Catherine Palmer - Thread Of Deceit

“I’ll talk to her,” Sam said finally. “You’ve got five minutes, Miss Burns.”

“Ana.” She smiled, radiant and suddenly prettier than he’d realized.

“Shall we go to my office?” he asked. “It’s quieter.”

“Your office?” The smile vanished. “We can talk here. I don’t have a problem with noise.”

He studied her for a moment, observing the brown eyes and reading in them something he hadn’t expected. Fear. So, Miss Ana Burns had a chink in her armor. She didn’t want to go into his office. His turf. Seeing an advantage, he seized it.

“I’d like to sit down,” Sam told her. “Been on my feet all day, you know. Follow me.”

“But…” she tried. “But I…”

Ana matched his stride as Sam headed across the room. Unusually long legs, he noted. Most women barely reached his shoulder, but a tilt of this one’s head would put her face disconcertingly close to his.

Military training had taught Sam the art of inspection, and instinct took over despite his determination to ignore the pesky reporter. Her firm chin and aquiline nose created a sharp profile, he noted, which was softened by large brown eyes and full lips. Squared shoulders eased into gentle curves. Her topknot had clearly started the morning tightly coiled. But the day had loosened it, and now wisps of dark hair trailed around her ears and down the back of her long neck. The combination of prickly and soft intrigued Sam—which in turn, irritated him no end.

A short distance away, Terell blew the whistle for activity change. Like jelly beans, kids poured out of the little classrooms, down the stairs and across the basketball court. Despite his annoyance at her intrusion, Sam felt glad that the reporter was seeing the large numbers of children and teenagers who had found a secure place to spend their summer days.

Without Haven, most would be loitering on the streets, vulnerable to the drug dealers, drive-by shootings, prostitution and gang activity that proliferated in these neighborhoods. Here, they stood a much greater chance of not becoming a statistic—one of the hundreds of young men who ended up in hospital emergency rooms with knife or bullet wounds, or one of the countless unmarried teenage girls who became pregnant each year.

Giving them hope was Sam’s passion. His mission. He had blown assignments in the past. Made mistakes. Fatal flaws. This time he would not fail.

He stepped into the front office and clapped a hand on Caleb’s back. “How’s the computer, buddy?”

“A pile of junk.” Caleb squinted into the screen as he spoke his familiar refrain.

“Hey, get on the Internet and see if you can dig up a little dirt on somebody for me—her name’s Ana Burns.”

“There’s no modem on this old thing, sir, and I—” Caleb glanced up, saw the woman, and then laughed in embarrassment. “Oh, hey there, Miss Burns.”

“Hello, Caleb.”

“I thought you wanted to talk to Terell.”

“I intended to, but it looks like I’m stuck with Uncle Sam.”

The teen grinned. “Lucky you.”

“By the way,” she addressed Sam as they walked down a short hallway to his personal office. “My name is Anamaria Cecilia Guadalupe Burns, and you won’t dig up any dirt on me. I’m clean. Your dog can vouch for that.”

“Your name…you’re Hispanic?” he asked, pulling the door shut behind him and pointing her to a chair.

She stood statuelike, eyeing the room, her knuckles white on the handle of her purse. Then, moving suddenly, she turned and jerked open the door. With two quick paces, she stepped to the chair and sat, her hips on its edge as though she intended to leap up at any moment.

“I prefer the term Latina, ” she said, flipping open her reporter’s notebook. “My mother was born and raised in Mexico. My father’s ancestors came from Scotland. I grew up in Brownsville, Texas, graduated from UTB with a degree in English and worked at the Brownsville Herald before moving here five months ago.”

“Ah,” he said, taking a seat behind his desk.

“And you?”

“Wyoming.”

“What brought you to St. Louis?”

“Haven.” He straightened a stack of papers, tamping the edges before setting them back on his desk. “I thought this interview was about lead paint.”

“And I thought you wanted a broader story.”

“You don’t need my background for that. Write about the kids. Most live in government-subsidized housing projects. Few have a father in the home. We have a mix of African-American and Caucasian, but we—”

“So I’ve observed.” Her eyebrows lifted like a pair of raven’s wings. “Sorry to interrupt, but would you mind if I asked the questions?”

Sam leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers across his stomach. The lady was a major pain.

“I like your office, by the way,” she said, brown eyes flashing from one side of the small room to the other. Long dark lashes curled up almost to her eyebrows. “Orderly. Neat. But you ought to clean the front area. That pile of wet towels is sprouting mold.”

“Would you like to take over management of our laundry room, Miss Burns?”

“It’s Ana, and the posters are peeling off the walls out there, too. That office is a wreck.”

“We have lead paint in our laundry room,” he informed her. “I can’t let the kids work there anymore, because the paint is peeling even worse than those posters out front. So our towel mass is becoming critical, and we could use an adult to help out.”

“I’m not that into laundry,” she said. “I send most of my clothing to a dry cleaner.”

He sat back and studied her. “Ah. A dry cleaner type.”

“Do you have a problem with dry cleaners?”

“I have a problem with people taking up my valuable time discussing wet towels.”

She picked up her notebook. “When did you meet Terell Roberts?”

“At LSU. We both played basketball there.”

“And then you turned pro?”

“He did. Played for the Magic and the Clippers. I went into the military. Marines.”

“Ah,” she said. “A Marine type.”

He couldn’t hold back a grin. “Not a Marine type. A Marine. I brought that training to Haven, because I believed if I could teach discipline and respect, the kids would benefit.”

“So you contributed the military atmosphere, while Terell came up with the seed money to start the operation.”

“Haven is a team effort. We rely on our patrons for funding. Our volunteers add their ideas to make this a better place. Nobody has all the answers to help these kids.”

“So what’s your motivation?”

“Like I said. Helping kids.”

“Really?” She sounded skeptical. “Terell wants to help children, too, I suppose.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Why these kids? And why you?”

He put his head on the padded chair back and closed his eyes. How could he explain the complex and painful reasons why he had sought out Terell Roberts after so many years? How could anyone even begin to understand what had compelled him to spend every last cent he had saved, to work countless hours tearing out old plaster and making the place habitable, to come each morning knowing it might be the last day Haven’s doors would open?

Lifting his head, he gazed at Ana Burns. She sat across from him, her notebook propped up and her pen poised. Her straight shoulders and long neck were held in that regal pose now so familiar to him. But for the first time, he noted a small pendant at her throat. A gold cross set with garnets.

“Your necklace,” he said.

Her hand moved up to touch the cross. “My mother gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday—the Quinceañero. It’s a special occasion.”

“It’s a reminder of your family…and your faith?”