Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(81)

Olivia and Ethan Allen exchanged looks of confusion.

“Do we know you?” Olivia asked.

Carmella stood. “Maybe not, but I’m the one responsible for your boy being in jail.”

“I’m not in jail,” Ethan Allen said, “Paul is.”

“And it’s entirely my fault,” Carmella acknowledged. She explained that she was Sidney’s wife. “I was beside myself with grief over Sidney, and I wanted your boy to suffer the way I was suffering.”

Olivia noticed how the woman continued to refer to Paul as “her boy.”

“I was wrong,” Carmella said. “I see that now, and I’m going to make things right. I’ll make certain your boy goes free. In fact, I’ll do it right now,” Carmella added. “I’ll march myself into that police station and demand they let your boy go free!”

After several minutes of listening, Olivia began to put the pieces together. “So, you’re saying it was you who put that story in the newspaper?”

“Yes, and I’m ashamed to admit it.” Carmella’s shoulders drooped. She stood hunched over with a penitent gaze focused on the floor. “According to Sidney, your boy came into the store looking for a job and had nothing whatsoever to do with what happened. He got in the way of that bullet because he tried to stop the robber.” After she’d finished her story, Carmella grabbed Jubilee’s hand and tugged her toward Sidney’s room. Olivia and Ethan Allen followed along.

Mahoney stood to the side of the room. Gomez was next to Sidney, asking questions and scribbling notations of what was said.

“The boy came in asking for a job,” Sidney said.

Gomez wrote “asking for job.”

“Then what?” he asked.

“The man in the leather jacket came in maybe a minute later.”

Mahoney’s eyes were fixed on Sidney, so at first he didn’t notice Olivia standing behind Carmella. When he finally caught sight of her, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

“You called, and Jubilee was anxious to see her brother.”

“Paul’s not here,” Mahoney said. “He’s still in holding.”

In an unexpected burst of generosity, Gomez said, “I can fix that.” He gave a sheepish smile. “Now that I’ve got Mister Klaussner’s testimony, there’s no longer a reason to hold the kid.”

“Blessed be the Lord,” Carmella murmured. “Your boy will be at home with you tonight!”

Jubilee’s grin stretched ear to ear. “Tonight?”

“I guess so,” Gomez nodded. “I’m gonna need an hour or so to wrap up the paperwork. Then he can go.” The grumpy face Hector Gomez usually wore was gone; he’d returned to thinking about the possibility of a promotion.

Without looking inside her head, a person could tell Jubilee was celebrating the thought of being with her brother again.

Happy as Olivia was for Jubilee, she couldn’t help thinking about how Carmella kept calling Paul “her” boy. The lower part of her face was curled into a smile, but her forehead was creased with worry lines. Where would she put another child? And what would the Rules Committee have to say about it? Olivia could already picture a steamy spiral of smoke coming from Jim Turner’s ears. While there had been a remote chance of her remaining in the building once she’d taken Jubilee in, with three children such a thought was beyond thinkable.





Gomez finished questioning Sidney Klaussner, then left with a smile on his face and a fistful of notes in his pocket. Mahoney followed him out a few minutes later. It was already nine-thirty. On the way out of the hospital, Jack stopped in the gift shop and bought Christine a bouquet of yellow daisies and baby’s breath. He’d hoped to get roses, but this was the last remaining bouquet and the florist had closed hours earlier.

Olivia stayed behind because Carmella latched onto her hand and said, “Please don’t go, Sidney just loves talking to the children.”

It was apparent that Jubilee and Ethan Allen were enjoying it also, because they were both locked into listening to Sidney’s account of the robbery.

“I knew that man was ill-intentioned when I saw the look on his face,” Sidney said. “Then a speck of sunlight flashed against the gun he was pulling from his pocket, so I reached down and grabbed the Browning.”

“Was you scared?” Ethan Allen asked.

“Sure I was, but being scared don’t count for much when you’re facing up to a hell-bent crazy person with a gun.”

“And Paul punched the crazy man?” Jubilee added.

“More like shoved him,” Sidney said; then he continued with the story.

While the children listened wide-eyed to Sidney, Carmella kept a tight hold on Olivia’s hand. “I can never begin to make up for the heartache I’ve caused you and your boy, but rest assured, I will spend the rest of my days trying.”

“Well, I don’t really think that’s necessary.”

“I insist. Surely there’s something I can do. Some way to help? Some way to atone?”

“Well, I suppose if you really want to, you could make a contribution to the Bicycle Ball. It’s an event the Wyattsville Arms hosts every August.”

Olivia told how the ball got started the summer Ethan Allen came to live with her. “We use the proceeds to buy bicycles for needy children.”