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“I guess I would. Do you know anything about a Jubal Craine? His daughter, Leah, was a resident.”
“I knew Leah. She was quiet, kept her head down, not only stayed out of trouble, but tried to be invisible, if you understand me.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I remember her, very well, because she was, in essence, my transition.”
“How was that?” Eve asked.
“We were in a class. I can’t remember what class, but we had to put in a certain number of hours a week on educational requirements. We were in a class when I heard him—Leah’s father. He was shouting, raging really, shouting her name, telling her she better get her lazy ass out there. Shouting at the staff. She went sheet white, I remember that. I can still see the look on her face. First the terror, the kind I’d never felt, then the resignation, which was almost worse. I remember all that, and the way she just got up, no protests, no pleas, and walked out.”
Seraphim put her coffee down, gripped her hands in her lap. “It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen, the way she just stood up, walked away. I remember that moment because I thought of the things Philadelphia and I talked about in one-to-ones. I thought of how scary it was on the street when you’re broke and hungry, cold, and when you hear stories about rapes and beatings. And I started thinking how Leah didn’t have anybody outside The Sanctuary but this man who was shouting how he was going to whip the sass out of her, and that sort of thing. I thought of Gamma, and how she’d never hurt me. Not ever. And I started thinking I wanted to have somebody who’d take care of me, who’d protect me. That I did have somebody. And Leah didn’t.
“They had to give her to him, you see. He was the legal guardian, and she wouldn’t say he hurt her. She just said she’d go home with him.”
“Poor thing,” Mrs. Bittmore murmured.
“The next time I saw her was months later.”
“She came back?” Eve demanded.
“I don’t know, actually. I saw her on the street. I was shopping with a friend. Gamma trusted me—I trusted me by then. Or had started to. I saw Leah getting on a bus. I nearly called out, but I’m ashamed to say I didn’t want my friend to know I knew this girl with her torn jacket and bruised face. So I didn’t call out. But she looked at me. For just a moment we looked at each other.”
Tears shimmered in Seraphim’s eyes. “She smiled at me. Then she got on the bus, and I never saw her again. But I did think, even then, I thought: She got away. At least she got away from him again.”
“I was told he came back, too.”
“I didn’t know that. I must have been home by then. He wouldn’t have found her at The Sanctuary. She didn’t go back there, at least not while I was there—and, honestly, I believe she was smart and scared enough not to go back to where he’d found her. It wasn’t long after I went home, to my grandmother, that they changed locations.”
“I had the building,” Mrs. Bittmore explained. “And when I went back to thank Philadelphia and Nash, the others, I’d already made arrangements to donate it, if they wanted it. I’d done my due diligence,” she said with a sharp smile. “So I knew they were legitimate. I asked if they’d be willing to let my lawyers and money people study their books and records, and they were. We were satisfied. I had my granddaughter back. I was more than satisfied. You never told me about this girl. This Leah.”
“No. I felt ashamed, I suppose, that I hadn’t gone up to her, spoken to her.”
“We could look for her, find where she is now.”
“Leave that to me,” Eve advised. “Thank you,” she said as she rose. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“Have I?” Seraphim rose as well. “You must have already known Shelby’s name.”
“You gave me a better picture of her.”
“Any one of them could have been me. Any one of the twelve. I’ll do anything I can to help you.”
“I may take you up on that.”
Eve rolled it around as they rode down to the lobby. “She’s lucky she had someone to go home to. Not the money, the privilege, but somebody who didn’t give up on her, and wanted her.”
“Too many aren’t lucky.” He had been, Roarke thought. Summerset had taken him in—some bloodied street rat—and for reasons he didn’t understand to this day, had wanted him.
“Should I look for Leah Craine?”
Eve glanced at him. “I wouldn’t mind knowing where she is. We can hope she’s not in DeWinter’s lab.”
“She got away,” Roarke said, and because he could picture that terrible resignation too well, he wanted to believe she’d stayed away. And safe. “We’ll have some faith she made a life for herself.”
“Data’s better than faith.”
“Such a cop.”
