“Come on, we’re going back to your mother’s. Now. We need to contact all of your sisters. Do you know their phone numbers by heart?”
I nodded, then left his side and raced over to the kitchen drawer where my old cell phone and charger was. I’d just gotten a new one after saving for months.
“We’ll get that hooked up on the way. Contact your mother. Make sure all of your sisters meet us at her house at five.”
“They’re already supposed to come over for dinner. Why do you want to see them?”
“If our killer took a book, a piece of jewelry, or something of not much use, I wouldn’t be so worried. He took a photo of you and your family.”
“Does that mean he’s going after my family?”
He inhaled so hard his nostrils flared. “I don’t know, but I’m not willing to take any chances.”
The second Mama Kerri opened the door to greet us I jetted toward her, smacking right dab in the center of her chest. The tears flowed as my mother’s arms came around me securely.
“Dear girl, what has frightened you?” Her hands held me close, but I didn’t respond, just cowered into her chest like the small girl I was when I showed up holding hands with my big sister after our parents died all those years ago.
“Ma’am, I’m going to bring in her bags and then we need to have a chat,” Jonah said from behind us.
Mama patted my back and head. “Yes, of course. Come on in.” She tucked me to her side like one of her baby chicks. I soaked up her essence, allowing all the nastiness that came before this moment to dissipate.
I couldn’t help trembling as she rubbed my good arm up and down and led me into the living room. She sat me down, grabbed one of her homemade throw blankets, and wrapped me up in it. She bent down, tugged off my shoes, and grabbed the pair of her slippers sitting next to her chair and put them on my feet.
“There now, you rest, and I’ll make some chamomile tea. You hungry?”
I shook my head and cuddled further into the blanket, leaning my head down on the arm of the couch and watching while Jonah brought in one suitcase and bag after another.
Mama noticed the number of bags he’d brought in. “I see you’re staying home for a while then? Tell me what happened?”
I firmed up my lips and breathed through my nose, closing my eyes and trying not to remember Katrina’s vacant look so I wouldn’t break down in tears again.
Eventually I didn’t have to because Jonah took over telling Mama the entire story. Besides covering her mouth and putting her hand to her heart, she received the information far better than I would have expected. Then again, Mama Kerri had been through a lot in her sixty years on this earth. From her husband dying when she was in her late twenties, to when she opened up Kerrighan House and started to fill the home she’d planned on having babies with her husband with lost and orphaned young girls instead. She’d seen it all.
Back then, it was much harder for a single woman to adopt children, but not as difficult to foster. And since we were all orphaned, we stayed until we aged out, and even past that. Some of us attended college while still living here.
At some point I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes back up the living room was filled to the brim with my sisters.
Little Rory was full out lying in front of me, cuddled up to my chest. I must have sensed her because I had the blanket curled around her and her sweet smell in my nose. She was giggling at something and then turned around. Her golden amber gaze met mine.
“Hi, Auntie.” She patted my face with her chubby little three-year-old hand. “You ’wake?”
I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed her palm then blew a raspberry into it. She laughed heartily and it filled me with such extreme love I couldn’t help but snuggle her, kiss her neck and face, and hug her precious form dearly.
She shrieked and giggled as I teased and played with my niece. Her curly black hair was a wild halo around her chestnut-colored skin. Her mom, Genesis, was half African-American and half Korean. Her daughter’s father was African-American and Caucasian. Together, the two of them made the most gorgeous child