Sounds Of Silence. Elizabeth White

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СКАЧАТЬ She put a teasing finger on the little girl’s nose. “¿Como te llama?”

      The child beamed and flattened Isabel’s hand. With her finger she traced a large letter M, then looked up at Isabel to see if she comprehended. When Isabel nodded, the girl finished spelling the name Mercedes.

      Eli stared at Isabel dumbfounded. “Well I’ll be…. Her name’s Mercedes.”

      “You mean she hadn’t told you that?” Isabel sat up.

      “She hasn’t told us anything,” Eli said. “We’ve given her pencil and paper, asked her stuff, but…nothing. It’s weird, because you can tell she comprehends what you’re asking. Then she just gets this blank look and refuses to answer.”

      Isabel smiled at Mercedes, who settled cross-legged on the floor and leaned against Isabel’s knee. “What else do you want to know?”

      “Where she came from. Who her parents are. How she got that knife.”

      “I suppose I could ask.” Isabel traced a gentle finger down the little girl’s crooked part. “Why do you think she told me her name?”

      Eli couldn’t help wondering the same thing. His supervisor had brought in a deaf interpreter and a social worker this morning, but Mercedes had given the woman the same blank look she gave everyone else.

      There was some connection with Isabel that Eli couldn’t explain. He shrugged. “Maybe you look like her mother. Who knows? Listen, Isabel—” He crouched on one knee. “I’d really appreciate it if you’d take Mercedes home with you tonight. Like I said, there’s even a little stipend money in the budget. You could talk to her some more, try to get her to talk back.”

      Isabel bit her lip. Eli could see conflicting emotions chase across her expressive face, and he knew the money had nothing to do with it. In fact, he was probably going to have to make her take compensation. Mercedes had obviously grabbed a piece of Isabel’s tender heart.

      “It might be good for Danilo to have to share me a little bit,” she murmured.

      “He’s a good kid,” Eli said. “He’ll like having somebody to play with.”

      Isabel tipped her head and looked him in the eyes. “You think it’ll just be for a day or two?”

      “I’m sure of it,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “So you’ll do it?”

      Mercedes suddenly wrapped both arms around Isabel’s legs.

      Eli saw Isabel’s eyes fill as she laid a hand on the little girl’s dark, untidy head. “I’ll do it,” she sighed.

      “Good.” Eli grinned. “I knew you would. There’s just one thing though.”

      “I knew it.” Isabel’s beautifully marked brows drew together. “What’s the hitch?”

      “It’s no big deal.” But Eli found himself unable to meet her eyes. “It’s just that we need to hide Mercedes until we find the killer.”

      “No big deal,” Isabel muttered as she pulled into her driveway. “Sure, Eli. Hide an active seven-year-old in the same house with a five-year-old motormouth.” The neighbors were going to notice an extra child, and how was she going to handle grocery shopping?

      Her elderly Escort shuddered to a stop, and the rear passenger door burst open. Danilo, who hadn’t stopped talking from the moment she’d picked him up in front of the gym, jumped out of the car and ran to open the door for Mercedes.

      “Come on, Mercedes, I gotta show you the sandbox!” He grabbed his new friend by the hand and tugged.

      Mercedes resisted, giving Isabel an apprehensive glance.

      Isabel smiled, making a shooing motion. “Go ahead.”

      She needed a little time to freshen the guest room, empty the closet. There was lunch to fix, too. Danilo liked peanut butter and jelly on toast. Every day. What would Mercedes like?

      Probably anything, considering the poverty across the border.

      As she unlocked the side door, Isabel looked up at the light fixture, which had been left on. Had it only been this morning that Eli had been here repairing it? Seemed like a lifetime of events had transpired since then.

      Which just went to prove what a true marshmallow she was. Why couldn’t she just tell Eli n-o? He could have found somebody else to take Mercedes. There were lots of kindhearted women in their church. Women with more room, more money, less emotional baggage.

      In a way, though, it was sort of flattering that he’d asked her. Eli was such a sweetie, and that boyish stammer did something to her resistance.

      As she hung her purse in the laundry room and turned on the air conditioner window unit in the den, Isabel shook her head. And of course there was Mercedes herself. What mother could turn away a little girl who laid her head against your knee?

      Isabel took a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread out of the pantry, then peeked out the kitchen window into the backyard. Beyond the clothes flapping in the breeze, she could see the children in the sandbox. Mercedes perched with fastidious femininity on the wooden side, while Danilo knelt on all fours, plowing a truck into a sand dune. His tennis shoes and socks had been abandoned outside the box. Isabel would probably have to excavate his ears and pockets before letting him in the house.

      Resigned to sweeping up at least a bucket of sand, she finished putting lunch together, then went to the door.

      “Danilo!” she called. “Bring Mercedes and come in for lunch.”

      “Okay, Mommy,” he hollered back. Momentarily both children appeared at the door. “I don’t have to wash my hands,” Danilo announced through the screen. “I stuck ’em in Fonzie’s water bowl.”

      Isabel grinned. A few weeks before Rico’s death, he had started feeding a mutt who’d wandered through their yard and made himself at home under the front porch. Big, ugly brown Fonzie—named after Rico’s favorite Happy Days character—had thoroughly weaseled his way into the family.

      “Nice try.” She pointed at the sink. “Wash.” She beckoned Mercedes, who hovered outside, and rubbed her hands together. “Lavate,” she said slowly, so the little girl could read the word on her lips. Then, “Wash,” to demonstrate the English version.

      Isabel loved to teach. In fact, she’d started college with the intention of earning her certificate, but getting pregnant right away had put an end to that. Rico had gotten bored with school and decided Border Patrol would suit him, so off they’d gone to the Academy at Glencoe. Since then she’d been so busy functioning as wife and mother, there hadn’t been time to think about finishing college. And after Rico’s death, she’d had all she could do to make ends meet. A talented seamstress, she’d made curtains, raised and lowered hems, sewn on buttons—boring jobs that sapped every bit of creative energy from a hobby she’d once loved.

      All that was going to change, however, when she moved back to San Antonio. Her mother had promised to keep Danilo while Isabel went to college. She was going to be a teacher if it killed her.

      All she had to do was sell this fixer-upper.

      She СКАЧАТЬ