Page 93 of Heartbeat

“God,” Wolf whispered, and touched it again. “When did you first hear the voices?”

“In the car when it was burning. My clothes were on fire. A trucker was trying to get my door open, and I was screaming. And then I heard a voice say,It’s going to be okay. And it was.”

“Did they tell you about Ruiz?” he asked.

“No. Sometimes I just see things, too, and when we started talking about him, I suddenly saw a man pouring gasoline on the floor of an office and then saw it bursting into flames and he was running. I don’t know how I know that I know it was him, but he was falsifying documents to cover embezzling money and afraid he’d get caught.”

“Christ Almighty,” Wolf whispered. “No wonder he’s not answering his phone.”

She was trembling, afraid that she’d just ruined everything. “You believe me? You don’t think I’m crazy?”

Wolf frowned. “No, I don’t think that. Does Sean think you’re crazy?”

“No. They have an elder in the family just like me. She’s the one who told me the day of my open house that someone was looking for me, but to be patient. And that’s after I’d already sent you the letter about our Ancestry.com match and had heard nothing back.”

Wolf shook his head. “Now I know I have to meet these Popes.”

Amalie was still trembling. “I have a question.”

“Ask,” he said.

“When Sean and I get married, I’m not going to askyou to give me away, because I was already taken from you. But would you walk me down the aisle?”

“Daughter, it would be my honor,” Wolf said.

“If we’ve finished eating, I have something to share with you. It doesn’t amount to much, but I have a few pictures of me growing up, and since you missed seeing that happen, I thought you might like—”

“Absolutely,” Wolf said, “and I have a gift for you. You get your pictures and I’ll get my gift, and we’ll meet by the fireplace.”

She went back into the living room and got her photo album. Moments later, Wolf came back carrying a gift wrapped in shiny pink wrapping paper, tied with tendrils of silver ribbon.

“You first,” Wolf said, as he plopped down beside her.

She opened the photo album and put it in his lap. “A social worker gave me a copy of this baby picture when I turned eighteen. She said it was taken when I was ten days old. This picture is from one of my first foster parents. I don’t remember them at all, but I was three. This picture is when I began first grade. I don’t remember the school or the people taking care of me. But this is my school picture from third grade, when I first met Sean. I was at Ellen Smith Elementary school in Conway, Arkansas. I was about two months from finishing third grade when that family gave me back to welfare and sent me somewhere else. That was Miss Willis and Mr. Willis. They were scary.”

Wolf kept staring at the little face as it matured from year to year, hearing the same life story about notremembering the people and losing track of the changes. And by the time she got to her high school graduation, he was once again struggling not to cry.

“When you aged out of the system, how did you get your degree?” he asked.

Then she told him about the man in Little Rock who’d promised college educations and the program she’d signed up for her freshman year of high school.

“I got a free ride to college for having a straight-A grade point average all through high school and my choice of major at the university there. I wanted to be a CPA. After college, I went to work for a firm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and that’s where I was living when I had the wreck. So that’s me to date.”

“Damn, girl, but I’m so proud of you right now I could bust. You had everything against you, and you beat the system and succeeded in spite of it,” he said.

“Besides Sean, you’re the only other person who’s said aloud that they were proud of me.”

“So, this is for you from me,” he said, and handed her the gift.

She tore into it without hesitation, then gasped.

“That’s your mother and me on our wedding day. I’m so sorry she never lived to raise you, but she would be so very proud of the woman you grew up to be.”

Amalie was in tears. She was holding her past and sitting beside her future.

“This means everything to me,” she whispered. “Thank you, Dad, thank you.”

“Do you see yourself?” he asked.

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