Love In Plain Sight

by Jeanie London

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  Marc considered. “You said these cities ‘allow’ busking. Does that mean street performing is legislated?”

  “They usually have ordinances with the guidelines delineating where, when and what. Every city is different. Buskers can perform all over New Orleans but cities can designate specific areas, encroachment or noise volume. Most cities make money by charging for permits, so performers can keep busking under some control with fees and penalties.”

  Marc’s expression transformed. “Really?”

  She knew what he was thinking and zeroed in on her computer and pulled up the busking laws for Nashville.

  “If Araceli is drawing caricatures like her father, she would need a street vendor’s license to sell them. Do you have any way of finding out if she has one? Under Debbie’s name maybe? It says here they only issue a certain number annually.”

  “Let me see what I can do. That info will be with the county clerk. I’ve got connections, but it’ll take time.” He glanced down at his computer display and started typing.

  Courtney took the opportunity to stand and get her blood flowing. She went to the window and moved aside the sheers, glancing at a sunny afternoon. Would they have their answers soon? What would happen when they did?

  Marc would move out of the cottage and on with his life, and she’d go back to work. Not long ago that had been all she wanted. Now...

  “All right,” he finally said. “Cross your fingers. We should know something by tomorrow.”

  She turned back to face him, found his gaze traveling appreciatively over her, and she actually tingled in response.

  Now she couldn’t allow herself to think past now.

  “Should we contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children?” she asked. “They could put an age progression photo on billboards and milk cartons.”

  He frowned, folding his arms over his chest. “I’d be afraid that using the media to flush them out might drive them under. If we’re right and Araceli is with Debbie, then she has kept that kid off the grid for a long time. If Araceli’s alive, she’s sixteen now. She’ll reach the age of majority soon. They could keep running that long.”

  “Well, that’s not what we want.”

  “No, we don’t. The FBI hasn’t picked up the Aguilars yet. If we tip our hand now, we could be stepping right in the middle of whatever it is they are doing on their end. Not a place I’d care to be.”

  “Ugh. I forgot about them.” A testimony to how this cocoon of sex had consumed her. She was in so much trouble here. “What do you think they’re waiting for?”

  Marc shrugged. “My guess is they’re angling for a bigger payoff. They have the niece in custody, so they know she was brought into the country illegally. They might be attempting to bring in whoever smuggled her across the border. They’ll want something to show for their efforts, and the odds of locating Araceli after eight years aren’t great.”

  “I don’t want to get in their way.”

  “Our best weapon is the element of surprise. Time is on our side for once,” Marc pointed out. “After eight years Debbie probably isn’t expecting an active investigation, so if we move fast, we could bring in Araceli. If we got this right and she’s around to bring in.”

  When Courtney caught Marc’s gaze this time, neither of them were smiling.

  * * *

  MARC TOOK PREVENTIVE measures for the flight to Nashville. Courtney suggested dropping him off at the terminal before she returned the car to the rental agency. He managed to get past the knee-jerk reaction that fueled his pride and accepted that he could save a lot of steps by avoiding the shuttle back to the airport.

  More preventive measures came in the form of muscle relaxers, and not enough to annihilate him. He hoped that with luck, and getting up to move more during the flight, the trip to Nashville would go without incident—the way he’d made a thousand other flights during his career.

  Marc got his wish. He popped one more muscle relaxer midflight for good measure, but arrived at the airport without Courtney needing to put him on a gurney.

  Another concession to accommodate his physical limitations came when Courtney arranged for the rental agency to deliver the car to the terminal. She signed the papers and they left the agent to take the shuttle back to the agency.

  Marc wasn’t sure if he was learning to compromise or was desperate to avoid a repeat performance of muscle spasms that could register as seismic activity. He wasn’t hiding anything from Courtney. She’d seen the good, the bad and the ugly.

  And still melted against him when he touched her.

  His phone vibrated on their way to the hotel. After glancing at the display, he connected the call. “Hola, mi amigo. Perfect timing. I just got off the plane.”

  Courtney shifted her gaze from the highway, crossed her fingers and mouthed the words, “Good luck.”

  As Marc’s longtime associate briefed him, he watched her in profile as she maneuvered through traffic. His chauffeur. She had braided her hair today, and he idly twined the silky hair through his fingers, enjoyed the connection between them.

  Every person who had played his chauffeur had only amplified the reality Marc couldn’t drive himself anymore. Even Courtney. But today she felt right seated beside him, not as a reminder of his lost autonomy but as his collaborator in their search. While he listened to what his investigator had turned up, grateful for the timing, grateful he had made the trip without creating a scene, he was surprised by how at peace he was with her. As if she’d been beside him all along.

  When Marc disconnected the call, he was smiling.

  “Good news?” Her voice had that breathless quality that reminded him of when they lay in the dark naked.

  “Good news.” He tugged lightly on her braid. “No licenses or permits in Araceli’s or Debbie’s names. He hit the same smoke I did, so he went after her financials.”

  Courtney blinked. “Nothing’s private, is it?”

  Marc pulled a face, but he liked how impressed she seemed when all he’d done was make a phone call. “There’s always a paper trail. The trick is getting to it. Way easier with government agencies than with private banking.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “No shit. But lucky for us because we’ve got checks to the clerk for permits and licenses for one Beatriz Ortero.”

  Courtney’s expression dissolved on an audible breath. “Omigod, Marc. Do you think it’s her?”

  He shrugged. “As soon as we get to the hotel, I’ll run some databases to see what I can come up with on the name. But I can’t think of any other reason why Debbie would need a street vendor license. Unless she has taken up busking.”

  Courtney laughed excitedly, visibly forced her attention to the road where it belonged. “I can’t believe it. After all this time, maybe it is possible that this nightmare won’t turn into a horror story.”

  He hadn’t understood how responsible she felt. That hadn’t registered with him because he knew she’d only recently inherited Araceli’s case. She wasn’t responsible for overlooking the events of eight years past, events that had let a seemingly determined little girl slip away in all the commotion of natural disasters and switch-offs with foster families.

  He had thought Courtney was a lot of things—impatient and controlling among them. But the woman seated beside him, the woman who felt as if she belonged there and always had, was neither of those things, and both.

  Courtney cared enough to do whatever it took to find a missing child, regardless of risks. She was competent enough to know she needed help and to get it.

  Marc was struck by the comparison to his own situation. He had needed help, too. But instead of reaching out, he had resented the help he had gotten.

  That didn’t come as a surprise. How c
ould it? He had only been looking at how everything affected him. He hadn’t thought about how freaked his mother must have been to almost lose a son. No, he had thought only about how she had seized the chance to drag him back to New Orleans, to get him at the mercy of his crazy family when he was down and out.

  And thinking about every person who had gone out of his and her way to help him... Marc stared at the unfolding city as they crossed a bridge over the Cumberland River. The river threaded off into the distance, not unlike the river he’d grown up around, and he wondered why he could suddenly see his actions for what they were, as if the fog had cleared away to reveal the truth of the choices he had made.

  The fact that he could barely walk wasn’t nearly as pathetic as the way he had treated people who had helped him, people who loved him.

  He hadn’t seen it, had been so wrapped up in his own angst that he’d been blind to everything and everyone but himself.

  “Hey, you okay?” Courtney asked.

  He glanced at her, found her eyeballing him with a frown. “Yeah. Why?”

  “You got quiet all of a sudden.”

  “I was piecing in what my contact told me about some collection agencies going after Debbie,” he lied. “She had some hefty medical bills.”

  “She was sick?”

  Marc shrugged. “Privacy laws make medical info tough.”

  But what he found even tougher was acknowledging his actions. The way he had been treating everyone who cared. Most people came in and out of his life, not around long enough to care about. Or so he’d told himself. His family was different. When he looked at his life reflected against the mirror of Courtney’s actions, he had to ask himself: How had he never seen how lame that was?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THIS WAS THE proudest time in my life. I glanced around my first gallery, my sketches displayed from a wooden molding that hung about three-quarters up on the wall. Low enough so whatever hung there could be seen, but high enough not to invite anyone to mess with the art.

  There were a lot of kids in the coffee shop. It was the place where they hung out between shows and stopped in between skating sessions. There was a small stage that was used for open mic night and readings. Preaching, too. Sometimes I forgot this place belonged to a church.

  Jesus sort of fit in around here. One of the crowd.

  The youth directors had prayed over my gallery to officially open it, had asked Jesus to bless my talent and guide my career. There were lots of “Amens!” and “Hallelujahs!” from the kids who’d been sitting around, and I thought it was the perfect start.

  I thought I would feel close to Papa right now, but I felt my angel Debbie all around me. She would have been running around fussing, oohing and aahing over every piece up on these walls. She would have reassured me the mats were perfect, that real frames would have only detracted from my art.

  She would have skipped right past the fact we couldn’t have afforded to display my art more conventionally anyway. She had never cared for things or convention, didn’t think they mattered. Only people were important things, and being together, supporting one another and having love.

  She had been so like Papa that way.

  “Do you have a favorite?” Kyle came to stand near me, slipped a hand around my waist casually, a little possessively.

  I leaned into him, so happy I could die and go to heaven right this very second. And it was funny because the feeling wasn’t all about seeing my art displayed.

  A lot of the way I felt was about Kyle sharing this moment, as if I were a real artist. Not that I wasn’t a real artist all the time. I was. But this was different than hanging my sketches in my pitch. This was different than making money sketching caricatures or painting faces.

  Real artists had galleries.

  Art by ARO. Getting closer.

  “All of them,” I admitted softly.

  He rested his cheek on my head, and I knew he understood.

  “I fall in love.” I sighed dramatically, but I meant every word. “Each one started with an idea that came alive with my imagination and through my hands. Sometimes that happens like magic and other times it’s like torture, but while I’m creating, each one of these pieces is the love of my life.”

  Pencil sketches. Pastels. Watercolors. Acrylics. The mixed media I had created with scraps from a subway construction site in New York City. I even displayed my masterpiece to date—a landscape of the District street where I set up my pitch. But I worked during the day, and this scene was all lit up in neon at night. Debbie had given me the expensive canvas for my fifteenth birthday. We had eaten spaghetti and rice for the next month, and neither of us had cared.

  None were framed. All were a part of me.

  Each one marked a different time in my life. A step along my journey. A new skill. A developing skill. A mastered skill. Some kids had school photos. I had art. And who wanted a reminder of missing teeth and bad hair?

  Kyle tucked me a little closer, as if we might blur the boundaries between us and blend into one. Sfumato in real life instead of the canvas, I thought.

  “My music is like that,” he said. “Except when some lyrics are giving me a hard time. Then I can’t even listen for a while. I won’t hear it because all I remember is how it felt.”

  “Problem children. I know all about those.”

  He glanced up at a watercolor I had done a very long time ago in Miami. One of Debbie’s favorites. She had always made me keep it as a part of my portfolio, said it was special.

  “At least I can play with my lyrics until I’m satisfied,” he said. “Melodies, too. But you commit to the canvas.”

  “You’d be surprised how much playing I can do,” I admitted. “I just play before I commit to my medium. Lots of preliminary work. Sketching is different.”

  “How?”

  “More spontaneous.”

  “I’ve watched you sketch those cartoons. You’re fast, and if you screw up, you don’t get paid.”

  “Caricatures,” I said with a huff. He could never resist teasing me. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”

  My whole life practically, but I didn’t get a chance to explain because Ryan, one of the youth directors, came over to congratulate me.

  Then it was a blur of excitement and congratulations and praise until the show began. More sfumato. Kyle had a set tonight and always drew a crowd. He was sweet enough to give me a shout-out, so everyone knew to look at my work while they were there and tell me how talented I was.

  He could talk tough, but he was really so kind.

  I didn’t even care that I had to drop my online calculus test in the morning when the library opened. I wouldn’t have missed one second of tonight, our night, because as much as it was my night, it wouldn’t have been special without him.

  He had made it possible.

  Which was why I was unprepared when the night tanked.

  Maybe it was all the emotions―so many soaring highs made the lows even lower. But when we finally left it was well after midnight. I don’t think either of us had thought about what would come after when we had been having so much fun all night. Dancing together. Kissing and sitting close as we drank coffee and discussed with friends the work of Gabriel García Márquez, minimalism and abstractionism, the pros and cons of blurring boundaries between music genres.

  So when we were suddenly outside in the night, the moon silvering the street with a dewy glow, I was still so high on the night, I didn’t even realize we had a problem.

  “Oh, man.” Kyle shifted his guitar around to his back. “How are we going to do this?”

  I knew exactly what he meant and tried to sidestep trouble. “I’ll go with you tonight, okay?”

  “Can’t.” He shook his head. “Edwin’s sister and girlfriend are here for the weekend.
He cleared it with all of us, so we told him no sweat, we wouldn’t bring anyone over. They’re your age, and he promised his parents to keep them low-key.”

  My mood crashed. If I would have had a brush in my hand, black would have been all over the canvas.

  I knew we were headed for trouble before I even opened my mouth. This was going to be a power struggle, and that was the last thing I wanted for this amazing night.

  “It’s not that late yet.”

  His expression darkened, reminding me of the way storm clouds gathered right before the tornado sirens started to shriek. “Are we really going to do this again? Now?”

  After everything. After he thought we meant something to each other. He didn’t say that aloud. He didn’t have to. It hung in the air between us.

  “Please,” I said. “I don’t want to ruin the night. Not tonight, when everything is so perfect.”

  He motioned to the bus stop. “Fine by me. Let’s go.”

  Every fiber of my being wanted to be a normal person tonight. Not someone who had to hide. Not from Kyle. We’d hop on the bus and ride to my stop, I’d kiss him goodbye and wave as he rode off again.

  And I might have done just that, but I wasn’t so sure he’d stay on the bus, didn’t want to risk it if he insisted on walking me to my door.

  Then we would have only delayed this confrontation, moved it into my neighborhood where I couldn’t draw any attention.

  So I stared at him, mentally debating the consequences. So what if Kyle knew where I lived? I trusted him. He would never put me at risk. I knew that with my whole heart.

  Not intentionally anyway.

  I could hear Debbie in memory, always mentally calculating the risks, controlling everything she could control but knowing there were still a thousand things she couldn’t.

  Everything about my life depended on staying hidden, and I had lived that way for so long, I didn’t know how to live any other way. I was afraid, too afraid to take a chance.

  “Why can’t you just put me on the bus and wave goodbye? Why can’t you trust me that this is the way it has to be right now?”