Delainey took the tablet. Granted, the writing was scribbled and a lot of it was crossed out, but there was an impressive list of things to be done. Something was going right.
“The ones with the asterisk beside them are ones Sammy and I can do ourselves.”
“Wow, most impressive.”
“Ha. Baby sister grows up.” Christina threw her hands up in the air and wiggled in celebration.
“It’s not as if I didn’t think you could get work done. You were Bandal’s top engineer for over two years. That’s nothing to sneeze at, sis. You just—”
Christina eyed her with suspicion. “What?”
“You just never seemed to have time to do things for yourself, and this project seems to be for you.”
“Oh. I...um...guess I never expected you to notice.”
“Big sister finally wakes up to the fact that little sister is an outstanding human being.” Delainey waved her hand across the imaginary headline. Then she dropped her hand to her lap. “It’s true, Christina. Once I stopped seeing you as a five-year-old, you know, last year—” her sister smiled, as she had hoped she would “—I recognized you are a most amazing woman with the most amazing talents.”
Christina looked shocked and then amazed and speechless.
“I think you can thank Brianna. She made me realize how strongly I felt about the people around me, the people I’ve been closest to my whole life and maybe taken for granted at times.”
“Well, thank you, Brianna.”
“I even forgave Hunter. He never meant to break my heart. Whatever he did at the time was the best he had that day.” Delainey sighed. How she wished their best had been different that summer.
“I guess it comes down to whether or not we can live with the best they have to offer on any given day,” Christina said, and smiled.
“Does that mean you heard from Sammy?”
Christina’s smile held a bit of dreaminess. “He called last night and did a phone tour of the houses with me. He’s excited to get here. He gave his notice and in two weeks he plans to arrive on my doorstep.”
Plans, hopes, wants, dreams. Sammy dealt in all of these, often at her sister’s expense. Delainey hoped his best was good enough to deserve Christina. “Do I get to meet him this time?”
“Meet him. Greet him. You just don’t get to date him.”
Delainey laughed. “Deal.”
“So I plan to start in the kitchen.” Christina’s tone was pure excitement. “I’ll get it stripped and buy some secondhand appliances so in a couple months I can live here. The bathroom on this floor still works. The furnaces are all still running, so the water pipes haven’t frozen.”
“I brought these blank contracts as samples. They can give you ideas of the kinds of things you might want to include.”
Christina took the contracts and tucked them on the clipboard with her tablet. “Thanks. I’m so eager to get started. I had to stop myself from stripping the wallpaper here and now. Thanks for getting all this for me.”
“You’re welcome. I’m having fun watching you get so worked up, but I guess I’d better get going.”
“They’ll all think you’re a slacker, ducking out to visit your sister two days in a row.”
“Yeah, but the food is great.”
“Are you up to it?” Christina asked.
“Up to what?”
CHAPTER FOUR
DELAINEY TURNED SIDEWAYS on the couch and gave Christina a suspicious glare.
“Are you up to facing Hunter Morrison all day, going on a date with him tonight?” Christina asked.
“I’ll hide in my office with the door locked all day and it’s not a date, but I need a favor.”
“Sure.”
“You don’t know what I want.”
“You want me to pick up Brianna from Mom and Dad’s at, oh, about six o’clock so she doesn’t wear them out. I can do that. She and I will have so much fun.”
“She thinks you’re the coolest aunt ever.”
“That might be because I am. Let’s see. I’ve got computer games. I’ve got makeup and jewelry to play with and I’ve got gum. What more could a six-year-old kid want from an aunt?”
“Nothing.” Delainey laughed and picked up her keys from the coffee table.
“You’ll figure things out with Hunter,” Christina said as they walked to the door.
Delainey stopped. “That’s just it. I can’t come up with a scenario where this works out. He seems angry with me and I don’t know what I did. And whether or not he’s justified in feeling that way, he gets a say in whether or not I continue working for Morrison and Morrison. If it turns out he’s just angry at something else, I’ll try to help him like I used to. It would make things easier for the both of us.”
“Don’t tell me you—”
Delainey nodded. “When someone broke his heart, I’d fix it for him. When he panicked about an exam, I’d come to his rescue. Well, you get it.”
“Then everything can get just peachy between the two of you.”
Delainey put her hand on the old brass doorknob and her head on the doorframe. “Ah, my optimistic sister. If everything gets peachy, I can’t forget that they were heavenly between us the first time when he just walked away. I have Brianna to think of and if I brought a man into her life that broke her heart, I could never forgive myself.”
“Brianna has a great mother.”
“Thanks.”
Delainey stepped out into the brisk air of another sunny late-February day and Christina closed the door behind her.
Ten minutes later and safely tucked in her office, she straightened the stack of files on her desk. There seemed to be more than when she left earlier.
She pulled the one off the top with a hot pink sticky note on it in Carol’s hand that said Important.
In the file was the picture of a boy, perhaps Brianna’s age but probably younger, maybe four and a half or five. Stevie Anning, the label read.
The boy had a bruise down the side of his face that looked to be a few days old and a fat lip that seemed to be very fresh.
The information had been provided by a neighbor of the child, who was living in the custody of his uncle. Apparently, Child Protective Services had been to the home and deemed the injuries accidental. They’d subsequently determined the child was safe and happy. The neighbor said the state was there for what seemed like ten minutes, emphasizing, “And that’s all the time they gave to this little boy.”
The neighbor had also called the police twice and when they arrived, they could find no wrongdoing at the uncle’s house. They had taken the uncle into the station and removed the boy from the home both times. Each time, the uncle had been able, according to the neighbor, to talk himself out of being charged with any crime.
Delainey wasn’t sure she believed that. The Bailey’s Cove Police Department was very responsive to domestic abuse. Every officer had been to sensitivity training and had attended the intervention initiative education program to help them to recognize the signs of abuse and the responses of an offender who is good at getting off the hook.
In