Finding Georgina

by Colleen Faulkner

  Books by Colleen Faulkner

  JUST LIKE OTHER DAUGHTERS

  AS CLOSE AS SISTERS

  JULIA’S DAUGHTERS

  WHAT MAKES A FAMILY

  FINDING GEORGINA

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Finding Georgina

  COLLEEN FAULKNER

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Books by Colleen Faulkner

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1 - Harper

  2 - Lilla

  3 - Jojo

  4 - Harper

  5 - Lilla

  6 - Harper

  7 - Lilla

  8 - Harper

  9 - Jojo

  10 - Harper

  11 - Lilla

  12 - Harper

  13 - Jojo

  14 - Harper

  15 - Lilla

  16 - Harper

  17 - Lilla

  18 - Jojo

  19 - Harper

  20 - Lilla

  21 - Harper

  22 - Lilla

  23 - Harper

  24 - Jojo

  25 - Lilla

  26 - Harper

  27 - Lilla

  28 - Harper

  29 - Jojo

  30 - Harper

  31 - Lilla

  32 - Harper

  33 - Lilla

  34 - Harper

  35 - Lilla

  36 - Harper

  37 - Jojo

  38 - Harper

  39 - Lilla

  40 - Harper

  41 - Lilla

  42 - Harper

  43 - Lilla

  44 - Harper

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Colleen Faulkner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1156-4

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-1156-4

  First Kensington Electronic Edition: March 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1155-7

  1

  Harper

  I always thought I would see Georgina again. In heaven. What I didn’t expect was to walk into my favorite coffee shop, fourteen years after my daughter was kidnapped, to find her making a cappuccino.

  The New Orleans police never came right out and said so, but from the beginning, they assumed my little girl was dead. I heard their whispering. I saw the heartrending looks on their faces. They thought my Georgina had been sexually assaulted. Murdered. Her body buried in the bayou. The police went through the motions of the investigation, but with no leads, it wasn’t much of an investigation. Georgina was just there one moment and gone the next.

  People used to ask me, back in the days when people still spoke of Georgina, how I managed to go on after she was taken from us. They would ask how I managed to get up each morning and get through the day, not knowing what had happened to her. Realizing I would probably never know. The simple truth is, I tried not to think about it. I tried not to think about the things that happen to little girls who are abducted from their strollers and never seen again.

  So for all these years I prayed that my Georgina’s death, if she really was dead, was quick. Painless. I prayed she wasn’t afraid in the last moments of her life. But I knew she had to have been. What two-year-old wouldn’t be afraid when she’s taken from her mother by a stranger?

  But I also prayed, prayed fervently when I wasn’t praying that her death was quick, that she was safe and happy, living life in another city, another state, cared for by parents who, while not her birth parents, loved her. I think a part of me never really believed Georgina was dead. A part of my mother’s heart.

  My head swims and I grab the doorjamb, afraid I’m going to pass out. I used to do it all the time, back when Georgina was first taken. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t carry my newborn baby across the living room for fear I’d fall. A defense mechanism my family physician diagnosed. When my brain couldn’t handle the heartbreak that had become my life anymore, it would just shut down, taking my body with it. I couldn’t be left alone. My mother had to move in with us. I had to take a leave of absence from my veterinary practice.

  I feel dizzy, but I manage to keep myself upright. I walk into the coffee shop and let the door with the Christmas wreath on it swing shut behind me. It’s January. Why do they still have a wreath up? The bells jingle overhead, reminding me of the bell on the Christmas tree in It’s a Wonderful Life. When a bell rings, another angel gets her wings, that’s what the little Bailey girl says. I always loved that movie. Remy and I used to watch it every Christmas Eve before we went to midnight Mass. In happier days, before our marriage and my heart were shattered by our tragedy.

  We always read or hear in movies about hearts being torn in half, but when my Georgina was taken from me, it felt as if my heart had been shattered with a ball-peen hammer. And later, when time had passed and we all knew our Georgina would never come home to us, no matter how hard I tried to pick up the ruins of my heart and glue them back together, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the wife Remy deserved. And for a long time, I couldn’t be the mother our daughter Jojo needed. I think I’m a decent mom now, but if you get too close to me, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear the splinters of my heart crunch beneath your shoes. You’ll see it like stardust in a halo around my head.

  I manage to make it to a table in the center of the neighborhood coffee shop near my office and ease into a chair. I slide my bag off my shoulder, onto the table. I’m going to be late for my afternoon appointments; I just ran in for a pick-me-up Americano. I need to call our receptionist and tell her. But I’m afraid to look away long enough to fish my phone out of my bag. I’m afraid if I blink, Georgina will be gone again.

  She’s a pretty girl. This Georgina. My height, no, she’s taller. Slender, with Remy’s dark eyes, his dark, thick hair. Her hair is long and piled high on top of her head in the messy, bird’s-nest way her sister wears hers. Only Jojo’s hair is blond with red undertones, like mine. Jojo’s fair-skinned, too. Not like Remy and Georgina. Georgina has his skin. They look perpetually tanned. His family has been here in New Orleans since Louisiana was settled by the French in the seventeenth century. There’s Creole in his blood; the darker skin, according to his grandmother, came from the years when Spain controlled the colony.

  I watch Georgina, under the tutelage of one of the baristas, add frothed milk to the cappuccino she’s making. She’s so beautiful, my Georgina. She looks so grown-up that it’s hard to wrap my head around the notion. Obviously I know she’d be older now, look older, but for some reason, I always see the toddler in my head when I think of her.

  The barista, Sabine, hands Georgina a serving tray. I can’t hear what they’re saying; I want desperately to hear her voice. I watch my daughter set the cappuccino and a plate with a chocolate croissant on it on a tray. Georgina carries it to a waiting customer at a table at the far end of the room from me. She walks awkwardly. I’m mesmerized. I try to take in every detail: her lanky gait, the un
certainty on her face, the wisp of hair that falls over one eye.

  What do I do? Panic flutters in my chest and I fight the darkness that creeps around the edges of my consciousness. It’s just a shortage of oxygen; I breathe deeply.

  I don’t know what to do. What do I do? Do I call the police? Do I call Detective Marin? No . . . not the police. Not Marin, who thinks I’m a nut job. With facts that might support that notion.

  Remy. That’s who I call. Remy, my hero. Remy, always my champion.

  Without taking my eyes off Georgina, I fumble in my bag for my phone. It’s supposed to go in the side pocket of the wine-colored suede hobo. It’s not there, of course, which means I have to delve into the abyss. I feel my wallet, my sunglasses case, my readers’ case, a pen, and bits of paper. And something I can’t identify. A fork wrapped in plastic? My panic rises. What if I left my phone in the car? How will I call Remy? I can’t just get up and walk out to the car. What if Georgina leaves?

  If she leaves, I’ll never see her again.

  Again the flutter of panic. If she leaves, how will I ever find her? Where will I look for her? The local schools? The churches? Will I drive through the local neighborhoods?

  But the fear is illogical. I know that. She works here. The owners of the coffee shop must have contact information for her. They have her Social Security number, her home address, for heaven’s sake . . . But they can’t have her Social Security number, can they? Not her real one, because I have her Social Security card in the fire safe at the house. It was issued when she was born. Remy thought we should turn the Social Security number in, but we never had her declared dead, so why would we?

  Sweat beads on my forehead, despite the cool weather of early January. Cool, at least, for Louisiana. Maybe it’s just another hot flash coming on. I keep thinking I’m too young for hot flashes. Who has hot flashes at forty-four?

  Lots of women, says my gynecologist. Perimenopause.

  As I watch Georgina walk behind the counter, my fingertips touch the familiar edge of my cell phone and I pull it out of my bag with an audible sigh of relief. Keeping her in my peripheral vision, I choose Remy’s name from my “favorites” in my contacts and lift the phone to my ear.

  Four rings and it goes to voice mail.

  I disconnect and redial.

  “Pick up, pick up,” I murmur under my breath. “Come on, Remy.”

  Voice mail again.

  I end the call. This is not the kind of thing you leave a message about.

  Sabine is walking toward me.

  My finger hovers over Remy’s name. I tap it.

  “Can I get you something?” Sabine asks me. She looks concerned. She’s cute; early twenties, short-cropped hair, and skin as smooth as a baby’s. I’m jealous of her perfect complexion. My teenage acne has recently resurfaced.

  “No, I’m—” The phone is ringing in my ear. Remy isn’t answering. Why isn’t he answering? He knows the signal for an emergency. Three calls in rapid succession. I hang up when it goes to voice mail. He’ll call me back. He has to call me back. “Um . . . yeah . . . yes. A medium Americano?”

  “For here or to go?”

  I lower the phone. Where the hell is Remy? What if Jojo is sick, or hurt? What if she’s been kidnapped? Remy’s gently reminded me hundreds of times, maybe thousands, over the years, that the odds of having two children kidnapped, in two separate incidents, is astronomical. But it could happen. Like the guy who survived two commercial airline crashes, seven years apart. I always remind him of that.

  “I was just asking because it’s Thursday,” Sabine says. “You have evening hours, right? You usually take it to go.”

  She’s still looking at me with concern. As if I’m acting a little crazy. Weird, at the very least.

  “I . . . um. To go is fine, I just . . .” I grip the phone, looking past Sabine to my daughter behind the counter. She’s staring at the cash register, trying to figure out how to ring up a customer who has a bag of pastries in his hand. “The new girl. The . . .” I touch my hair. “Brunette. She . . . just started?”

  Sabine glances over her shoulder, then back at me. “Lilla? Yeah. This week. Tuesday, I think. After school. I’m training her.”

  “Tuesday,” I echo. I was here Tuesday, Tuesday morning. I got an Americano for myself and a latte and bear claw for Samantha. She owns the veterinary practice where I work as a veterinarian. We used to be partners; she bought me out after the kidnapping. I work Mondays and Tuesdays nine to six. But Thursdays I work evening hours. Which means I was here Tuesday and Georgina came in later. What if I hadn’t come in today? What if I had missed my daughter? What if our paths had never crossed again?

  But that seems impossible because seeing her here, now, means God always meant for me to have my daughter again. I just know it.

  “Lilla,” I repeat, testing the sound of the name. It never occurred to me that the people who kidnapped her would have given her another name. Of course they would have. Georgina was so little and just beginning to talk; even if she tried to tell someone her name, they may not have been able to understand her.

  My impulse is to tell Sabine that that isn’t her name. That her name is Georgina, Georgina Elise Broussard, and that she’s my daughter. Fortunately I have enough sense not to say it. “Just the Americano.” I force a smile. “And a scone, cranberry walnut. If you have any left.”

  “Sure do.”

  As Sabine walks away, my phone vibrates in my lap.

  “Remy!” I say quietly into the phone, my gaze on Georgina again.

  “I was in a meeting.” He sounds annoyed, bordering on pissed. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s here. At Perfect Cup.” My eyes flood with tears and, for a moment, I can’t speak. All the pain, all the fear, all the abject sorrow of the last fourteen years lodges in my throat. “Remy, I found her,” I choke.

  There’s a long pause on the other end of the phone. Long enough for me to say, “Remy, I know what you’re going to say, but I’m telling you, it’s her. It’s Georgina. I’m sure of it.”

  Still, he doesn’t say anything.

  “Remy?”

  He exhales. “Harper . . .”

  “I know, I know,” I say quickly. I close my eyes for an instant, then open them. She’s still there. My Georgina is still there behind the counter. She’s not a figment of my imagination. Not part of a dream that seems so real that I can still smell her baby hair when I startle awake in the middle of the night and reach for a Xanax.

  I watch my daughter carry a little stainless-steel milk pitcher to the sink. “But it’s her, Remy.”

  He takes his time before responding. “Harper, I can’t talk right now. I’m in with the assistant dean.” He suddenly sounds tired. Tired of me, I suspect.

  “Remy—”

  “Baby, I . . . I can’t do this, at all,” he says. “Not again. I told you that the last time. I just can’t.”

  I can hear the pain in his voice and the tears well in my eyes again. Sometimes it’s so easy to get wrapped up in my own loss that I forget she was his baby, too. “Remy, please.”

  “I have to go.”

  I press my lips together. Sabine is watching me from behind the counter. “Remy, you have to listen to me.” I go on faster than before. I’m bordering on manic. “I know . . . I know I’ve told you I’ve seen her before.”

  “You’ve called the police before, Harper. You’ve accused people of kidnapping our child. You’ve had Child Protective Services interview . . . disrupt families. That girl in Jojo’s gymnastics class. Remember? You wanted to get our attorney to file a motion for a maternity test.”

  I close my eyes. “I know,” I whisper, “but this is different, Remy.” I open my eyes again. “I swear to you”—my voice catches in my throat—“this is our Georgina.”

  He exhales, or sighs, or maybe it’s a groan. “I have to go, baby,” he says. “They’re waiting on me.”

  The phone goes dead and for a moment I stare at it. He hun
g up on me? My husband hung up on me?

  Okay, ex-husband. Which I suppose makes it more likely.

  I glance at Georgina. Sabine is talking to her as she retrieves my scone and puts it in a bag. Georgina’s nodding as she wipes up a spill from the counter. She seems to be a serious girl. Which makes sense. She was a serious toddler, too . . . as toddlers go. Not that she didn’t laugh; she was just never as carefree as Jojo was.

  I stare at her for a long moment. Is Remy right? Is this just another false alarm? But false alarms are thinking you left the stove on, only to go back into the house to find it off. Or . . . thinking you’re pregnant when you’re just late. Those are false alarms. Seeing your missing child on playgrounds, in grocery stores, on the streetcar. That’s different, isn’t it?

  But is Remy right? Am I mistaken again? Do I want to see Georgina so badly, even after fourteen years, that I imagine her? What if I’m wrong?

  Sabine brings me my coffee in a to-go cup, my scone in a bag. I pay her and include a tip. I know how much I owe her because I get the same thing all the time.

  “Thanks.” Sabine flashes me a smile.

  I look at Georgina again. I try to study her without allowing my emotions to take over. Is Remy right? Does she just look like what I have imagined she must look like now? Except that when I saw her, I was surprised by how much older she looks than I had imagined.

  And I’m right. And Remy is wrong. The girl behind the counter is our daughter.

  I pick up my phone and attempt to do something our fourteen-year-old Jojo does all the time. I pretend to take a selfie while actually focusing the camera on someone or something across the room. Usually Jojo is taking pics of a dog in a stormtrooper costume or a granny in leather pants and a sequined crop top.

  I pretend to fuss with my bangs while centering the shot on Georgina’s face. I wonder how obvious it is what I’m doing.