Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 07 - Vague Images by Elaine Orr Read Free Book Online

now?”
    He sighed and sat at the very small kitchen table . “Not by my old name. And I didn’t think anyone would recognize me now, so I figured I could check here.”
    I put the sandwich in the pan and crutched to the little table . As I sat I swung my foot onto the table. Thomas Edward stared at the foot. “It needs to be elevated,” I said, “or it swells. It’s nice to see you, but you didn’t come from wherever to sit in my kitchen.”
    “No, no I didn’t.”  He studied my face for several seconds . “I need your help. Hannah is missing.”
    That was not at all what I expected him to say . “Good heavens!  She’s how old now?”
    “She just turned eighteen, but she doesn’t look that old . She left home a week ago, and she texted me every day. But the last time was three days ago.”
    I pointed to the stove . “Flip it.” As he got up I asked, “Why do you think she’s missing?  Maybe she has a new boyfriend or some…”
    “No!”  He stood there, spatula in hand, with an expression that begged me to understand.
    “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
    He nodded but didn’t say anything right away. Instead, he studied the sandwich as if willing it to cook faster . Without asking, he opened one of the kitchen cupboards, took out a plate, and put it on the counter. He then flipped the sandwich in its pan. Same responsible Thomas Edward.
    The kitchen in my little house is painted bright yellow, which is a big step up from the muddy color it was when I bought the little hurricane-damaged house. However, not even light-colored paint could expand the size . It’s barely big enough for the two-person table and chairs. When one of the people in the kitchen is six feet tall, the place feels a lot smaller.
    Thomas Edward slid the cooked sandwich on the plate and then sat across from me.
    I studied him as he almost inhaled the sandwich. Thomas Edward had a slim build, and I could imagine him on a high school basketball team. Not college, too little muscle. He could run track, I thought. Why are you thinking about this? Get to the point!
    “I can fix you some soup or another sandwich in a minute, but how about you tell me why you think Hannah is missing.”
    “Okay.”  He took a deep breath. “You didn’t know where we went, did you?”
    I shook my head . “The police said we couldn’t even discuss your family among ourselves. Scoobie and Aunt Madge and me.”
    “Atlanta . Can you hear my southern accent?”  He grinned and then grew serious again. “My mom, she didn’t like big cities. But the Marshal’s Service—you know who they are?”
    I nodded . I knew witness protection was one of the many jobs of the Department of Justice. “They’re the ones who actually relocate you, right?”
    “Yeah . Anyway, the marshal who was our main guy said the reason the bad guys found us was because we were in a small town. So they said we had to go to a big city, where we’d just be one family in a huge town.”
    “I’m surprised they didn’t pick New York or LA,” I said.
    He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have mattered where we were, my mom was going to hate it. She missed my aunts, her sisters. It wasn’t so bad for me. I did sports some, and I was on the debate team for a while in high school, but the marshal said it was too much visibility, so I quit.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    He shrugged again. It seemed to be almost like a tic with him. “It was harder for Hannah. She was never anywhere she could feel content. I mean, she was when we were little, but she doesn’t really remember it. We were in temporary places while my dad…did some stuff for the government. Then we came to Ocean Alley. Hannah really liked it here. She loved the beach.”
    “So, you were in Atlanta the whole time after you left here?”
    “Yeah. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but my mom was scared, well maybe more like worried, all the time. She put black construction paper over the window in our wood front door,