The Lost Girls of Johnson's Bayou

by Jana DeLeon

  Paul had been the harbinger of trouble.

  Ginny opened the café a little early, but Paul waited until the sidewalk cleared before making his way inside. He took a seat at the end of the counter, away from the other patrons, but knew that before long, the entire place would fill up. There wasn’t going to be much chance to talk to Ginny during work hours, but he at least wanted to see how she was doing after last night.

  She rushed to deliver coffee and take the initial orders, but managed to give him a brief smile. Finally, the early birds were settled and she made her way over to where he sat. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Fine, physically. Just a little bit of a headache, and I have a knot.”

  “And other than physically?”

  “Worried. Confused. Scared. And I really hate to admit the last one.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not exactly comfortable myself, and this is my job.”

  Ginny gave him a sympathetic look. “But this is personal.”

  He felt a tingle in his stomach at her words, then realized she was referring to his search for his sister and not her. “Yeah, that makes it harder. That and knowing I made things worse for you.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. Whatever happened back then, the lid was bound to come off sooner or later, and I was already headed down that path.”

  “I know, but reality doesn’t make me feel any better about this.” He took a sip of coffee and tried to clear his mind and organize his thoughts for the day. “What time does the café close?”

  “We’re closing early today. We usually take a couple days off after the festival. After we close today, we’re going to take down the valances. Mom’s having new ones made. Painting starts tomorrow. What are you doing today?”

  “Not letting you out of my sight, for one. I want to catch this guy, and if he’s watching you then I may catch him.”

  “You’re going to sit here all day?”

  “I promise to tip well.”

  Ginny smiled. “And after we close? Are you going to work on valances with me and mom?”

  “Maybe, as soon as someone explains exactly what they are.”

  A bell sounded from the counter between the kitchen and the café, and Madelaine slid plates of steaming food up for delivery. “You work on figuring that out. I’ll be back.” Ginny hustled over to the counter and started delivering the food as more customers started trickling into the café.

  Paul reached for an order pad and pen that sat on the end of the counter. He needed to make some notes on everything. Sometimes writing it all down helped bring it together. But before he started, his cell phone vibrated. His partner.

  “It must be important if you’re up this early,” Paul said when he answered.

  “What makes you think I’ve been to bed yet?”

  “Touché. I’ll rephrase. It must be important if you’re calling me this early instead of going to bed.”

  “It is. Are you somewhere that you can listen? And you might want to be sitting down for this one.”

  Paul straightened up on the stool at his partner’s serious tone. “I’m good. What’s up?”

  “I got a call from the lab early this morning. They found fingerprints on that book from the LeBlanc School that matched your sister’s logged in the foster care system.”

  Paul felt a wave of dizziness pass over him. He’d hoped…even almost expected this outcome, but it was still overwhelming. He was close—closer than he’d ever been before to figuring out what happened to his sister, and for some reason, he felt certain the girl from the hospital held the answers he sought. He had to find her, although he had no other leads to that end.

  “Paul?” Mike’s voice sounded over the phone, reminding him that he was on a call.

  “Sorry. I spaced out there for a minute. The lab is certain?”

  “Absolutely. This is a huge break.”

  “I know, but I’m at a dead end on finding the other girl.”

  His partner blew out a breath. “Maybe not. I’ve got a college buddy who’s an attorney. Let me give him a call later this morning and see what it would take to get information out of the hospital.”

  “I don’t think the fingerprints are enough to convince a judge to violate someone’s civil rights.”

  “Let me try. I’ll call as soon as I know, either way.”

  “Thanks.” Paul placed the phone on the counter and stared into his coffee.

  “Are you all right?” Ginny’s voice sounded in front of him.

  “What? Oh, yeah.” He leaned forward and said in a lowered voice, “My partner just called. The fingerprints on the book match my sister’s.”

  Ginny covered her mouth with her hand and stared at him for a couple of seconds, her eyes wide. “I can’t believe—I mean, I knew it was possible, maybe even probable, but there’s still that voice in the back of your head that tells you that it could be something completely different.” Ginny lowered her hand and shook her head. “I’m sorry. That didn’t make any sense at all.”

  “It made perfect sense to me. I’m feeling the same way.”

  “So what do you do now?”

  Paul shook his head. “I have no idea. My partner’s going to talk to a lawyer about getting access to the medical records for the girl who went to the hospital that night, but I don’t think we have enough to compel a judge to issue a court order.”

  “You think this other girl has the answers?”

  “I hope so. Otherwise, I’m right at the edge, but with nothing left to create the tipping point.”

  Ginny didn’t say a word, but she didn’t have to. She knew all too well the position he was in—on the verge of discovery, but without any indication which direction to turn. She refilled his coffee and gave him an encouraging smile before rushing off to take care of the other patrons.

  Paul picked up the pen and began to jot down the events from the past couple of days. Something would come to him, he tried to tell himself. It always did, and it would this time.

  GINNY LOCKED THE CAFÉ DOOR behind the last of the breakfast crowd, looked at the messy café and sighed. Madelaine came through the kitchen door and plopped onto a stool at the counter, looking as exhausted as she felt.

  “I know we should start cleaning up,” Madelaine said, “but I just have to sit for a minute and catch my breath. I don’t think we’ve been that busy in years.”

  Ginny plopped onto a stool next to her. “We were this busy yesterday and the day before. We just weren’t this tired.”

  Paul jumped up from his stool at the end of the counter and made his way over to where they sat. “Why don’t you two take a break? I’ll start cleanup.”

  Before Ginny found the strength to protest, he’d already stepped behind the counter and grabbed one of the plastic tubs used to collect dirty dishes. Madelaine looked over at Ginny and raised one eyebrow as Paul went to the first table and started stacking dishes in the tub.

  “He may be a keeper,” Madelaine said.

  Ginny frowned. “Paul, you don’t have to help. The dishes aren’t going anywhere.”

  He looked over at them and smiled. “And neither are you two. I’ve sat at that counter drinking coffee for over four hours now, watching the two of you run ragged. Take a breather.”

  “No one likes a martyr,” Madelaine said and elbowed Ginny in the side. “Besides, he probably drank ten dollars’ worth of coffee sitting there.”

  Paul grinned and hauled the first tub through the kitchen doors. Madelaine looked over at Ginny and smiled. “He’s a nice young man,” she said. “It’s clear that he’s worried about you and that he cares about people in general. Being a man, he’s probably feeling like he should be doing something about last night.”

  “That’s the sheriff’s job,” Ginny said.

  Madelaine nodded. “Yep, but Paul’s still a man. And men don’t like feeling they didn’t protect their lady.”

  “I’m not his lady. I just met him.”

  Madelaine patted he
r leg. “I know, but I can see he feels bad. If picking up a few dirty dishes makes him feel better, then what’s the harm?”

  Ginny didn’t bother to argue, as she knew all too well that Madelaine was right—Paul did feel guilty. Madelaine just wasn’t aware of the real reason why. And besides, it sort of amused her that her electively single mother was giving her advice on what men needed.

  They sat in silence for a minute, and Ginny stared out the café window, letting the tension in her neck and back unwind. Then Paul came through the kitchen door carrying two glasses of tea that he placed on the counter in front of them before beginning to bus another table.

  “You reading minds back there?” Madelaine asked. “I was just thinking it is hot as heck in here.”

  Ginny looked over at her mother. It wasn’t cold in the café, but Ginny would hardly call it hot. She felt her pulse quicken when she saw the red tint on Madelaine’s face. “Mom, are you feeling all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Madelaine said, but her hand shook as she lifted her glass of tea. “I’m sure it’s just my blood pressure. It will be fine once I rest a spell.”

  “You forgot to bring your medicine with you last night, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but stop fussing. You’re the one that ought to be fussed over.”

  Paul brushed against Ginny’s arm before she realized he sidled up next to her. “You need to be careful with blood pressure,” Paul said. “Why don’t I drive out to your house and get your medicine?”

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” Madelaine replied.

  “It’s no bother, and I know Ginny would feel better about you messing with curtains this afternoon if you’d had your medicine.” He glanced over at Ginny and she shot him a grateful look before nodding.

  “Please let Paul get your medicine. It won’t take him long, and you can rest in the meantime. I can get the rest of the tables. There’s only a couple.”

  “And I already loaded everything in the dishwasher,” Paul said.

  “Fine,” Madelaine said. “It takes more energy than I care to spend to tell you two no.” She retrieved her keys from her apron pocket and removed her house key. “My medicine bottle’s right next to the kitchen sink. It’s the only one there.”

  Paul slipped the key in his pocket. “Lock the door behind me, and don’t let anyone in until I return.”

  He exited the café but waited next to the front door before Ginny turned the dead bolt behind him. Since she was already standing, Ginny slid the last couple of dishes into the tub and carted them to the kitchen. She was surprised to see that Paul had loaded not only the dishes from the front of the café but also the kitchen dishes into the dishwasher.

  She smiled at the clean surfaces and tried to ignore that little trickle of warmth that moved through her every time she allowed her thoughts to dwell on him. But it was hard not to dwell. He was a man of values, principles and responsibility. And Lord help her, he was physically impossible to ignore. Ginny had been with men in the past, but not many, and never had she felt the tingling sensation on her skin the way she did when Paul was near.

  Even her mother found him impossible to say no to. If anyone else had insisted she sit on a stool while they cleaned her kitchen, Madelaine would have thrown them out on their ear. Apparently Paul’s charm worked on her mother as well as it worked on her.

  She sighed and opened the dishwasher to load the remaining dishes. None of that meant a thing because when this was all over, Paul would go back to his job in the city and Ginny would remain in Johnson’s Bayou, perhaps a little more enlightened about her past, but still alone.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, Ginny removed the valance from a curtain rod and coughed as dust flew up in her face. “How long has it been since we shook these out?” She handed the dusty material to her mother, who was still resting at the counter, then removed another set.

  “Months,” Madelaine replied, “but looks like they took on some dust when Saul replaced the counter.”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.”

  “Hmmmpf. Don’t know how. Darn man in here every day for a week banging on that wood and stone, driving customers crazy with the noise and me even crazier with his complete dedication to doing everything as slowly as possible.”

  Ginny smiled. Even at sixty, her mother still operated on only two modes—off and on. She made normal people appear lazy. “He’s slow and ornery, but he does nice work.”

  “That’s a fact,” Madelaine agreed. “And a darned good thing, or no one would hire him.”

  Ginny laid the valance on the stone counter and admired the cut pieces, all neatly fit into a beautiful array of size and color, and suddenly, a thought hit her. “Mom, when Saul was working, did he have a key to the café?”

  “Of course. I wasn’t going to sit here until all hours with the man every night. Noise was so bad you moved back in with me for a stretch, in case you don’t remember. Not that it mattered—isn’t anything to steal here that’s expensive unless you want some commercial cooking equipment. Besides, only thing that came up missing while he was working was lemon chess pie, even though he still swears he didn’t eat it.”

  Ginny nodded, but her mind was elsewhere. “I’m going to grab a soda. Do you want anything?”

  “A little more iced tea would be nice.”

  Ginny walked through the swinging doors into the kitchen and went straight for her mother’s desk in the corner. She glanced back at the swinging doors before pulling open the desk drawer. In a plastic container in the back corner of the drawer, she found what she was looking for and dumped the keys into the palm of her hand. It took only a glance for her to know that one of them was the key to her apartment and another a key to Madelaine’s house.

  Normally, the keys would have been safe there, and it would have been a logical place to keep the spares, as usually only Ginny or Madelaine had a key to the café or were in the kitchen. But Saul had been in there alone for a week, and Ginny hadn’t even thought about the spare keys being in the drawer. She’d bet anything Madelaine hadn’t, either. He’d had an entire week to make a copy of the keys, and neither Ginny nor Madelaine would have been the wiser. And the hardware store wouldn’t even blink at the contractor having keys made.

  Ginny prepared the drinks and carried them back into the café, careful to mask the worried look she knew she’d developed after finding the keys. Madelaine dropped the valance she’d been folding onto the counter as Ginny stepped through the doors.

  “Thanks,” she said gratefully and took a huge swig of the ice-cold tea. “It’s humid in here.”

  Ginny took a sip of her soda and glanced around the café at the remaining valances. “What are you going to do with these?”

  “Probably give them to the church. The color’s still good on the fabric since I had them dry-cleaned all these years, and they need some new valances for the nursery. They’ll look nice, since the walls are pale blue.”

  “I assume you’re going to have them cleaned first?”

  “Of course. What kind of Christian gives dirty stuff to a church?” Madelaine laughed. “For that matter, I guess we better check all the seams before I take them to the cleaners and fix anything that’s loose.”

  “Okay.” Ginny stretched one of the valances across the counter with the length trailing over the front edge. Slowly, she pulled the fabric toward her, inspecting the hem on the top and bottom of the valance as she pulled. When she got to the end of the valance, she saw a frayed thread below an unusual lump in the fabric.

  She felt the fabric and realized that something fairly stiff was inside the one-inch hem. She pulled a bit on the thread and exposed a couple of inches of the seam. “There’s something inside the hem on this one,” Ginny said.

  Madelaine looked over and nodded. “Sometimes people sew a cardboard piece or something else stiff in the hem to make them hang right. Although…there doesn’t appear to be any in this one.”

  “The seam’s already loose. Do you want me
to take it out?”

  “Might as well. It’s probably deteriorated anyway after all this time.”

  Ginny stuck her fingers into the seam and tried to pull the folded paper, but all she accomplished was tearing off a piece. She tossed the scrap on the counter and prepared to tackle the hem again when something caught her eye.

  The scrap had writing on it.

  She picked up the piece and studied it closely, but all she could make out was the letter “s.” Her pulse quickened and she pulled the thread to widen the opening in the hem. It could be nothing. It could be a grocery list.

  But everything in her body screamed that this scrap of paper that had been tucked in a valance hem for sixteen years was very important. She wriggled her fingers into the hem and grasped the paper, then slowly eased it out from the fabric. Her hands shook as she unfolded the yellowed paper.

  Please help u

  Ginny gasped and slid the scrap with the s across the counter and fit it into the gap at the end of the sentence.

  “What’s wrong?” Madelaine’s voice sounded right next to her and Ginny jumped. She reached for the papers, hoping to slide them off the counter before Madelaine could see, but it was too late.

  “Oh, my.” Madelaine stared in horror at the childlike print. “Those poor girls.”

  “It could be anything,” Ginny tried to rationalize. “It could be from homework or stories made up for fun.”

  Madelaine narrowed her eyes at Ginny. “It could be, but that’s not what you believe. I can see it in your face, Ginny. You know something. You and Paul are up to something. I’ve kept quiet about it because it didn’t appear to be anything serious and I thought you deserved a bit of fun, but I want to know what’s going on. I’m making it my business now.”

  Ginny stared at Madelaine for a moment, not even knowing where to start, and when she finally opened her mouth to speak, a knock sounded on the café door. They both looked over to see Paul standing in front of the café and giving them a wave.