“My name is Danielle Corey, Ms. Clark. We’ve met.”
“Right,” Ladona said. “Of course, we have. You’re right. Come on in.”
Danielle heard feet stampeding down the stairs, but Deon and Raylon halted halfway down when they saw her.
“Come on down,” Danielle said. They continued down the stairs at a walk. “I’d like to have a quick chat with everyone if we could gather down here.”
“Where’s Ms. Thompson?” Raylon asked.
“She wanted to be here.”
“Is she sick?” Raylon was beside her now, his innocent round eyes gleaming up at her.
“Have a seat,” she said to all of them. Ladona and Raylon sat, but Deon stayed in the corner with his arms crossed.
“Deon?”
“Where’s Jenna?”
“Ms. Thompson,” Ladona scolded him.
“Where is she?”
Danielle took a deep breath. “She wanted to be here, Deon.”
“She’s not coming back, is she?”
“I’ll explain everythi—”
“Just answer the question!” Deon yelled.
“Deon, you better mind your manners, boy,” Ladona jumped in.
“Your case has been passed on to me,” Danielle said. “Ms. Thompson is not going to be coming back.”
Ladona’s attention snapped from Deon back to Danielle. “She’s not coming back at all?”
“She was promoted a little while ago,” Danielle said. “She wanted to continue to work with you, but it was decided that it was inappropriate, as she’s no longer a caseworker.”
“Oh.” Ladona’s face crinkled with a frown. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Is she going to say good-bye?” Raylon asked.
“No, dummy,” Deon snapped. “She’s seen this coming for weeks, ever since this one started showing up.” Deon gestured at Danielle.
“Nuh-uh,” Raylon said. “She said nothing was different.”
“Yeah, well, she ain’t here, is she?” Deon stormed upstairs.
“I’m really sorry, you guys,” Danielle said to Ladona and Raylon. “I know you’ve been working with Jenna for a long time. I know you’re close.”
Ladona waved her away. “I don’t suppose you all are here to be our friends. I’ll talk to him,” she said. “He’ll be fine. You’ve just got a job to do.”
“Yes,” Danielle said. “I do want to talk about how things are going to go moving forward.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m familiar with this case,” Danielle said slowly. “Both from the files and from talking to Ms. Thompson.”
“I would hope so.”
“I know the three of you and Ms. Thompson have operated a certain way, had certain understandings.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Ms. Corey.”
“Ms. Thompson didn’t always report everything,” Danielle said. “She told me that, along with everything that’s been going on here.”
Ladona looked away, her jaw clenched. “Raylon, go on upstairs with your brother.” Ladona watched until he reached the top of the stairs, then turned back to Danielle. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“I’m not trying to trick you,” Danielle said.
“You trying to intimidate me?”
“No. I’m not taking any action about any of that. It’s all behind us. I just need you to understand that I don’t work that way. I’m not hiding anything for you.”
Ladona scoffed. “You know you look like a damn teenager? You’re a child, sitting there, so eager to be a robot.”
“I don’t—”
“You could learn a thing or two from Ms. Thompson, sweetheart. She knew how to use her brain, and her heart. Life isn’t all about reports.”
“I want you to be successful, Ms. Clark. I’m not telling you this to threaten you. I’m telling you this so you don’t have the wrong expectations.”
“The wrong expectations? I think I’ve got it, Ms. Corey. There will be no exercising of common sense from you.”
“It’s not—”
“You know what, I want to talk to your supervisor,” she said. “What kind of way is this to start a visit? I don’t know you. We don’t know you. And you want to jump off trying to intimidate me? Trying to tell me someone did me some kind of favor in the past letting me keep my children? You’re just sitting there waiting for reason, aren’t you? Isn’t that what you’re telling me?”
“Not at all.” Danielle’s heart was racing, but she tried to hide it. “If you really want to talk to my supervisor I can—”
“The hell with your supervisor. You get Ms. Thompson back here. She’s the only one out of the lot of you that’s a damn human.”
“She can’t come back.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m your—”
“I think you need to leave,” Ladona said. “I’m not comfortable with your insinuations. I want someone else.”
Danielle sighed. Jenna filled her mind, the things she’d said when Ladona raged at her. Ladona didn’t always like Jenna. It didn’t have to be a disaster that she was upset.
“Ladona, Jenna and I were close too. It’s why she told me everything she did. She trusted me. If you can find a way to trust me too, I promise I care very much about you and your family. I’m more invested than some other random caseworker will be.”
“That’s not how you’re talking.”
“I just want you to understand that I have to be able to live with the decisions I make here. If either of your sons got hurt on my watch, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.”
“There’s nothing hurting those boys.”
“Okay,” Danielle said. “But if anything ever does, you need to know it’s going into the paperwork. That’s all.”
“Fine. You done?”
“I’d like to talk to the boys for a minute.”
“You’re brave.”
Danielle laughed lightly. She didn’t feel brave. She knew Deon hated her, and she guessed Raylon was well on his way. She walked up the stairs and went to Deon’s room, pleased to find Raylon inside with him. She didn’t bother asking if she could come in, knowing she’d be in an impossible spot if he said no.
She walked in and sat next to Raylon on the bed, across from Deon, who was in his desk chair like the last time she’d been in his room, with Jenna. Her heart ached. Jenna should be here. She couldn’t begin to replace her.
“Hey, guys,” she said. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Guess so.” Deon glared at her.
“Jenna didn’t lie to you, Deon. She meant it when she said she was going to keep coming.”
“What happened, then?”
“She got in trouble,” Danielle said. He couldn’t hide his new interest.
“I thought you said she got promoted.”
“She did, a few weeks ago, but she was able to talk them into letting her keep coming for a while. When she got in trouble they wouldn’t let her do it anymore.”
“In trouble for what?” Raylon asked.
“I can’t really talk about it,” Danielle said. “And I don’t want to tell you to keep secrets from your mother—”
“We won’t tell her,” Deon said.
“I shouldn’t really tell you any of this,” Danielle said. “But Jenna trusted you, and I need you to know she cared about you two like family. She would die if you thought she doesn’t care.”
“She get in trouble because of us?” Deon asked.
“No.”
“She seemed to like you,” Deon said. “I guess you must be cool.”
Danielle smiled. “Think you can give me a chance?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Deon smiled like he was trying not to, an expression so endearing Danielle felt like she was seeing him as Jenna must have. A kid trying to be the man of the house, ill-equipped to do so in many ways, and succeeding in so many others.
Chapter Thirty-one
Even a week lat
er, Jenna still felt sick picturing Danielle’s visit with Raylon and Deon without her. Especially Deon. She knew he’d feel betrayed, and she was twisted up by the guilt of what he might do. She hated thinking of him skipping school again, fighting with his family, pushing everyone away. She hoped she had overestimated her own importance in his life, but she knew she hadn’t. She wanted to text Danielle and ask how it had gone, but there were so many reasons she couldn’t.
The reminder for her mom’s meds brought her back to her own home, her own family. She wouldn’t bother trying to get Callie to help. Every time she let Callie whine her way out of something she heard Sasha’s voice in her head, scolding her, but as much as she meant to take a hard stance with Callie, she somehow never seemed to be able to follow through. She always wound up somewhat agreeing with Callie. Her mom did respond better to her. She knew that was because Callie never stepped up to do her part, and that maybe it would change over time if she forced her, but forcing her just never seemed quite worth it.
She grabbed her mom’s pills out of the kitchen and knocked on her bedroom door. Her mom was sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring at static on the television as it crackled loudly through the room. It was unnerving the first time she saw her mom doing something like that, but it was more or less routine now.
“No signal?” Jenna asked.
“I like it,” her mom said. “It feels fuzzy. Drowns out the noise a bit.”
Jenna went in and sat by her. “Time for your pills.”
“I don’t want them.”
Jenna took an extra breath. It was exhausting fighting with her mom about pills every day, and her sporadic successes weren’t enough. Her mom had to take them as prescribed, but patience was key. The angrier she got, the more her mom thought she had some sinister motive for wanting her to take them.
“All right,” she said. “Why don’t we just chat for a bit.”
“I’d like that,” her mom said. She looked over at Jenna and put her hand on her face. “You’re such a sweetheart, Jenna. You know I love you, right?”
“I know, Mom. I love you too.”
“You’ve always been my favorite.”
Jenna smiled, but her skin crawled with discomfort. “You shouldn’t say that.”
“I know. I know. We’re not supposed to say these things. But I’m only human. You’ve always taken care of me, Jenna, even when you were little. You’ve always been so good, so sweet to me.”
“Callie was just too young to know how, Mom, that’s all. She loves you too.”
“No, she doesn’t. She just thinks I’m a lunatic.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is, honey. You don’t have to lie for her. I know. It’s always been me and you. Your dad never did either of us a bit of good. Your sister never wanted to lift a finger. Always me and you.”
Jenna squeezed her mom’s hand and hugged her. “I’ll always make sure you’re okay.”
“I know.” Her mom smiled. “I need to tell you something, Jenna. It’s going to be hard to hear.”
“What is it?”
“Your sister has turned against us. It’s just us now.”
“Turned against us? What are you talking about?” Jenna felt shaken by the subject change. She thought she’d been talking to her mother in a state of lucidity, and it made her stomach turn to realize it was delusion based.
“She’s with them, Jenna. I heard her.”
“Heard what?”
“She reported you. She’s giving them information.” Her mom’s eyes were like saucers as they stared at her, round and worried but not panicked.
“Giving who information?”
“I don’t know.” She paused. “She made a phone call, and a machine answered. It was talking about endangered persons. Then she said she wanted to report something anonymously.”
Jenna grabbed her mom’s hand. “You mean like a recorded message? Those are pretty common now, Mom. It could have been anything.”
“She saw me standing there and threw me out after that. I tried to listen at the door, but it was hard to hear. But she said your name, Jenna. She said it more than once. She said she had to report you. She’s trying to get rid of us both. I know it.”
Jenna tried to picture who Callie could have been calling. Almost everything was under her name, so she could easily have said Jenna’s name to pull up an account. Maybe her phone or the cable company. But she had to admit, Callie wasn’t one to take initiative on fixing those issues.
“I’ll ask her about it.”
“No!” Her mom leaned forward. “Don’t tell her you know, Jenna. It’s your only upper hand.”
“Callie isn’t the enemy, Mom. She couldn’t get by without us. She wouldn’t try to get rid of us.”
“I know what I heard, Jenna. It wasn’t the voices. I heard it with my own ears. She reported you.”
“That just doesn’t—”
“Promise me you won’t tell her I told you. Just watch her. You’ll see.”
Jenna didn’t want to agree, but she knew her mom wouldn’t let her out of the room until she did.
“If I say yes will you take your pills?”
Her mom looked her in the eye for a long time. “They make me foggy, Jenna. I can’t think on them. I won’t be able to help you. You’ll have to look out for yourself. I have to know you’re looking out for yourself. You have to believe me about Callie. She’s talking to someone about you. She’s lying about you to the government. I know it.”
“Okay,” Jenna said. “I’ll look out for myself. I promise.”
Her mom took the pills from her palm and popped them into her mouth. Jenna waited until she was sure the pills would dissolve in case her mom was trying to cheek them. When Jenna left the room, she expected her mom’s accusations to stay behind, but Jenna found the words swirling through her mind again and again. A machine talking about endangered persons. Her sister reporting something anonymously, saying her name. Callie wouldn’t need to be anonymous for any of the logical possibilities she could come up with.
Her mom had made plenty of unfounded accusations in the past. She thought everyone was talking to the government, that everyone was out to get her. But she didn’t usually get so specific. She didn’t usually make sense.
Jenna went to the kitchen to find some food. Callie was lying on the couch watching TV. She didn’t look up when Jenna came in. Jenna eyed her cell phone sitting on the dining table while it charged. It was right there.
She shook her head. She didn’t need to snoop through Callie’s phone. It was ridiculous to subscribe to her schizophrenic mom’s suspicions. She opened the fridge and stood in front of it for a full minute before she realized she wasn’t processing anything. She finally grabbed a container of grapes and took them to the dining table. She stared at Callie’s phone as she popped a grape in her mouth. She glanced over at Callie on the couch. She wasn’t moving a muscle. She might even be asleep.
On impulse, Jenna grabbed the phone and opened it. She went into the call history and scrolled. Jenna was the last several outgoing calls, followed by outgoing calls to two phone numbers with no names attached to them. The first was the phone number for CPS. Jenna quickly dismissed it, assuming Callie had tried to call her at work when she hadn’t answered her cell. The second looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
Jenna fished her own phone out of her pocket and punched in the number. She closed Callie’s phone and went upstairs before she did anything with it. When she closed her bedroom door she hit send, and Paula Caliery’s name popped up on her screen. She hit end, feeling her blood drain.
Callie called her boss. Callie called her boss and said she wanted to report something anonymously. Jenna felt sweat gathering on her palms. A stone formed in her chest, and she felt it might drag her to the floor. She’d called a week and a half ago, the day before Paula had pulled her into the office to tell her someone informed her she and Danielle were having a relationship. It wasn�
�t Sasha. It wasn’t some mystery coworker. Her own sister turned her in. Her own sister nearly got her fired. And part of her couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it coming. Callie hated Danielle. She hated that Jenna was spending her time anywhere but home, with anyone else.
Her mom was right. Callie had turned on her.
Chapter Thirty-two
Jenna’s phone buzzed. It was subdued, barely enough of a vibration to move it across the surface of her slippery desk. She didn’t have to look to know who it was, but she still did. Some part of her was enjoying watching Callie’s name light up, linger, and disappear. She’d never ignored Callie before. No matter how angry or stressed she was, she always bent to her, imagining some horrific scene if she didn’t. But Callie was an adult now. They both were. And she finally felt more like a sister, a friend, even an enemy at the moment, than a mother. It was time for Callie to see the results of hurting people.
She couldn’t pretend it was all tough love, though. She wasn’t just teaching Callie a much-needed lesson. It hurt. Callie’s betrayal hurt her to the core. Text messages flooded her screen. A few words jumped out and registered, but she wouldn’t read the full thing. Where. Fuck. Answer. She got the picture.
Jenna’s desk phone rang, and she shook her head before she picked up.
“Thompson.”
“Hi, Ms. Thompson. I’ve got a young lady on the line asking for you.”
“Could you take a message, please?”
“Yes, I saw that you’re unavailable, Ms. Thompson. I’m sorry, but she’s called several times, and now she’s saying it’s an emergency.”
Jenna felt her jaw tighten. She wanted to accept the transfer and immediately hang up, but Callie would call back and she couldn’t afford to make a scene.
“Go ahead and put her through,” she said. The young receptionist told Callie she was connected, and Jenna waited until she heard the click of her disconnecting before she spoke.
“Do you honestly have no regard for my work at all?”
“I tried your cell a billion times.”
“Which should have been an indicator that I’m busy. I’m working, Callie.”
Secrets On the Clock Page 18
