Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(30)

“Push on the glass.”

“I can’t reach.”

“You gotta lean forward.”

Jubilee loosened her grip on Ethan’s head and moved ever so slightly.

“You gotta let go and lean way in.”

“I’m afraid.”

“You’re not gonna fall,” Ethan assured her. “I’ve got hold of you.”

A terrified Jubilee lifted her left hand and reached toward the glass transom. Her legs were locked around Ethan’s neck and her right hand still glued to his head. “I almost got it,” she whispered.

“Use both hands, and you can push it open.”

One by one the fingers of her right hand loosened their grip; then for a moment there was no further movement.

“Go ahead, I’ve got you.”

With her knobby little knees pressed hard against the side of Ethan’s head, Jubilee thrust herself toward the transom and pushed hard. “I see it,” she said gleefully. One glance was all she needed to see the ceiling still intact. She grabbed hold of Ethan again.

“Okay to get down now?” he asked.

“Okay.”

When Ethan squatted, she let go of his head and shimmied down his back. He stood, looked down, and said, “Now you believe me?”

She nodded, then reached up and slid her hand into his. He didn’t pull away as you might expect a boy of his age to do. Although it was not Ethan’s way to be soft about such feelings, the truth was he had a certain pride in taking care of the girl. Maybe it was because she was so small, but more likely it was because she was afraid and alone.

Ethan crept toward the taped entranceway and again looked up and down the street. Several doors down a woman pushing a baby carriage walked in their direction. “Get back,” he whispered and shoved Jubilee to the darkness of the far corner. He squeezed in beside her.

The woman passed by without so much as a sideways glance. Ethan breathed a sigh of relief and waited. As soon as the street was clear of passersby, he again pulled the tape up and motioned Jubilee through. They crossed the street and sat on Jubilee’s bench. She looked back at the store with lines of sadness pulling at her face.

“Jeez, I figured you’d be happier.”

Without any change of expression, Jubilee said, “I’m happy enough.”

Ethan knew how it felt to hang on to the thoughts inside your head. You let go of the words to answer a question, but there was always more. There was the ugly stuff, the stuff that’s too painful to say.

“You got something else bothering you?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I suppose.”

He waited and said nothing.

Minutes passed before she spoke again. “If Paul ain’t dead, how come he don’t come back?”

Ethan had hoped she wouldn’t ask this question. He’d hoped she was young enough and gullible enough to simply accept that if the roof of the store was intact her brother would sooner or later reappear. She wasn’t.

“Maybe Paul had to run off, so he wouldn’t get caught,” he finally said.

Jubilee’s expression was one of bewilderment. “Get caught for what?”

Ethan turned to her. “Look, Jubie, I know you didn’t have nothing to do with it, but you gotta know there was a robbery in that store.”

She gave a reluctant nod.

“I’m betting your brother was in on it.”

“He was not!”

“Look, you said he went into Klaussner’s, and you ain’t seen him since. Well, two men went in there and robbed the store. They shot poor Mister Klaussner, and he shot one of them. The other one got away.”

“Paul ain’t no robber!”

“I ain’t saying for sure he is. But two men was in the store, and two men came out. One ran away; the other one got took to the hospital.”

“Paul ain’t no robber,” she repeated. This time her voice quivered, and tears had begun to well in her eyes.

Ethan scooted closer and put his arm around the girl. “It ain’t easy knowing your own kin did something bad. My daddy did way worse than Paul, but Grandma Olivia said that ain’t no reflection on me. So Paul being a robber ain’t no reflection on you.”

“He ain’t no robber!”

Moving on Ethan said, “You still got Aunt Anita, just like I got Grandma Olivia. Not knowing a person beforehand don’t matter, they love you ‘cause you’re kin.” Ethan remembered Grandma Olivia was not actually blood kin and added, “Sometimes they love you even if you’re just kin to their kin.”

Jubilee listened but kept her eyes to the ground as Ethan spoke. When he finished, she turned to him. “I don’t want to find Aunt Anita. Paul’s gonna take care of me, and I gotta find him.”

“Jeez, Jubie, if Paul ran off I got no idea where he’d go.”

“What if he got shot?”

“He’d be in the hospital.”

“Let’s go see in the hospital.” There was a steely-eyed look of determination in Jubilee’s eyes, one Ethan Allen recognized right off.

He rolled his eyes. “The hospital’s way on the other side of town, and I ain’t supposed to cross Mercer Street.”

But when she said, “You gotta help me,” he knew he would.