in question. In Ohio only two crimes carry possible life sentences: murder and raping a child under thirteen. He’s got multiple counts, plus the porn. Even if we don’t get life for him, we’ll have no problem dumping his custody. And Courtney has filed for divorce.”