Jailbird by Heather Huffman Read Free Book Online Page A

help Mary O’Donnell, even if I didn’t
have the slightest clue where to start.
    That didn’t get me any closer to a solution
where Charlie was concerned. Maybe there was no solution there.
Maybe I was just supposed to walk away.
    But everything in me cried out at the thought
of ignoring the way he made me feel. He made me remember that at
one time in my life, I had been more than a wild animal fighting to
take its next breath. I had been a young woman, fully alive and
full of dreams.
    “How did it go today?” Anjelita met me at the
door, her eyes filled with expectant hope.
    “Well. It went really well,” I answered
honestly. My monotone voice set off Anjelita’s trouble radar. I
ignored the question in her eyes and turned my attention to Isabel.
“Hey midget. How was your day?”
    “Good,” she shrugged. It had obviously been
summer long enough for the days of nothingness to have lost their
appeal. “How’s Mr. Charlie?”
    “Good,” I tried to match her nonchalant
shrug. “He misses Cara.”
    “Me too,” Isabel sighed that time.
    “She’ll be home before you know it,” I patted
her shoulder. It sounded lame even to me and her skeptical look
said as much. “Alright, I know. It stinks.”
    She smiled at that. “Goodnight, Miss
Neena.”
    “Goodnight sweetie.”
    While Anjelita tucked Isabel into bed, I
puttered around the house, trying to clear my mind as much as the
clutter in the house.
    It had been a lot of years since I’d allowed
myself the luxury of thinking about my own little girl. Most days,
I tried to pretend she didn’t exist. It wasn’t because she was the
product of the attack in the woods. At first I’d thought I could
never love the child because of its origins. But then I’d held her
in my arms and I knew… she wasn’t his. She was mine.
    Then they took her from my arms and I hadn’t
seen her again.
    I let out an expletive that would’ve earned
reproach from Angelita if she’d heard it and wiped my eyes with the
back of my hand. Darkness and confusion were settling in and no
amount of cleaning was going to chase them away.
    Truth was, the only thing I’d found in ten
years that could chase the darkness away was Charlie. And that was
the hold he had on me. That was why I stayed in this town when I
should move on, and why I’d go to his house again in the morning
when I should run the other way.
    Sleep eluded me for most of the night. The
snippets I did catch were filled with vague pictures. Mary’s green
eyes beseeching me. Black eyes that mirrored my own, wondering who
her parents really were. Todd’s ice blue eyes mocking me, telling
me he’d won after all. And then there were the fences. Always the
fences. Keeping me in, keeping the world out. Miles and miles of
them.
    I awoke with a start when I fell off the
couch.
    Isabel’s bright eyes were fixed keenly on me.
“Who’s Gabrielle?”
    “She’s only a dream honey. Just a dream,” I
couldn’t quite keep the sorrow from my voice or from tingeing the
smile I gave her. “Did I really sleep so late?”
    “Yeah. Mommy and Daddy are already at work.
They said to let you rest. You know you talk a lot in your
sleep?”
    “I do?”
    “Yeah. Mostly about Gabrielle. And Mary… and
someone named Conrad. Who’s Conrad?”
    “My brother,” I answered distractedly. The
mention of his name had set the wheels in my head to turning. I
would call him. It was a risk, but one I’d have to take. Surely as
my brother, he could check in on my former cell mate without
arousing suspicions, right?
    Now I just had to figure out where to call
him from and how to do so without an audience.
    “Is your brother nice?” Isabel brought me
back to the present.
    “Very,” my smile brightened at the thought of
him. “He’s a very good man. A lot like Charlie. Only taller.”
    “I want a brother. Or a sister,” Isabel
sighed heavily as if her parents had done her a great
disservice.
    “Cara’s like a sister,” I reminded