Page 104 of Reckoning

Briar unpacked and changed clothes, straightened her framed star certificate hanging on the wall, then took her laptop to the kitchen table. She pulled up her résumé and added her new address and the notation “Summa Cum Laude” with her degree of study.

It was official. She and Tate Bandy were finally living under the same roof, sleeping in the same bed, creating their own world in the life they would live, and all she could think was that every bad, sad thing she’d endured under her father’s roof to get here was worth it. She spent most of the day researching job openings all over New Orleans, and at the university, as well, and submitting résumés.

Briar was looking to the future, while Tate’s work was most often in the past—looking for the lost, whether it was a thing or a person.

A large portion of his backlog from their trip was the usual. People wanting everything from winning numbers for the lottery, to terminally ill people asking him when they were going to die. He never responded to the outrageous or absurd.

When the day finally came to an end, Briar had submitted a dozen résumés, and Tate had gone through six clients to successful conclusions.

The next day he got a request he could not ignore. An elderly woman was in a local hospital. She wasn’t going to recover, and she needed closure. Her daughter had run away years ago, leaving the woman to raise her granddaughter on her own.

Her granddaughter, Raina Hooper, who was now twenty-six years old, was the one who contacted Tate, begging him to come to the hospital and talk to her grandmother in person.

“I’ll pay double if you will,” Raina said.

“There’s no need for double. Pay the usual. Send me her name and room number, and you need to be there too.”

“Thank you. Yes, I will be there. I’m sending the money now. She’s at the University Medical Center.” Then she gave him the address and her grandmother’s room number.

Tate wrote the information down, told Briar where he was going, then grabbed a cold drink from the refrigerator to take as he left.

A short drive later, he entered the hospital and headed for the elevators, got off on the third floor, and started down the hall to room 312.

The door was ajar. He knocked lightly.

A woman called out. “Come in.”

He pushed the door open and saw the old woman resting quietly, then the young woman at her side.

“I’m Tate Bandy. Are you Raina?”

“Yes,” she said, and motioned him forward. “This is my grand-mère, Marjolynne LeBlanc.” She patted her grandmother’s hand. “Grand-mère. Tate Bandy is here. You can ask him your question now.”

The old woman opened her eyes, then looked past her granddaughter to the man standing beside her.

“Mrs. LeBlanc, may I hold your hand?” Tate asked.

There was a flash of glee in her eyes as she extended a hand, wrinkled from age. She was little more than skin and bones, but life within was still there, and Tate saw it.

“It’s been a while since a handsome young man asked for my hand,” she said.

Tate smiled as he gripped it. “I see you as the beauty you were. Not where life has taken you. Ask me your question.”

“My daughter Caroline worked for an offshore oil company and had to travel now and then for her job. She never got married. Raina was hers alone. One day my daughter comes to me, asking me to keep Raina while she goes on a work trip. She said she would be back in three days, but she never returned. That was June 3, 2002, and we never saw her again. I was devastated. I knew she would never abandon either of us, but police searches came to nothing. Raina is the joy for me that my daughter should have been. I would not exist to this day had she not given me something to live for.” She paused to catch her breath. “I need to know. Did she leave us on purpose, or did someone take her away from us?”

Tate reached for Raina’s hand, holding two generations as he sought for the lost one between, and what he saw was hard to see, impossible to describe to a mother, and so he took the kinder path.

“Someone killed her. She never saw it coming. She was not in bad company. She did not willingly abandon either of you. Know that the man who killed her got away with murder, but he caught COVID before there was a vaccine and suffered greatly for weeks before he died. Karma took him when justice could not.”

Tears rolled from the corners of the old woman’s eyes. “Do you know where her body is?”

He nodded. “I will help Raina recover her.”

Marjolynne turned to her granddaughter. “Caroline needs to come home. Lay her to rest beside me.”

Raina was in tears. “I will, Grand-mère. I promise.”

The old woman’s eyes closed, but she gave Tate’s hand a quick squeeze. “Thank you. I will be at peace now.”