Page 56 of Unnatural
What a gift he’d given her. She suddenly felt even more overwhelmed than she had when she first realized what he’ddone.
The sound of the shower drummed behind the bathroom door.
That sweet, wounded, brave, sensitive man should not shower under frigid water.
It wasn’t right.
The injustice couldn’t stand.
Autumn closed the journal, and then with a deep intake of breath, she stood, heading toward the bathroom. Heading toward Sam.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mark knocked on the door of the duplex, the shouts and laughter of children playing ringing through the air from thepark across the street. Something savory was cooking in one of the units, and the smell wafted to him below.
The door opened a crack, and a tiny face peeked out, a little boy with dark skin and a short-cropped Afro staring curiously up at him.
Mark smiled. “Hi. Is your mom home?”
The little boy shook his head, not offering more.
“Your grandma?” The woman he was there to see was in her fifties, plenty old enough to be a grandma, though from the woman’s name, he’d assumed she was Middle Eastern. “Is there an adult here?” Mark finally tried.
The little boy nodded.
“Can I talk to him or her?”
The little boy nodded again and then closed the door. Mark was hopeful the boy was going to get this unknown adult, though he couldn’t be sure. A moment later though, the door was pulled open again, and an older woman with dark swept-back hair laced with gray stood there, wearinga similar curious expression to the one the little boy had given him.
“Salma Ibrahim?” he asked, taking his badge from his pocket and holding it up for her. “Agent Mark Gallagher.” This was one of the people Autumn Clancy’s social worker, Chantelle, had been able to tell him Autumn had been searching for. The woman who, as far as Chantelle knew, Autumn had never found.
She frowned, her eyes on his badge. “Yes,” she confirmed. “I’m Salma. Agent? What can I do for you?”
“There’s not a problem,” he assured her and saw her shoulders drop a fraction. “I just have some questions about a case, if I might take a few minutes of your time?”
“A case…” She glanced behind her, and Mark heard not just one child’s voice but several, coming from a room beyond. “Yes, yes, of course. Come in.”
She opened the door wider, and Mark stepped inside.
Salma closed the door and gestured to him to follow her. “I run an in-home day care,” she said. “Let me just get the children set up with a show.” She waved her hand at a sofa in the front room she’d led him to. “Have a seat, and I’ll be right back.”
Mark sat down, glancing around the room. It was clean and neat, but the furniture was obviously older. It might not be stylish, per se—even if Mark couldn’t exactly definestylishother than what he’d seen on the covers of the Pottery Barn catalogs his wife received in the mail—but the space felt cozy and welcoming, with neatly folded throw blankets and a whole slew of family photos on a table in front of the window.
Salma came back into the room, apologizing for the wait, though she’d only been gone three or four minutes,and took a seat in the chair across from Mark. “What is this about, Agent…”
“Gallagher,” he said. “But please, call me Mark. I’m working on a case, and the name of a woman who may or may not be involved came to light. Autumn Clancy. You would have known her as Autumn Sterling.”
Salma brought her hand to her mouth as her eyes widened. “Autumn?” she breathed. “Oh my goodness. She’s alive, isn’t she?”
“She is. Did you think she was deceased, Ms. Ibrahim?”
“Salma,” she murmured, turning her head and staring out the window for a moment. “No, not really.” She turned her attention back to Mark. “Autumn was an ADHM baby. She lived at the hospital I worked at, nine years ago now.”
“Yes. ADHM babies didn’t generally have a good prognosis.”
“No,” Salma said sadly. “It was all but a death sentence. Thank the good Lord that time is past. How is Autumn?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t met her.” He’d called her place of employment though and found that she had taken a short leave of absence.Curious timing.Only he was all but certain that it wasn’t curious at all.
