A Child Changes Everything

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Lisa’s movements, the way she smothered her baked potato in sour cream, the way she chewed every bite attentively and placed her napkin so neatly beside her plate when she finished were all familiar.

Funny how they were so compatible in their everyday lives, but when it came to the big decisions they had little in common.

Carefully placing her fork and knife on the plate, she rose and set it back on the room-service trolley. “So, what about my sister?” she finally asked, returning to her seat.

He sighed. “Anne Marie is in the Indian River jail. It’s not far from here.”

“Has she been charged?”

He attempted to keep his tone neutral. “I’ve arranged an appointment for ten-thirty tomorrow. You can ask Anne Marie then.”

He’d had to pull a few strings to get Lisa in to see her sister. The prisoner usually decided who visited, but the officer had put Lisa’s name on the list at his insistence. It seemed that Anne Marie Lewis had been uncooperative so far, which didn’t bode well for tomorrow.

“What am I going to do when I go in there?” Lisa asked, her voice uneasy, her eyes dark.

What was she asking? Did she expect to be able to walk into the jail and take Anne Marie home? “You’re going to meet her, maybe arrange to visit her again the following day.”

“I don’t mean that.” She began to pace the narrow room. “I mean, what am I going to say to her? How do I explain who I am? We’re complete strangers. How do I begin the conversation? Hello, my name is Lisa and I’m your long-lost sister?” She suddenly spun around, a triumphant smile on her face. “I’ll start with the photo of her and me.”

“What photo?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Carolyn—I mean, my mother—had a photo of Anne Marie and me taken in Myrtle Beach when I was eight. Oh, Mason, you’re not going to believe this…”

As she told him the story, her expression held such joy and hope that Mason felt his heart grow heavy. In all the time he’d known Lisa, he’d never seen her so animated, so happy. Her eagerness to take action pleased him; yet a part of him wished he could have made her this happy.

Beyond any doubt, Lisa Clarke had been waiting for this moment of connection with her birth family. If only he’d realized how important it was to her, back when their love had been an unbreakable tie between them.

“Lisa, let’s not rush this. You don’t know any of the circumstances of your sister’s case, but I’ve seen—”

“So many cases like this, right? People in jail.”

“Yeah, I have.”

“Mason, you still haven’t told me why Anne Marie’s there.”

Damn! He didn’t want to tell her, because the implications were too painful. But her tone of voice told him she wouldn’t be put off. “Drug trafficking.”

She stopped pacing. “Oh. No.” Color drained from her face. “Not that. She couldn’t be mixed up in drugs.”

Mason saw the fear in her eyes and knew what had put it there. “This isn’t like your father’s case.” He hoped that was the truth, but there was no way of being certain of anything at this point.

“I’m sure it’s not,” she said firmly.

Her father had nearly died when a drug trafficker decided to settle the score when Jim Clarke won the case against him. Jim Clarke had been shot getting into his car outside the Durham courthouse. When the hospital called Mrs. Clarke, she’d come to the school to pick up Lisa. On the way to the hospital, her mother had been driving so erratically that the police had stopped her and had to drive her the rest of the way. The next few weeks had been incredibly stressful and emotional for Lisa. Her father held on by a thread and her mother had been a hysterical wreck. Eventually her father had recovered, but he had retired from the D.A.’s office and become a stockbroker—a less dangerous occupation.