Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(49)

“Jubilee, I know you love your brother, and he loves you too. When Paul told you to wait for him I’m sure he had every intention of coming back, but sometimes things happen and we can’t do what we’ve promised.”

As he spoke, an odd sense of knowing settled on Jubilee’s face. There was no frown, no smile, just an empty look of resignation. Before Mahoney finished the speech he was working through, she asked point blank, “Did you find my brother?”

“Yes, Jubilee, I think I did.”

“Did he say he’s not coming back to get me?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Then he’ll be back,” she answered flatly. A thin shell of resolve crusted over the outside of who she was. Inside there were a million broken pieces, fragments of things taken from her life—a mother, a father, a brother, a place to call home, friends, familiar roads, a garden—the shell kept all those things from spilling out like handfuls of Cheerios.

“What makes you so sure?” Mahoney asked.

“Because he promised.”

Mahoney saw the certainty in her face. She trusted Paul would be true to his word. There was no maybe or extenuating circumstance, it would happen. She believed in someone bigger than herself. Someone for whom even the impossible was possible. This tiny little girl had a faith that most grownups prayed for.

With a heavy heart Mahoney said, “Sometimes bad things happen and no matter how much you love someone, you can’t keep the promise you made.”

The look on Jubilee’s face was one of wariness. “What kind of bad things?”

Mahoney explained how Paul had been hurt in an accident and was now in the hospital. As Olivia had insisted, there was no mention of the robbery. He said, “Your brother doesn’t remember anything, not even you. He’s sad and scared, but he might start remembering if he could see you.”

“He’ll remember,” Jubilee answered. “I know he will.” Coming from her mouth the words had a ring of surety, but if you looked closely you could see the tears welling in her eyes.





Ethan Allen



Jubie is scared. Not scared like when you scream on a roller coaster. Scared like when you have a bad dream and can’t get woke up. People ain’t really scared on a roller coaster, they just scream ‘cause it’s fun-scared and they know it’s gonna end soon. Jubie don’t know if her being alone is ever gonna end.

I can tell when she’s most scared, ‘cause she curls up like a snail and sticks her thumb in her mouth. When Jubie does that, I say, Let’s play poker, and let her win a few hands. It makes her happy, and she forgets how scared she was feeling. Winning makes a body feel happy; I know ‘cause when I play with Grandma I win most every time. But it’s not ‘cause she lets me; Grandma’s just not real good at poker.





Yesterday I asked Grandma if maybe Jubie could live here with us and she rolled her eyes like it was the most dumb-ass thing she ever heard. “No, she can’t,” Grandma said. “She has a family and needs to be with them.”

I was gonna remind Grandma that right now she ain’t got nobody and it ain’t looking none too promising, but she’d already said to get on outta there and quit bothering her.

After Detective Mahoney told Jubie Paul didn’t remember nothing, she got curled up and didn’t even wanna talk about playing. “Don’tcha get it?” she said. “If Paul don’t remember me, I got nobody!”

You got me, I said, and I meant it. If Grandma ain’t gonna do something to help Jubie, I’m gonna do it myself. I ain’t too sure of what it’ll be, but I’ll think of something.

Leastwise, I hope I will.





According to Bertha



When Mahoney left the Doyle apartment he called Captain Rogers, reported his finding, and tried to get clearance for bringing Jubilee Jones to the hospital.

“I’m okay with you working the case,” Rogers said, “so long as it doesn’t turn into a pissing match between you and Gomez. Work with him, or step back.”

Mahoney agreed to share what he had with Gomez, but as he hung up the telephone he muttered, “When I’ve got time.”

He turned the car around and headed toward Norfolk and the address Frances Margaret Jones had written on a scrap of paper.





Bertha Kaminski was no longer at that address. A frazzled mother carrying a baby who wouldn’t stop crying answered the door. “We bought the house a year ago,” she said. “They didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

“Do you know if they were staying in town?”

She shifted the crying baby to her other shoulder. “No idea,” she said and pushed the door shut using her foot.

Mahoney’s next stop was the post office.

After going through two different clerks, he was able to speak to the shift supervisor who dug through the files and came up with a change of address for Benjamin Kaminski.

“You’re lucky we still got it,” she said. “Generally we only keep these six months.” She wrote the address on a note paper and handed it Mahoney.

He looked at the address, a bad section of Norfolk on the far side of town. Before heading over, he checked the telephone listings—nothing. He got back into the car and started toward the side of town where people seldom went unless they had to.