Forever Beach Read online

  Reesa had called in a Dodd removal—no court order. The neighbor was frightened, and Reesa had promised to come get Pete as soon as the other two were safely out of the apartment. But it had taken an hour for her to get the go-ahead and for the police to arrive.

  The four officers stood back; Reesa stepped up to the door and knocked. Waited for a count of four. Knocked again.

  “Ms. White? It’s Reesa Davis from the Child Protection office. May I come in?”

  Reesa could feel the officers ready themselves for a forced entry. Nobody liked to have to do that. You never knew what you’d find on the other side of that locked door.

  Reesa knocked again. “Ms. White? You need to open the door now.”

  No response.

  Reesa knocked again louder. “Ms. White, I need to see the children. If you don’t open the door, we’ll have to use force to enter. And you will probably be taken into custody.”

  Finally she heard a chain being slipped out. The door opened a crack. And a hollow-eyed woman stared out at her. “Go away. There’s nothing wrong here.” She started to close the door.

  There was something terribly wrong. Suddenly the woman was yanked away from the door, but before it could slam shut, the officers forced their way past Reesa and into the apartment.

  There was screaming and sounds of fighting. Reesa waited outside for the all clear. Minutes later, as two of the policemen dragged a man out and toward the stairs, a third officer motioned her in.

  Ms. White sat on a sagging couch. Her face was chalky gray. Greasy strands of hair hung limp at her shoulders. Skinny arms clutched at her middle as she rocked back and forth, whimpering, “Whatcha done with Darrell?” The neighbor had said she was in her thirties, but she looked much older.

  Reesa looked quickly around the room. It was disgusting. And hot. An oscillating table fan did little more than push around the stale air and odors.

  She should take pictures, but at the moment she was more intent on finding the two children. She crossed the stained shag carpet. Drug paraphernalia was strewn across a coffee table, and beer cans littered every surface. She walked past the kitchen area that was being used for storage or maybe garbage. It didn’t look like a place where food was prepared. Definitely a firetrap.

  One officer stayed guarding the door, keeping one eye on Ms. White. The other followed Reesa across the room.

  She stepped into a second room and gagged. Behind her, the policeman said, “Shit.”

  He was right. The place smelled like a sewer and was sweltering. It had to be in the nineties.

  There were no lights on, so she groped along the wall and found a switch. The light didn’t work.

  “Can you open a window?” she asked, then covered her mouth and nose with her hand, while the officer groped his way across the room. He tore away a blanket that they’d tacked to the window frame and forced open the sash, which let in a little air and enough light to show an unmade bed, stained and encrusted with filth, and a boy curled up in a ball, looking at Reesa with dull eyes.

  He was so malnourished he couldn’t even be afraid.

  Reesa had to force herself to move closer. This was the worst situation she’d seen in a long time. If ever.

  She didn’t sit on the mattress but leaned over to the boy, careful to keep her clothes from touching anything.

  “Hello, sweetheart, I’m Mrs. Davis, and I’m going to take you to get some food.”

  His eyes closed.

  “Sweetheart?” Reesa said quietly.

  The boy’s eyes opened slowly, blinked as if he were emerging from a hypnotic trance.

  “Honey,” Reesa said. “Can you tell me where the baby is?”

  Nothing.

  Reesa looked around; there was a crib, but it looked like it was being used as a laundry basket. She didn’t want to look more closely, but she had to find that baby.

  She moved toward it and forced herself to peer down through the dirty clothes. The child was there, covered in a T-shirt too big for him, no diaper.

  Reesa bit back a cry, moved closer. For a terrified moment she thought she was too late. She forced herself to touch the skin. It was warm; the little mouth moved, a slight sucking motion, so minute a movement that Reesa at first wondered if she was willing it to life. She leaned toward it to make sure; yes, the baby was sucking.

  “Officer, call the EMTs. We’ll need a pediatric harness and an infant carrier.”

  He was still staring at the kid on the bed, his face twisted in the same emotions Reesa was feeling herself. Shock, disgust, compassion.

  “Officer!”

  He jolted to life. Grabbed his radio and began giving orders as he walked out of the room.

  Reesa forced herself to return to the first boy. He was still alive. But for how long?

  And rage bubbled up and tore through her.

  She tried to force it back down. Tried to remember the times when things worked out, where parents did care and would be reunited, like last week and the Valentis. A couple who had fallen on hard times but who worked hard and who loved and deserved their children.

  She stopped herself. She wasn’t supposed to make emotional judgments, but today she couldn’t help it. She wanted to lash out, yell at that piece of humanity sitting out on the couch, worried about her boyfriend.

  A siren whined in the distance coming nearer and, after an eternity, footsteps sounded on the stairs. Reesa waited by the bedroom door and directed the EMTs to where two children lay near death.

  She stepped aside, but not before she saw the revulsion on the emergency workers’ faces. They recovered instantly. While one prepared the harness, the other two slid the boy onto the gurney.

  A second team came in behind them, lugging an infant carrier. They moved toward the crib as Reesa followed the first gurney out of the room.

  The mother just sat there sniffling while they hooked Jerome up to an IV. But when the second EMT came out carrying that small bundle, she threw herself off the couch. “What are you doing? Put my baby back! You can’t take my baby!”

  One of the policemen restrained her as the EMTs strapped the infant carrier onto a second gurney.

  “There’s one more at a neighbor’s,” Reesa told them and started toward the door.

  Ms. White broke away from the officer and lunged after Reesa. “You can’t take them. You can’t take my babies. You bitch! You . . .” She yelled a string of profanity that echoed down the dirty hallway.

  Reesa took the stairs down to the first floor where hopefully she would find the oldest boy still alive.

  She was almost afraid to knock. But it was her job. “Ms. McKinney, it’s Reesa Davis from Child Protection. I’m here to take Pete where he can be cared for.”

  Ms. McKinney called, “Coming, I’m coming,” with a thick Jamaican accent.

  The chain rattled, the door opened, and Ms. McKinney opened the door. She was an older woman, with white cottony hair, dressed in a faded housedress and slippers. “Poor children. I didn’t know. I didn’t see until today.” She stepped back to let Reesa in.

  “It’s not your fault. You were brave to come forward. If you have any trouble because of this, call this number.” She handed the old woman her card. “If you fear for your safety, call 911 immediately.”

  “Always fear for my safety here.”

  “I’m going to have a colleague of mine give you a call, and see if we can do something about that, okay?”

  Ms. McKinney nodded and shuffled back to the kitchen where Pete sat at a scrubbed kitchen table, clutching a loaf of bread.

  “Hi, Pete,” Reesa said, trying not to let her voice betray her.

  “She said I could have it,” Pete said, nodding to Ms. McKinney. “I didn’t steal it.”

  “You sure can have it,” the old woman said in a lilting way that in spite of the horror of the situation had a calming effect on both Reesa and Pete.

  “Your brothers are waiting for you downstairs, Pete,” Reesa said. “We’re going to
a place where you can get cleaned up and eat and stay until everything is better.”

  Pete shook his head.

  “Your brothers are waiting for you.”

  “Can’t go.”

  “Why?”

  “Gotta take care of her.”

  Reesa froze. “Your sister? Pete, do you have a sister?”

  Pete shook his head. “My mama.”

  Reesa and Ms. McKinney exchanged looks over Pete’s head.

  There were no words.

  “Pete, your mama’s going to someplace to get help. Someone will look after her.”

  He seemed to crumple, too tired and malnourished to argue. He let Reesa lead him to the ambulance, but he wouldn’t let go of that loaf of bread.

  Chapter 3

  Ilona Cartwright dropped her files into her briefcase and snapped it shut. It felt good to win. Fortunately she usually did. Actually fortune didn’t have much to do with it. She was good. She worked hard for her clients. Harder than most of them understood. And harder than some of them deserved.

  Today’s clients, armed with hugs and tears and thank-yous, had already left the courtroom, and the next case was ready to take their place.

  “Nice work, Counselor.”

  Ilona nodded an acknowledgment to Barry O’Doul who was up next. She didn’t much like Barry, all show and not enough jurisprudence for Ilona’s taste. She’d seen him work a jury until they were completely befuddled and doing it without one proven fact. All he lacked was a top hat and ringmaster whip.

  He exuded confidence, like he had a case all wrapped up before he even entered the courtroom, but beneath the show, there was almost always flaky evidentiary support.

  Ilona didn’t have that problem.

  “All yours,” she said and slid her briefcase off the table.

  Another pro bono case cleared. Another family reunited, at least until they fell on the next hard time or got deported. But her work was done.

  The only decision she had to make now was whether to go back to the office before she went home and what wine to have with dinner while she read over the brief for her next divorce case.

  It was going to be a circus. Lots of money on the table. Several houses to haggle over. Lies and innuendos volleying back and forth. Her client had sued for the divorce, the husband had countersued. And the fun really began.

  He was a piece of work; then again so was his wife. At least there were no children to suffer.

  Ilona didn’t like either of them very much. She would do her best for her client regardless. But she wouldn’t lose sleep over the verdict.

  She ran into Josie Green, the caseworker for the Sanchez family who had just been given their children back.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Josie said.

  “They clearly had the right to reunite their family. Let’s just hope they don’t let us down.”

  Josie nodded seriously. She was young, white, fired up with good intentions. Ilona gave her eight months. People like Josie with their zealous enthusiasm burned out faster than the ones who didn’t really give a shit. Too bad really, but it was the nature of the job.

  The elevator came, and the two of them crowded in with the other attorneys, clerks, and caseworkers who were finished for the day or just going out for a smoke.

  The smokers got off on the first floor to huddle around the ash cans outside the entry door; the others rode all the way to the parking garage.

  “Well, thanks again,” Josie said.

  “My pleasure.”

  Josie climbed into an ancient blue Hyundai. Pitiful, Ilona thought as she walked to the end of the ramp and beeped open her silver Mercedes. She placed her briefcase on the passenger seat, slipped out of her linen jacket, laid it neatly on top of the briefcase, and slid into the driver’s seat.

  Two blocks later, she hit the afternoon sun and rush-hour traffic. She didn’t have time for traffic. It always put her in a bad mood. On a whim she made the next left turn and drove east. She’d take the ocean road to her condo even though the route took her closer than she liked to her old home. If you could call it that.

  All the wealth that money could buy and not one damn drop of love or compassion or kindness anywhere. That was okay. Ilona had made them pay for the privilege of adopting her. She’d worked them for clothes, toys, cars, four years of college, and a law degree from Yale.

  Once they started paying, they couldn’t very well stop. And they were proud of it. She had the pictures to prove it, and so did every newspaper and magazine on the East Coast.

  “Here’s to you . . . Mom and Dad.” She lifted her hand in an imaginary toast. She’d have a full-bodied cabernet with her filet tonight in their honor.

  SARAH FELT PRETTY depleted when she drove away from the beach. The prospect of going to court again was daunting enough and the fact that she’d blown off Wyatt made her feel guilty. And sad. They’d known each other for years. Were good friends. Lovers. She was pretty sure she loved him, but did she love him enough to jeopardize her life with Leila?

  Especially if she had to go to court. They’d be looking at everything about her, question everything she’d ever done.

  She knew their first commandment was to reunite the child with the birth family.

  She could just hear them accusing her.

  “Do you have men friends stay over?”

  It wouldn’t matter that it was one friend, who was a good guy, who saved lives when he wasn’t running his dive business. And who would love both her and Leila if she gave him half a chance.

  “Do you drink?”

  Not how much. Just yes or no. Just the occasional glass of wine or beer. I never get drunk and never enough for me to neglect my duties.

  “Have you ever taken drugs?”

  Not since I got out of child services, Your Honor.

  Too bad women didn’t have to answer those questions before they had babies.

  She took a deep breath. She could see Sam’s face like he was sitting next to her. Don’t let your anger trip you up or bite you in the ass. Don’t worry about the then or the what-ifs. Fix the now.

  Maybe she was overreacting.

  Karen had left a note on the door: Sarah, we’re in the backyard, come on in.

  Sarah opened the door and walked down the hall to the playroom now empty of girls but occupied by fourteen-year-old Rory, who was intent over the controls of a NASCAR video game.

  She didn’t interrupt his concentration to say hi, but opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the brick patio, where Karen sat in a lawn chair while Tammy, Bessie, and Leila, dressed in swimsuits, splashed in a plastic pool.

  “You don’t mind, do you? Rory wanted the television, and the girls hadn’t been out all day.”

  “It’s fine,” Sarah said, smiling. Leila was wearing one of Bessie’s swimsuits, and it sagged nearly to her knees.

  Karen poured Sarah a glass of iced tea and motioned her to the second lawn chair. “Did you get in touch with Reesa?”

  “Yeah.” Sarah took a long sip of the tea and set it on the table.

  “What did she say?”

  “She was in the middle of removing three children from their home and couldn’t really talk. She just said that it might go to court, and if it did, I would probably need to get a better lawyer.”

  “Did she think it likely that it will go that far?”

  Sarah shrugged, not looking at Karen but at Leila laughing and splashing with the others. “Just that it’s best to be prepared and that she knew someone who might consider taking our case. Someone expensive.”

  “So no Randy?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “Who did she recommend?”

  “She didn’t give me a name. Her police backup came. She said she’d call.”

  “Bless her,” Karen said. “I couldn’t do it every day. Several times a day. Several days a week.”

  “I couldn’t either. But you do good work.”

  Karen laughed slightly. �
�I’m a good listener and hand-holder.”

  “Right. You know you do more than that.”

  “Maybe. But nothing close to what Reesa does. I don’t know how she stands it.” Karen looked out to the pool. “Five minutes, girls.”

  “Leila looks so happy,” Sarah said.

  “That’s because she is.” Karen put her glass on the table and leaned toward Sarah. “You’ve done what you can for today. Try to relax. Things will work out.”

  Sarah sighed. “From your lips . . .”

  “Yep, and to prove it, I found some hamburger in the freezer so we won’t be stuck with mac ’n’ cheese. Stu’s picking up rolls and chips on his way home.”

  Sarah felt like she should say they had to get home. She should cook something healthy that neither of them would enjoy nearly as much as burgers with the boisterous Wolcotts.

  “And don’t say that you can’t stay, because you can. And better to be with this family circus than to brood over stuff you have no control over.”

  Sarah knew Karen was right. She felt so helpless sometimes. Like all she could do was sit around and wait and she was capable of so much more.

  “I saw Wyatt.”

  “Recently?”

  “While I was gone.”

  “Good for you. Did he stop by the shop?”

  “No.” Sarah hesitated. She didn’t know why she’d blurted out that fact. Now she’d have to explain, and she didn’t even know how she felt or what had happened. “I parked down by the beach. He knocked on the car window while I was sitting there.”

  “And?”

  “Seems like I do nothing but piss him off.”

  “And push him away.”

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? I don’t want any hitches until Leila is adopted. After that we can see what might happen.”

  “If he’s still around.”

  Sarah’s stomach lurched. “What do you mean? Is he thinking about leaving?”

  “Not that I know of, but he may move on to someone who actually wants him.”

  “Well . . .” Sarah sort of wanted him. But she was sure it would cause trouble. Trouble that she didn’t need. Besides, she needed to give her total attention to Leila right now. “If it happens, it happens. I can’t deal with it right now.”