The Children

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“Pam, I need the Gillespie file. Can you grab it for me?” Billy Jo said as she finished scribbling her notes. When she realized she hadn’t heard anything in reply, she looked over to the open door of her office and leaned back in her chair, her laptop open, listening, expecting to hear footsteps, but she heard nothing.

“Pam…” she called out again, scooting her chair way back, looking to the darkened hallway, really listening. But it was quiet.

Too quiet.

She pushed back her chair and stepped into the dimly lit hall to see a darkened front door and no Pam. When she pulled back the sleeve of her navy shirt and looked at her watch, it was only ten after four.

“You couldn’t even tell me you were leaving?” she muttered. Pam didn’t report to her, but wasn’t it a matter of courtesy?

Billy Jo walked over to the file cabinet and pulled open the second drawer, where she knew “G” was halfway down, seeing how packed full it was with paper and files, every one of them signifying a child and family in trouble.

“Gillespie, where are you?” She spotted the thick labeled file and pulled it out, realizing another file had been stuck inside it. She walked the bundle over to Pam’s cleared-off desk and opened it to see a stack of papers, with notes written on the inside of the folder, as well.

She pulled out the inside file and spotted “Rae, Deena” scribbled in pen on the tab, and she found herself really looking at all the notes by Link Stone, an older social worker from a year ago or maybe earlier—notes and numbers, with what looked like dollar amounts listed:

$2,384

$1,177

$129

$4,584

She didn’t have a clue what any of it meant.

She flicked her gaze to the Gillespie file and then back to the Rae file before unfolding a thick piece of paper from the latter. An envelope slipped out and fell to the industrial gray carpet. She bent down and picked it up.

“What is this?” She took in the folded envelope with “Link Stone” scribbled messily in pencil on the front. It was unsealed, so she opened it and found a check inside, the kind of state check she was familiar with.

The amount of $834 was made out to Deena Rae, and from the color of the check and the date, she knew it was from over a year earlier. “Who is Deena Rae?” she said, recalling the file had been tucked inside the Gillespie file. She flipped the check over again to see that Deena Rae had in turn signed it over to Link Stone.

What the hell?

Billy Jo looked up and over to the tinted industrial windows. This seemed both off and wrong. When her cell phone started ringing, she glanced over her shoulder to her office but turned back to the file, to the check she was holding. She flipped through the pages of notes, looking for an intake form or something, her brow furrowing. There was a photo: dark hair, Hispanic, she thought, and not very old, maybe early teens, with the same haunted mugshot expression she was familiar with.

“Now, why is a check for Deena Rae signed over to you, Link…?”

The locked front door rattled, and then came a pounding. Her cell phone was ringing again, too. She looked over to see her guy on the other side of the door. Mark wore a jean jacket and blue jeans, and damn, did he look good. Check in hand, she strode to the door in her sandals and faded jeans and flicked open the lock.

He pulled the door open, and her heart did a flip-flop. “You didn’t answer,” he said.

“Sorry, was trying to figure out a mystery.” She held up the check and took in his frown in reply. Was this that feeling everyone talked about, that honeymoon phase, where she wanted to spend every second around him?

His gaze lingered, and she wondered if he knew what she was thinking. He reached for the check and really looked at it, turning it over. It was the cop in him that made him too perfect for her. “What is this?”

She started walking, feeling him right behind her, so close. His hand slid over her back as she neared Pam’s desk. “I was looking for a file and found this one tucked inside it, for a Deena Rae, whom I’ve never seen before. That check was in this envelope. Not sure why it was signed over to Link Stone. He was a social worker here a year ago, maybe, I think.”

His hand fell away, but he was standing so close to her, looking over her at the file. She didn’t need to touch him because there was barely an inch between them, just like when they were sleeping. She never would have believed sleeping next to someone would be something she could get used to.

“I take it this is unusual?” he said. Damn, he was handsome when he was trying to figure something out. This was the man she could see herself with forever.

“Yeah. I mean, what is this check even for? Deena Rae… I’m thinking this is her photo. Young, by the looks of it, and she signed over a check. Why? It hasn’t been cashed.”

“You know, Billy Jo, it could be for a dozen reasons. Maybe she didn’t have a bank account. You found it in the file?”

She nodded. “Yup, tucked in an envelope right here, with Link’s name on it. I don’t know, Mark. That doesn’t make sense. If a youth is getting a check from the state, she doesn’t sign it over to a social worker.”

Mark was holding the check back out to her, and she could see he was done with the topic as he glanced to the door and back to her. “You almost finished? I want to grab some dinner. Carmen’s on tonight, so thought we’d do a steak and then head home.”

And that was it. He wasn’t going to ask anything else.

She tucked the check back in the envelope and closed up the file. “Yeah, I’m done. So that’s it?”

He seemed distracted. “I’m hungry,” he said. “It’s a check. You’re sure it wasn’t cashed?”

Her brow knit. “Yeah,” she said. “This is odd.”

He let out a sigh. “Look, you said he hasn’t worked here in how long? So an uncashed check is stuck in a file. Seems like bureaucracy at its finest. I’m sure there’s an explanation, Billy Jo, that doesn’t involve us standing here, trying to figure out something that likely happened long ago. Maybe a new check was issued, or maybe it was a mistake. But the last thing I want to do after the day I’ve had is get tied up in some wild goose chase. Please let’s go eat.”

She was about to argue with him, and she wondered if that was why he pulled her close, right against him, and then leaned down and kissed her. She entwined her arms around his neck when he pulled back, appearing distracted.

“You okay?” she said. “Something happen today?”

He stepped back, which was also unlike him, and a shadow flickered across his expression. “Just the stress of being chief on an island where it seems like I’m constantly wading into a minefield of politics run rampant. Just once, you know, I’d like to not have to wonder what kind of bullshit is going to come out of the closet.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. He really was not having a good day.

“Council still giving you problems?”

“Seems they’re always doing something—but, believe it or not, today it’s not them. Seems the state has suddenly flagged Carmen as a homegrown terrorist.” He wasn’t smiling.

She waited for the teasing, but his pissed-off expression remained in place. “Carmen, our Carmen?”

He angled his head. “My reaction exactly. I spent the rest of the day on the phone, being sent from one career politician to the next as each agency said it wasn’t their department. I finally called the Feds, talked with an Agent Kruger in the Seattle office. Seems Carmen Zarko is a common name. I expected him to say he’d fix it, but guess what? It’s not that simple.”

She knew she was frowning. “And how did you find this out?”

He brushed back his jean jacket as he rested his hands on his hips, those hands that stirred so much in her, and she took in his holstered gun, his badge. “Well, funny thing. I convinced Carmen to take some time off, so she called her sister—you know, the one who has her kid? She worked something out and was going to fly down there, but she went to book her ticket and her name was flagged. She walked into my office, and I’ve never seen that look on her face before. I told her there had to be an explanation. It seems someone flagged her even though the Carmen Zarko who’s supposed to be on the list is a different Carmen, ten years older, and lives in Ecuador, part of some militia. All I got was runaround after runaround, from ‘It’s not my department,’ to ‘Sorry, I understand your frustration,’ to ‘Submit a request in writing to the state department.’ But, as the agent I was talking to said, I’ll need good luck, because Carmen has a better chance of winning the lottery than getting this fixed.” He let out a heavy sigh.

“So…” she started.

“So I told her to take an extra few days and drive. She told me thanks for trying. You know, sometimes, Billy Jo, the incompetence amazes me.”

She ran her hand over his arm. “So steak it is,” she said. At least now she knew why he wasn’t interested in helping her with this mystery.

“And your company,” he said as she slid her hands over his shoulders again, feeling how tight he was. He pulled her closer and patted her bottom. “You ready?”

She still needed to figure out why a signed check for Deena Rae was in that file. Then there was the Gillespie file and the paperwork she needed to finish. “Let me just grab my purse and my phone.”

He had that brooding look. She knew he was there for everyone. She kissed him again and then stepped away, starting back to the office, before she turned back to him.

“You know, Mark, you can do only what you can do.”

He let his gaze linger. “That doesn’t make me feel any better,” he said. He looked over to the open files she had left on Pam’s desk, files she planned to dig into, but tonight she needed to be there for Mark with dinner and a backrub. Tomorrow, she’d figure out what the story was with Deena Rae and the social worker, Link Stone. Opening that file had thrown her into another mystery she knew she wouldn’t be able to turn away from.

She grabbed her purse and sweater and tucked her phone inside her bag. When she stepped out of the office, there was her quiet, brooding Mark, holding the check, looking at the file. All she could think of was something her mom had said, that sometimes you had to put aside your own worries to be there for someone you loved.