Best Left Unfinished Page 11

  Part of the problem (she had decided early on) had been that she was entirely too wrapped up in her work at the time that she had met Elliot Hall. There was, of course, nothing wrong with being devoted. She hadn’t known any other way to go about following her career (it had been a calling, after all, not just a paycheck), but her single minded focus had left a bit of a hole in her life where other people were concerned. She wondered, sometimes, whether he had picked her because he recognized that it made her an easier target for what he was attempting to do. She had considered that she might merely have been a convenient, discrete entity that had been in the right place at the right time.

  It, naturally, didn’t really matter as the why didn’t change the end result. Nevertheless, there was a part of her that liked to think that (no matter what the outcome had been) there hadn’t been any malicious manipulation on Elliot’s part. That there had been manipulation was something that she was fully aware of -- she had even been aware of that at the time that it was occurring. She just hadn’t been able to bring herself to care. She was a little too flattered that he was willing to bring out the charm just for her, and there was a part of her that had been just a little too enamored with letting herself be convinced that she was part of some sort of noble rescue mission.

  That was where the conundrum of knowing too much and not knowing nearly enough came into play. She hadn’t asked enough questions. She hadn’t asked much in the way of questions at all.

  “Yes, but where are they coming from?” She had persisted after he had dropped three files on her desk one afternoon a few weeks after they had met.

  “Isn’t the paperwork in order?” He had fired back with a raised eyebrow that implied he was expecting her to read it and not ask him silly questions.

  “It’s in perfect order,” she had explained doing her best to make the words sound suspicious.

  “Then,” he had continued in a tone that very clearly implied that he was having difficulty understanding why it was that she was wasting his time, “what’s the problem?”

  “Other than the fact that the paperwork is in perfect order?” She had tried. He had seemed to know what he was talking about in the days that their relationship had turned from coffee and dessert at the diner down the road to a business proposition. If he had gone through this process before, then he ought to know what was wrong with her assessment of what he had given her.

  “What does that even mean?” He demanded sounding like he was getting frustrated with someone who was persisting in speaking gibberish.

  “The paperwork is never in perfect order,” she had told him. “There’s always something left off or misplaced or in the wrong spot.”

  “That’s sloppy and inefficient,” he observed before offering her a small shrug of his shoulders. “What’s the problem with this being done properly?”

  “Other than the fact that it raises a red flag that something is off?” She tried to provoke a response that would actually convey some sort of information. It hadn’t worked.

  “Look,” he asked her. “Will there be any problem getting that paperwork to go through?”

  “No,” she admitted. It would go through the appropriate legal channels without so much as a second glance. They looked for the crossed tees and dots for every i. They would pass it right along. That it wasn’t normal wouldn’t occur to anyone in that capacity. The fact that it felt off would be lost on them.

  “Don’t worry about it then.” She didn’t appreciate the dismissiveness.

  “You’ve completely avoided my question,” she reminded him.

  “I already told you,” he said running his hands through his hair in what might very well have been the first truly impulsive gesture she had ever seen him make. “They are children in need of homes. What else do you need to know?”

  “Elliot,” she tried not to sound like she was pleading, but a little of it crept in despite her precautions.

  “I don’t want to lie to you,” he told her making eye contact for the first time since the conversation had begun. “I’m doing the best I can with this situation. There are a lot of things that you just shouldn’t know. This is one of those things. Just file the paperwork. Just find people who are good matches. That’s all I’m asking from you, and I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t know you could do it.”

  She hadn’t asked again. Maybe she should have. Maybe she had been right not to bring it up another time. She didn’t know. She didn’t know a lot of things -- where the stream of children that Elliot Hall had filtered into adoptions through her agency over the course of a little more than a year came from being just the first of them.

  If the paperwork had been a red flag, then the requirements that Elliot had suggested for potential adoptive parents were a flashing neon sign telling her that what he wasn’t telling her was something vitally important. She didn’t heed that warning; she didn’t ask. She did as she was told because she still believed that she was good at reading people, and the one thing that she was absolutely certain of when it came to Elliot was that he was worried about those children and wanted them safe and happy.

  There were, strictly speaking, no legalities to question. The paperwork was impeccable. People arranged private adoptions all the time; that was why her job existed in the first place. If those people worked through an advocate instead of in person, then that wasn’t so very far out there as to make it a reason to turn them down. If Elliot had made a business out of being such an advocate, well, she had a dozen and more rationalizations for keeping her questions at bay -- not the least of which being that she couldn’t bring herself not to trust Elliot despite the mysteriousness of the circumstances. She had told herself on a regular basis back in those days that what really mattered was that she was making so many people happy.

  There were so many people who got turned down by the system. There were so many people that had spent years waiting and never seemed to move up the public lists. She couldn’t fault the state for wanting to do the best it could and not hand over children willy-nilly, but she wished that they could come up with a better system than trying to turn people into a series of numbers that either matched up with their formula or did not. There were so many things that went into being a parent that went beyond income levels, health histories, and dry lists of facts. There had to be a better way. That, she had always supposed, was why agencies such as her own existed. She had met so many couples who were beaten down by the rejection of being told that they didn’t quite meet this standard or they hadn’t been approved because of such and such item being listed in their profile. That she was able to bring them together with a child who needed them had always been a source of both pride and joy, and Elliot had provided her with an avenue that let her make such connections in far rapider succession than she was accustomed to achieving.

  She was willing to admit that she had gotten caught up in it all. It was a heady feeling to be able to make people’s lives better in such a way. If the smiles on people’s faces, the tears cried over children’s heads, and the awestruck whispered thank yous had been more important to her at the time than grilling Elliot over his clientele, then so be it. If there was one thing in her life that she would never second guess, it was the fact that she had made good choices for family placements. She dealt in people over figures. She dealt in children’s happiness over formulas. She had been very good at what she did. In the end, it might be that that was the ultimate reason that Elliot had chosen her. She could live with that. She could appreciate that. She could respect an intention to sweet talk her into not asking too many questions if he was trying to not get turned away because he wanted someone who would do the job well instead of merely adequately.

  She honored his requests. Not interested in having to know all of the details, truly wanted to have a child because they wanted to love them, and able to keep things quiet were the items that topped his list.

  “Keep what things
quiet?” She had asked him startled by the words the first time she had heard them.

  “Anything, everything, whatever becomes necessary,” he had replied looking beyond her as if he was seeing something over her shoulder that wouldn’t be visible to her if she turned around to check. He did that sometimes -- drifted off to some place that she couldn’t follow. She didn’t get used to it. It made her shiver every time. She trusted Elliot, but she wasn’t stupid. There was something about all of the unanswered questions that wasn’t just off -- it was dark and maybe dangerous.

  “There may be some things about these children that the adoptive parents should know to look out for -- we’ll call them special needs issues. Of the gifted variety.”

  She had gone along with it -- just as she always did -- well trained by then in the world of Elliot and his “it’s better if you don’t know.” There were times she wanted to smack him on the back of the head with one of the file folders. Other days, she couldn’t help but get caught up in how excited he seemed when she presented him with a potential match.

  She couldn’t help but smile at him as his eyes lit up as they traced the words describing the first couple she had pulled from her database. He was so pleased it nearly radiated from his entire being.

  “This is perfect. They are perfect. I knew you could do this. When can we get everything finalized?” He was nearly stumbling over his words.

  “It will take a little time,” she told him trying not to let a giggle escape as she noticed he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. “First thing, I’ll need to call them.”

  “You haven’t asked them yet?” He sounded confused.

  “Before you approved them?” She was sure she sounded equally confused.

  “No,” he told her leaving her momentarily unsure what it was he was saying that to, “you don’t need to do that. Maybe I haven’t made it clear. I trust your judgment. You set things up as they come. Don’t wait for me to get here to okay things to get them moving. You make good choices. I know you do. Just get the ball rolling as quickly as you can. Time is the one thing that I’m not certain that I have.” His eyes had clouded over, and he had lost all of the pleasant vibes he had been exuding mere moments before. “Just find them homes, Serena. Just find them good homes with good people, but do it as quickly as you can.”

  Once again, she hadn’t asked. It was as if his change in mood had seeped into her, and she (for once) was actually glad to not know whatever it was that he wasn’t telling her. She had a feeling that if she did, then that haunted look she had just seen peeking out at her from the depths of Elliot’s eyes would become a permanent fixture in her own.

  No trace remains of that moment, however, could mask her excitement and legitimate joy as she made the call to the couple in question. A medical history issue had disqualified them early on from the public channels, and other options were limited by their financial situation. Serena liked them. They were what she liked to call “solid,” and if she knew anyone off the top of her head that she didn’t have to think twice about trusting with what Elliot had termed a “special needs and secrecy” situation, then she believed it was them.

  “Mrs. Twist?” She had said when the other woman answered the phone. “It’s Serena Holmes from New Beginnings. I need to make an appointment with you and your husband.”

  She had worked at a group home on weekends when she had been in college, and the man who had been the administrator of the place had had a term he used to describe what one looked for when potential placements came by to meet the children. He called it a “click.” There was a moment where an observer could watch someone with a child and know that that was a match that would work. The Twists and Caleb were the fastest “click” she had ever seen. The little boy had been building (not just a block tower but what appeared to be a block apartment complex) when the couple entered her office (he had really amazing motor skills for a child that was sixteen months old). He hadn’t paid her any mind in the preceding ten minutes because he was so focused on his creation, but he had looked up from his work the instant the Twists had cleared the doorway and blinked twice before pushing himself up on his feet and making his way to Spence. He held his arms up to the man and merely waited until he was scooped up by a very surprised looking Mr. Twist.

  Serena had held her arms out in an “I don’t know either” gesture in response to the man’s question asking eyebrows that had been turned on her. Caleb had leaned toward Ruby with an inquisitive look and asked quite clearly “go home?”

  She had never seen anything like it, but the Twists were obviously besotted. Caleb looked incredibly comfortable as he rested his little blond head against the chest of the man that Serena had no doubt was about to become his daddy. She always got a little teary eyed doing this part of her job, but she found herself too taken off guard by how smoothly and quickly this introduction had gone for the usual tears to come.

  “Did you coach Caleb?” She had asked Elliot the next time she saw him.

  “Did I what?”

  “Did you coach him about meeting the Twists?” She had elaborated. He was awfully young for that, but Elliot might have talked to him enough that the phrase “go home” had been something that he had learned to repeat. Elliot looked startled (and a little bit sheepish).

  “I didn’t even think of that. I’m sorry. He probably was really confused about what was going on. Maybe you could give me some pointers. I’ll try to make the next one go a little smoother.”

  She found herself blinking up at him; the expression on her face must have been enough to make him think the worst. “What happened?” He demanded. “He didn’t have some sort of a tantrum, did he? Did they change their minds? Why didn’t we ever talk about transition planning before?”

  She had explained as best she could that it was nothing like that, and she had tried to convey what had happened not knowing if he really got small children well enough to follow what she was saying. He did not, however, ask something along the lines of “so” as she half expected him to when she had finished. Instead, he looked reflective for a few moments before muttering something she could only half hear that included the words “never thought of that” and “why haven’t.”

  He had shrugged it off then and commented that he should still probably accept some advice about what to tell any future little ones that he brought in if she had any to give. She did, the conversation turned, and (like so many other things) Serena never made her way back around to asking.

  She hadn’t been expecting him on the Monday night that he nearly made her jump out of her skin as he stepped out of the shadows as she made her way to her car after locking up the office for the night. She had been about to let him have it when she noticed the sleeping toddler that rested against his shoulder.

  “Is that Devon?” She had asked trying to make out the details in the nearly dark. “What’s wrong?”

  “Is everything set for the Wiltshires? There won’t be any hitches in everything going through?” He demanded sounding impatient and a little bit desperate. Serena thought that it was desperate; she couldn’t be sure. She had never seen Elliot act in a manner that she would qualify as desperate before.

  “You know that it is. They’re picking her up on Thursday.” She replied. The sigh of relief he gave as she said the words doing as little to reassure her that something wasn’t wrong as his sidestepping of her direct question had.

  “I need you to keep her until then,” he told her lifting the sleeping child off his shoulder and making as if to hand her over.

  Serena put her arms down at her sides and took a step back. “I can’t do that,” she started to explain.

  “You have to!” Elliot with a raised voice was something else that she had never before experienced. Devon whimpered, and he patted her on the back and made a shushing noise before lowering his voice. “If you want her to go home with the Wiltshires, then you have to take h
er now. Something’s happened, and if you don’t take her now, then she isn’t going to her home at all. You can’t do that to her just because you’re being squeamish about the details.”

  “Elliot,” she started.

  “No, we don’t have time. I know this is confusing. There are a hundred and fifty million questions that you should ask me and that I should let you ask because you’ve helped me and these children more than I could ever begin to tell you, but we can’t do that. There isn’t going to be time for one thing, and the less you can answer, the better you’re going to be able to sleep for the rest of your life. Just keep Devon for a couple of days; get everything squared away with the Wiltshires. Then, I have something else that I have to ask of you. It isn’t fair; it isn’t even reasonable. You aren’t going to like it, and you have every right to be angry at me, but you’ve got to do it. It’s the only way that we have a shot at letting all of this stand. That’s why you’ll do it, even though I don’t have any right to ask, because the children need you to do it. And I know that you won’t turn them down.”

  What was she supposed to say to that? It was a more open admission of how he looked at her and how he manipulated the situation than had ever occurred between the two of them. Part of her wanted to get upset with the attitude that he was displaying, and a part of her wanted to take a step back and realize that all of the background thoughts that she had ever had about there being something underneath all of this that was dark and dangerous and bad news all around were about to be justified.

  Instead, she let him hand over Devon and held her balanced on her hip while Elliot fit a variety of items in the back seat of her car.

  “She’s the last of them,” he announced as she waited for him to offer his further instructions (and maybe a little more in the way of explanation). He gave a self-deprecating shrug of his shoulders that didn’t prevent Serena from seeing the slightly haunted expression in his eyes that was more prevalent than ever (even in the lack of light surrounding them in the parking lot). “I’ve run out of time. The others . . .,” he cut himself off in the middle of the thought. “It doesn’t matter now. Just get Devon squared away.” His voice caught a little, and Serena was surprised to see that he looked like he was stumbling over his words. Elliot never stumbled over his words. He always spoke with some sort of underlying authority (even when he was completely bluffing and had no idea what he was talking about).

  “Now’s the time that I should tell you that I’m sorry,” he made the hands running through his hair gesture that she had only observed him display on one previous occasion. “I am sorry that it’s going to end this way for you. I wasn’t fair. I drew you in without letting you know about possible repercussions, and it wasn’t right. I’m sorry for that, but I’m not really sorry that I did it. In fact, I would do it again. I could have looked for years and never found someone who would do as well by those kids as you did, Serena. I really believe that, and I don’t know if I’ve ever adequately told you thank you for the way that you handled everything. But, things have changed, and they aren’t going to let the others go. They aren’t even going to let the ones that are already gone go. They’ll try to undo what we did, and we can’t let them. I should say that you can’t let them because it’s going to come down to you.” He held up a hand to cut off an interruption from her.

  “There’s a file folder in the diaper bag; it has directions for everything that needs to happen. I am trusting you that you’ll do the right thing. I’ve always trusted you to do the right thing.” He stepped into her personal space and leaned further in to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll miss you,” he whispered before turning on his heel and starting to walk away.

  “Elliot?” She demanded, but he didn’t stop. She started to go after him, but the child still held at her side gave a sudden wail, and she lost track of him in the falling darkness as she tried to calm Devon down.

  She hadn’t seen him again. She had never satisfactorily decided for her own peace of mind why he had left her with those final whispered words. Had he legitimately meant them? Had it been one last manipulation to get her to go along with the written directions that he had left for her? She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter to the situation either at the time or now on the other side of two decades of intervening time. It really only mattered to her on the evenings when she was caught up in dwelling and wondering whether she had ever had any value as an individual at all or if it had always been about what she was capable of (and available for) doing.

  She had taken Devon home with her and gotten her through the intervening days until her new parents had come for her. She had seen the finalization of the adoption papers go through, and (in the meantime) she had been doing the other things that Elliot had asked of her. She still couldn’t tell you why. It was against all of her professional ethics. You could even argue that it had been a fundamentally wrong thing to do. She had done it anyway. All paper trails from her office disappeared. There were no records to find. The adoptions that she had helped to facilitate were closed and buried. The security of the actual court records themselves was something for which she couldn’t vouch.

  She spent the days getting ready. She was following the directions. Something in the way that Elliot had acted that night (and the clearly careful planning that she had found contained within that nondescript little file folder) had infected her with a certain level of paranoia. It wasn’t as though she was leaving behind an abundance of friends. Her parents were gone, and there hadn’t been much else in the way of family. It was all a little too convenient, and it gave her the suspicion once again that Elliot had been incredibly careful in making his selection of her at the beginning.

  Serena Holmes disappeared the day after little Devon became Devon Dawn Wiltshire for all official and legal purposes.

  She had stayed “disappeared” for a very long time. That Elliot was watching her in some capacity was evidenced by the fact that she had received manila envelopes filled with new instructions five different times over the years that had her leaving what she had been behind and packing up and moving on once again. It always worked. No one (even though she still didn’t know anything about those mysterious “ones” that might be looking) ever came and found her. She always went along with it. She still didn’t ask questions when she probably should.

  In a lot of ways, she was still every bit as naive and willing to let Elliot lead her along as she had been in the weeks after she had first met him. The last move had taken place eight years earlier (and she had been thinking that the mysterious “them” that might want information from her about where the children had been placed had moved beyond thinking she was the source to go to for that knowledge) when those kids had found her.

  She probably shouldn’t think of them as kids -- they had to have been in their early twenties. They had appeared on her doorstep one day looking for answers that she couldn’t have given them even if she had wanted. The girl had done most of the talking while the boy gave her sad, puppy dog pleading eyes from his place in the background. They had known that she had been Serena Holmes; they had known where to find her. They hadn’t offered an explanation for how. She hadn’t been able to stop the start of recognition when the boy introduced himself as Caleb Twist, but she couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. She didn’t know where he had come from; Elliot had made certain of that. They had gone away eventually (forced to believe that she really didn’t have any information that would help them on their quest).

  She could only offer them the caution that maybe it wasn’t really worth knowing. She didn’t think they were likely to heed it. She couldn’t really fault them for wanting answers. She couldn’t fault them for having the drive and conviction to keep asking questions in the face of dead ends and opposition. She hadn’t been willing to do much in the way of asking, after all, and look how it had ended up for her.

  Their visit did leave
her with one thing that she really did wish she had the opportunity to ask -- with all the trouble that Elliot had gone through to hide her, why hadn’t he interceded again when those kids were the ones who were doing the looking?