Ruth smiled at Laynie. “You gave me your card, remember?”
“I did.” But Laynie’s eyes narrowed in silent warning.
Ruth put her hand over her mouth and feigned a cough to give herself a moment to think.
If Owen is right about Laynie, she will not thank me for theorizing aloud as to why her card led us down a rabbit hole, Ruth realized.
“Do you need a sip of water, dear?” Polly asked. “Laynie, please fetch Ruth a glass of water.”
“Um, no. No, I’m fine. Really.” Ruth nodded to Laynie and hoped she understood. “Where was I? Oh, yes.
“While Laynie and I sat together on the plane, I could see that she was distressed. I asked if I could help, and Laynie told me she was going home to Seattle because of a family emergency.”
She glanced at Laynie again. “She told me her sister-in-law had passed away and that her brother Sammie was in critical condition. I told her I would pray for her and for her family.
“That night after I returned home, I dreamed about Laynie, only in my dream I kept confusing her with Kari. Again and again, Kari intruded into my dream—as did the word ‘Portland.’ When I woke up, it hit me: Laynie’s last name was Portland. It came clear to me in a rush that Laynie was Kari’s sister Elaine. I knew that meeting Laynie was an encounter arranged, not by chance, but by the sovereign hand of God.
“I rushed home and contacted Kari’s investigators. Those few pieces of information she had mentioned to me? Her last name of Portland, the city, Seattle, and the car accident? Those were enough. Kari’s investigators found reports of the accident.”
Ruth slipped a glance toward Laynie. The woman nodded, once, as though acknowledging Ruth’s discretion.
Ruth concluded. “By the time the investigators located Kelly’s obituary, Sammie—Stephen—had also passed away. The investigators found out about today’s memorial service only yesterday morning. We told Kari and made arrangements to fly here yesterday afternoon knowing Kari would not have such an opportunity to meet her sister again.”
The room settled into quiet as the listeners digested Ruth’s story.
“So we’re clear, Stephen and Kelly didn’t leave any money,” Don said. His tone was even but challenging.
“Don!” Talia stared aghast at her husband, as did the Greenes and Portlands.
“We shouldn’t ignore the elephant in the room,” he persisted. He directed his next comments to Kari. “What little money Stephen’s insurance policy pays out, goes to his children.”
Gene started to protest, but Kari lifted her hand. “I understand your concern, Don. I would feel the same, were I in your position. However, I can assure you that I have no designs on any of Stephen’s estate. In fact—”
“Then, let’s move on to the next topic,” Don said. “Who is going to take custody of Shannon and Robbie? Because, as you can see, Talia is pregnant and due in about five weeks. We will have four children in a three-bedroom house. We are in no position to take two more.”
He pointed to Laynie. “You are their aunt. You should move home and raise them.”
Every eye followed his finger. Laynie did not flinch; her placid expression did not alter, but inside all was turmoil.
Alvarsson would not allow me to quit. Marstead would not allow it. I am on the cusp of my relationship with Petroff, and he is too important an asset. And besides—
The old voices returned in force.
And besides, you are beyond redemption, Laynie. What would Sammie think of you, a spy and a whore, raising his children? He would want them raised as Christians—and you are the last person who could do so.
You made your choices years ago. It is too late to unmake them.
Kari, stunned at the turn in the conversation, stared with everyone else as Laynie said nothing and gave nothing away.
Moments ticked by before she answered.
“No. I’m sorry, but that will not be possible.”
“Really?” Don’s face reddened. “Not possible? You’re an executive—you can work anywhere! Isn’t it that you choose not to—”
Laynie leveled a sneer that quelled him. “I said it is not possible. It isn’t. Do not question my motives, Don.”
Bill and Mary blinked and looked to each other. “Then I guess we will take them,” Bill murmured. He addressed Gene and Polly with kindness and resignation. “We know you would offer if you were both younger, if Polly were well. We know that you’ll help out as you can.”
He turned to Talia and Don. “We don’t fault you. We understand that you can’t take them. Your quiver is already full with four children.”
Mary wiped her weary face. “We’ve had them since the accident anyway, but we’ll need to hire a permanent nanny.”
Mary looked around. “The days have not been too bad for the children, but we’re not spring chickens anymore, you know. Bill is closer to seventy than sixty and his heart is not what it used to be. Chasing active children around takes a toll.
“But the nights? They are not good. We are concerned. Shannon has had nightmares ever since the accident and Robbie wakes up crying for hours. He misses his mommy. It’s too much for us at our age.”
She sighed. “And frankly, if we have to hire a live-in nanny, I don’t know how we’ll handle the expense. The insurance Stephen left should be put in Shannon and Robbie’s college fund.”
“I’ll handle the expense,” Kari said.
Don’s mouth twisted in skepticism, but the others looked curious. Hopeful.
“Whatever you need, I will provide,” Kari added. “In fact—and I was just getting to this when Don raised the issue of custody and money—our great-uncle left his estate to us.”
She added no details. Forgive me, Lord, but I can’t foist the saga of our father’s abduction on these poor people tonight.
“The three of us—Elaine, Samuel, and I—are our great-uncle’s heirs. That means Shannon and Robbie will inherit their father’s portion when they are old enough to inherit outright. I am the estate’s administrator and can provide for them until they inherit.”
Gene and Bill exchanged looks. Gene asked, “Is their share of the estate enough to support them to adulthood?”
“More than adequate.” Kari didn’t want to get into particulars in front of Talia’s husband, to whom she’d taken a strong, sudden dislike.
“As the estate administrator, I will send monthly checks for their support.” Kari gestured toward Bill and Mary Greene. “We can discuss how much Shannon and Robbie will need before I go home.”
Heads nodded, but Kari didn’t care for the calculating expression growing on Don’s face. His next words cinched her opinion of him.
“If there are sufficient funds available, perhaps Talia and I could reconsider,” he smiled.
The look of loathing Talia turned on her husband reflected Kari’s sentiments exactly.
Laynie came to life. “As the children’s grandparents, the legal authority falls to Bill and Mary and Gene and Polly to determine who is best suited to have custody of Shannon and Robbie.”
Kari telegraphed a glint of approval toward Laynie and, for a moment, for the first time, their eyes communicated: On the subject of Shannon and Robbie, they were in accord.
Kari nodded to Laynie and a smile touched her sister’s lips and then was gone.
Laynie spoke again. “I believe they have made their decision, Don. The children go to Bill and Mary.” Her tone brooked no argument.
Laynie is tough, Kari thought. Formidable.
Bill Greene still had doubts. “Are you certain you understand how much a nanny will cost? Certain you can afford to help out, Kari?”
“Yes. I will write you a check for the first six months tonight. And the custody issue will need to be approved by the courts. It will accrue legal costs. Let me pay those expenses also.”
Don’s indignation bled through. “This is the first we’ve heard of you and your cockamamie story! Who are you to dictate to us? If the children h
ave inherited any money, what gives you the right to decide how it is spent?”
Talia dragged herself to standing. “You know, sometimes you disgust me,” she hissed to her husband.
She turned to her parents and the Portlands. “I am so sorry.” She fixed on Kari. “I do believe that you are Stephen and Laynie’s sister. Thank you for your generosity. Don’t let anything my husband said today influence you—he is usually a decent man. Usually. We didn’t plan on another baby and it’s put some financial pressure on us, but we’ll be fine.”
She huffed and glared at him. “Please get our sons. We’re going now. I’ll be in the car.”
She kissed her parents and left by the front door while Don trudged up the stairs to fetch his sons. Their departure left the living room in silence.
Ruth, who had been a mute witness to the unexpected family drama, smiled cheerfully and jumped up. “Well! May I freshen anyone’s coffee?”
Polly sighed her gratitude. “You are a dear. Yes, thank you.”
Robbie woke then and clambered down from Kari’s lap. He wobbled, a little unsteady and sleepy, then ambled over to pick up a plastic truck sitting on a shelf. Kari hadn’t noticed the little collection of toys sitting there, but Robbie was obviously quite familiar with them.
He’s played here at Gene and Polly’s many times.
Kari stood, stretched her stiff muscles and, at Bill and Mary’s beckoning, went to sit beside them.
Bill didn’t mince words. “Kari, are you positive that you have the money to do everything you said?”
“If you can keep this information to yourselves, yes. Shannon and Robbie will be independently wealthy when they reach their majority.”
Mary shook her head, a little in awe. “You are a godsend, Kari. Popping up out of nowhere like this.”
Kari bit her lip. “I’m sorry it took Kelly and Sammie’s deaths to bring us together. And I hope—” She paused. “One second.”
Kari found her handbag next to the chair she’d been seated in and pulled out three business cards. She scribbled her mobile and home phone numbers on the backs.
“Please,” she handed one to Bill and Mary, “if you need anything, anything at all, call me. Day or night.”
She handed a card to Gene and Polly but spoke to both sets of grandparents, “I would like to be part of Shannon and Robbie’s lives, if that is all right with you. I could come visit, when it’s convenient. I-I would like to hear more about Sammie—I mean Stephen—and have the children know me as their aunt. Would that be all right?”
“More than all right,” Bill answered. “You will be a blessing to them.”
The nanny brought Shannon downstairs and into the living room. The girl ran directly to Polly. “Grammy, I’m hungry.”
“What would you like, Little Duck?”
Shannon grinned. “Milk and Grammy crackers!”
“Now, did you ask nicely?”
Shannon bounced on her tiptoes. “May I have milk and Grammy crackers, please?”
“Of course, child.” Polly looked to Kari. “Kari, would you like to help Shannon?”
Kari flushed. “I’d love to.”
Shannon stared at Kari. “Who’re you?”
Kari stooped down so they were eye-to-eye. Shannon did not have the bright blue eyes that Robbie had—her eyes were pale and softer, more like Laynie’s eyes—but her shoulder-length curls were brown and gold.
Like mine.
“I’m your Aunt Kari, Shannon.”
The little girl blinked, perhaps absorbing Kari’s name. “Do you know where Grammy keeps her Grammy crackers?”
“Could you show me?”
In response, Shannon took Kari’s hand and tugged her toward the kitchen.
—
BEFORE KARI AND RUTH LEFT THE PORTLANDS’ HOME THAT EVENING, Kari cornered her sister. They watched each other, deep, unspoken feelings churning beneath the surface.
“Could we meet, the two of us, tomorrow?” Kari asked. “I want to spend a little time with you before you . . . go back.”
“Lunch?”
“That will work.”
I have a lot of questions for you, Laynie.
“All right.”
But Laynie’s veiled expression told Kari the conversation would likely be one-sided.
And that’s all right, Laynie. I have lots to say.
~~**~~
Chapter 29
KARI AND LAYNIE SETTLED INTO THEIR BOOTH on opposite sides of the table. They studied each other in silence.
Kari had spent long, sleepless hours praying for wisdom, asking for help to somehow connect with her sister. She had left New Orleans in such a rush, that she had not packed her Bible. In the hotel room nightstand, she looked for and found a Gideon Bible. She found some comfort in a seemingly obscure and unrelated passage from Jeremiah. In the archaic King James prose, the verse read,
Be not afraid of their faces:
for I am with thee to deliver thee,
saith the Lord.
Kari had whispered the first line in more familiar language. “Don’t be afraid of their faces.”
It was Laynie’s face that troubled her.
Don’t be afraid of her face?
That unnaturally blank expression.
That deadness?
How do I break past that, Lord, and reach the real Laynie?
She had reread the verse. For I am with thee to deliver thee.
“You don’t want me to be afraid of her face. You will be with me. You will deliver me.” Kari sighed. “What I want is for you to deliver her, Lord. Something feels so wrong. Please help me to help her.”
The waitress arrived to take their orders.
Since it would be a battle to get Laynie to open up, Kari decided upon a frontal assault, hoping to breach the walls between them. So she stared into Laynie’s milky blue eyes and refused to look away.
“How about salads and iced tea?” she suggested.
“That would be fine.” Laynie’s response was cheerful. Detached.
Fake.
Kari seemed to be able to see past the façade that others, apparently, could not.
The waitress departed and Kari plunged in.
“Laynie, I’m not going to beat about the bush. I have missed you terribly, and I want us to be sisters again. We don’t have much time and I really don’t care to engage in meaningless chitchat, so I’m willing to risk a few things to get us off on the right foot.”
Laynie’s shuttered visage was disturbing, but Kari chose not to let it move her.
“My investigators called the number on your business card, but the receptionist on the other end would only say that you were out on emergency leave and she would pass on our message.”
Kari paused for Laynie’s response.
“And so they did,” Laynie answered. “Of course, I’ve been a bit preoccupied.”
She smiled, but Kari was not fooled.
“Yes, but we were frantic to find you now rather than after you returned to Sweden. So Owen, one of my investigators, turned to a friend in the FBI. Asked him to run a background check on you.”
Something flickered in Laynie’s expression.
Whoa. Did I imagine that?
Keeping her eyes locked on Laynie’s, Kari forged ahead. “His FBI friend came to see him. Personally. Drove across town. Strange, don’t you think? And do you know what he told Owen?”
Laynie blinked. “How could I?”
“Ah, but I think you do know what he told Owen. He told him to forget checking up on you, that if Owen knew what was good for him, he would give up trying to dig up info on you.”
Laynie feigned surprise and grinned. “Wow. That’s wild. I have no idea why he would say such a thing.”
Kari did not falter nor did she break eye contact, even for an instant.
“Owen thinks his FBI friend warned him off because you work undercover for some intelligence agency. He says nothing else makes sense.”
Laynie
laughed softly and shook her head, but tension crackled between them.
Kari persisted. “At the service I heard you say how you loved Sammie. ‘When I think of home, I think not of a place, but a face,’ you said. You have no idea how deeply that touched me, Laynie. And about Sammie’s children? You said, ‘Shannon and Robbie hold my heart.’ Sounds like love to me—and yet you can’t move home to raise them? ‘It’s not possible,’ you said.”
Laynie’s mask tightened. Her face was immobile, without expression, but she answered with mild matter-of-factness, “Kari, I work for Marstead International. Have you heard of them? They do aeronautics and technology research and transfer all over the world. It’s important work, and I am engaged in a very difficult piece of negotiation at the moment.”
Kari drew in a fortifying breath. “Well, I think this Marstead company makes for a good cover. And if you’re doing any tech transfer, you’re doing it in Russia, aren’t you?”
Kari leaned closer to Laynie. “I think you are a spy and possibly a very good one. I think you are so deep undercover in Sweden, that they—whoever ‘they’ are—don’t want to let you out. I think you feel obligated to stay and feel a patriotic duty not to quit—even to raise your brother’s children.”
The waitress arrived. She placed the salads and glasses on the table, looked from Laynie to Kari, and stepped away without a word.
“Laynie, you say you love Shannon and Robbie, but isn’t your work for this agency the real reason ‘it isn’t possible’ for you to move home and raise our niece and nephew?”
Something in Laynie shattered and Kari glimpsed pain, deep pain, before her sister gathered up the fractured pieces and slapped them back into place.
“You don’t know me,” she breathed. “You don’t know a thing.”
You don’t know what I’ve done to steal the secrets our government wants. You don’t know the things, the horrible things, I’ve done.
“But I want to, Laynie. I want to know you. And I love you. I have loved you since you were born. I was only three, but when Mommy and Daddy showed you to me, I gave you my heart like you gave your heart to Sammie—to Shannon and Robbie. Please. Please trust me.”
All God's Promises (A Prairie Heritage Book 7) Page 33
