“Maybe. I don’t know. Did anything at all seem off to you? What were your impressions of the girl?”
Courtney scoured her memories, apprehension sabotaging her focus. “I have to work to engage her most of the time. She resents my intrusion in her life but has enough respect not to be overtly rebellious. She’s sixteen. You know how those last few years till majority can be for some kids.”
Giselle nodded. “When you get her talking, does she communicate well? How’s her English?”
Courtney considered the girl she was scheduled to visit again in just another week. “Accented but okay. I noted my first impressions in my report. Her guardians can be problematic.”
“How so?” Giselle latched on to that admission. “I need to know everything you can tell me.”
“The mother communicates in English better than the father, but he’s the one who likes to do the talking. He won’t allow me to talk to his wife and let her translate. A cultural thing, I think.” She shrugged, frustrated even thinking about how she could burn an entire afternoon going over every single thing once, twice, sometimes three times until satisfied she understood and had been understood.
“No hablo Español. Hablo muy poco de todos modos.”
Señor Perea didn’t seem to care that Courtney was the department go-to girl for all things French, including French-based Louisiana Creole and Cajun. Of course, there was a smattering of Spanish words in those dialects, so if he slowed down enough for her to catch the verbs, she could usually figure out the rest. “The situation was never optimal, Giselle. I’m not Nanette. She spoke Spanish fluently. You knew that when you assigned me this case.”
Giselle inhaled deeply, acknowledging imperfect reality in that one gesture. “But I knew I could trust you to put forth the effort to make sure these kids were properly cared for until I could get someone fluent in Spanish to replace you.”
What she didn’t say was that there were other social workers in the department who might be good and caring but who would also let the language barrier deter them.
Courtney was detail-oriented and thorough. Always. She would take the time to be clear, even if it meant derailing her schedule. Even if it meant she didn’t return to the office to start reports until after dark. Even if it meant she sacrificed a normal life to manage a caseload that had only grown in the years since the hurricane had leveled their entire agency.
They’d all been overworked before category-five winds had blown holes in the levees around Lake Pontchartrain, but since every record in every case they managed had been obliterated, they’d all been burdened additionally with rebuilding the system. A new system that wouldn’t utterly and completely fail during a catastrophic natural disaster.
They’d all made sacrifices, were still making sacrifices, but some managed to juggle the additional workload better than others. Courtney didn’t have a husband or kids awaiting her at home every day. “Will you tell me what has happened? You’re flipping me out with this interrogation.”
“You have to promise you won’t panic.” Giselle was the epitome of self-restraint, but everything about her begged Courtney to manage her reaction.
Giselle’s need in that moment seemed impossible to meet. The best she could do was face her supervisor and close friend, and nod, hoping she could keep the promise.
Giselle held up the photo. “This is not Araceli.”
It took Courtney a moment to wrap her brain around that. And in that one surreal instant, she took action again, reaching for the photo and inspecting it carefully, unable to absorb the overwhelming implications passively.
Same glossy dark hair. Same melting brown eyes. Same smooth caramel skin.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, Giselle, but I promise you this is Araceli. I’ve met with her every month since Nanette.”
Giselle pulled out another document with two photos stapled to the corner and set it on the desk between them. One eight-by-ten was a group shot of a classroom of young kids. Mr. LeGendre’s third grade, according to the neat font imprinted along the bottom above the students’ names. The other photo appeared to be the sort of proof used by photographic companies. There was a name and number beneath the face in that photo. The child was young like the ones in the group shot, maybe seven or eight, with a jagged smile where adult teeth were growing in.
Courtney scanned the group shot. She spotted Araceli’s name but couldn’t pick out the accompanying face from among the smiling kids. Reaching for the proof, she inspected the girl in that photo.
Gold skin. Glossy black hair. Melting dark eyes.
But a younger version of the uncommunicative girl Courtney met with every month?
A chill skittered through her, a physical sensation that made her breath catch hard. Grabbing the photo she’d taken herself, she placed them side by side, swung her gaze between them, made sense of the truth before her eyes.
There was something about the way the features came together that warned not even eight years could transform this child into the young woman who visibly reined in inconvenience each time they met.
Glancing up, Courtney saw her disbelief reflected in Giselle’s expression. “Are you sure? This can’t be possible.”
“Apparently Araceli’s file wound up on a compliance officer’s desk. Turns out he used to be in the classroom before he went into staffing. He looked at the Araceli in the file and questioned whether she was his third-grade student. The classroom photo was his, but he still wasn’t sure. He contacted the photography company on the off chance they had records since they’re not based locally. You’re looking at what he found.”
A rare piece of evidence left after the hurricane. Courtney stared at the proof again and latched on to the first thing she could in the midst of her racing thoughts. The most irrelevant. The least horrifying.
“Why was a compliance officer reviewing Araceli’s file? I should have been included.”
“No meetings were scheduled because of this situation. Araceli, or the girl we thought was her, got into a fight with a weapon during summer classes.”
The zero-tolerance policy changed the rules when a weapon was involved. “What weapon?”
Giselle scowled. “A chair. But given the way she used it... She has to be moved.”
“Okay.” Courtney rubbed her temples, willed her brain to reason. “Then where is Araceli, and who is this girl?”
“If we knew, we wouldn’t have a problem.”
That stopped Courtney cold. A powerful wave of vertigo rolled through her.
Two girls. One name.
A missing child.
Her heart pounded so hard each beat throbbed as reality narrowed down to the terrifying implications.
A missing child.
Details didn’t matter. The situation simply didn’t get any worse. Letting her eyes flutter shut, she blocked out Giselle’s expression, the hard-won professionalism that wasn’t concealing her panic.
Inhaling deeply, Courtney willed herself to think, to ask the questions that were critically important now that a child was missing.
“Has anyone spoken to the Pereas yet?” She forced the words past the tightness in her chest. “What about this girl?”
“The FBI will conduct the investigation.”
“Not the police?”
“We have nothing