River of Secrets. Lynette Eason
into the cart with a thud, her breathing quickening with thoughts of the past. She would not turn out like her mother, she vowed on a daily basis. Amy would try her best to do everything in her power, with God’s help, to make a difference in this world for the better. She’d started with revealing her mother’s criminal activities, which resulted in saving Cassidy McKnight’s life; unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about Cassidy’s brother, Micah. He was dead, his body never recovered. Now she was spending time helping here to make amends.
Amy swung away, hating the direction of her thoughts, yet unable to send them down a different path. Needing a distraction, she set out to find Juan to see if he needed anything. Her feet led her over to his curtained-off area. Absently she noted some retreating footfalls to her right. Pulling the curtain aside, she stopped and stared, shock and horror ripping through her. A pillow covered Juan’s face, indentations from someone’s grip fading as the foam slowly returned to its original shape. In the blink of an eye, she propelled herself to Juan’s side and yanked the pillow from him.
“Lucas! Help!” she hollered even as she leaned over to check Juan’s breathing. His lips had a blue tinge, his chest was still. Without a second thought, she pinched his nose, tilted his head back, placed her mouth over his and blew.
She came up for air, then leaned over him and blew again. And again.
More footfalls sounded behind her, this time running toward her, not away.
“What is it?” Lucas demanded.
On her next breath, without bothering to turn, she said, “He’s not breathing.”
Then she went down to force air into his lungs, once more pleading with God to make him breathe. Finally, with her next puff of life-giving air, Juan gasped, choked…and pulled in his own breath.
“Oh, thank You, Jesus.” Amy slumped to the floor, shaking, trying to control her adrenaline rush and subsequent reactions while Lucas took over, checking Juan’s vitals. He slipped an oxygen mask over Juan’s face, cranking the knob to its highest level. Lucas patted his cheek. “Come on, man, open your eyes. Talk to me.”
Juan’s eyes flickered, opened and stared. He blinked. “What happened?” he mumbled around the mask.
Amy, still quivering, placed her fingers over her mouth, her gaze bouncing between Lucas and Juan to the pillow she’d tossed aside. “Someone tried to kill him,” she whispered.
Lucas’s eyes shot wide. He dropped the oxygen line and stared at her. “What?”
Juan’s eyebrows dipped to the bridge of his nose as he processed her statement. She explained, “He must have been sleeping pretty deep. I came to check on him and found—” she gulped “—that pillow over his face. I pulled it off, hollering for you. He wasn’t breathing so I started CPR.”
“Did you see anyone?” Lucas asked. Juan watched them, not saying anything as he continued to suck in the oxygen—and the conversation. His color was better. Keeping her eyes on Juan but answering Lucas’s question, she shook her head. “No, but I heard someone running away. If I hadn’t come to check on him when I did…” She trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
“I’ll give the chief of police a call and have him send someone out here to take a statement.” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t hold out hope for many results, though. David Ruibero’s a good man, but there’s only so much he can do with what he’s got to work with.”
Yeah, she knew how the justice system worked out here. Slower than Christmas two years away. “Well, we’ll just have to keep a real close eye on him until he’s able to take care of things himself.” She glanced down at the man who’d fallen back asleep, his body traumatized by the recent event. She was sure he’d want details when he woke up.
Lucas went to make the call.
TWO
Two weeks later, Amy still shuddered when she thought about coming upon Juan’s lifeless form, the pillow cutting of his air. She felt sure she would carry that vision to her grave.
They’d informed the policeman who’d come to the orphanage to take a statement from Amy and Lucas about what they’d seen and heard. The officer had even packed up the pillowcase to see if his limited forensics department could find anything but didn’t offer much encouragement, just as Lucas had warned.
Then Amy had filled Anna and Juan in on exactly what had happened. Juan had been puzzled, unable to comprehend why someone would want to kill him, but determined to find out once he gained his strength back.
Anna and Amy had taken turns keeping a vigilant eye on him until he’d grown strong enough to walk out of the gymnasium under his own power. Fortunately, nothing else had happened during that time.
Amy had also grown to care for Salvador Orozco and his little sister, Carlita, who, thankfully, had escaped the illness.
She’d gotten more of Salvador’s story from Anna. Anna had explained Salvador was part of the kitchen staff and cleaning crew. When their family had been killed almost three years ago, he and his sister, Carlita, had lived on the streets before arriving on the doorstep of the orphanage about four months ago. Salvador had explained that he had trouble finding work that would allow him to bring Carlita along. There was no one he could leave her with, so they’d lived on what they could rummage, beg and steal. Only now he needed to leave her so he could find a way to provide for her. They couldn’t live on the streets indefinitely.
Had the orphanage not provided him a job, he would have had to leave his only remaining family member behind. Anna had taken pity on the siblings, believing that being separated from Salvador would do Carlita further psychological damage. So, Salvador stayed and worked, cared for his sister and seemed to form a special attachment to Juan who had taken the young man under his wing.
When Juan asked about the siblings, concerned about their health, she told him, “Salvador and Carlita escaped the illness and everyone else is recovering nicely. Dr. Bennett did an outstanding job setting up the temporary hospital. Everyone has worked tirelessly, rotating just for sleeping and eating, so all the hard work and dedication is finally paying off, thank goodness. You’re getting better.”
Salvador’s obvious anxiety about Juan’s recuperation had him constantly at Juan’s side. His continued insistence on exposing himself to illness exasperated her. “Salvador, you need to get out of here,” she’d said.
“Is he going to die?”
“He’ll be fine, it’s just going to take a little while for his body to heal.”
And Salvador would leave, only to return later in the day to ask, “Is he going to die?” Amy would assure him that Juan was not going to die. She finally left the young man alone. If he got sick, he got sick. He was already exposed, so it was really too late to worry about it now.
Now, almost everyone was on the road to recovery allowing her a little time to herself. She folded the last towel and placed it in the linen closet. Sharing a bathroom with three other relief workers wasn’t exactly on her list of favorite things to do, but she was adjusting. For the first time in her life, she felt she was doing something that really mattered, something that was going to last longer than herself. She was making a difference.
Thank You, God. Keep using me, please. Thank You for allowing me to be here. You know how important it is for me to do this. I know I can never truly make right all the wrongs my mother’s done, especially for the McKnight family. Because of her, Micah’s dead. God, I feel so guilty, yet I know it’s not my fault. I’m not the one who betrayed him, set him up to die, but it still hurts. So, thank You again for this opportunity to help. To make a difference, even if it is for just one person.
Immediately her thoughts went to Juan. She’d wondered what color his eyes were. When he’d opened them, she’d been stunned. His eyes were a blue-gray that seemed to see right into her very soul. They seemed so familiar, as if she should remember seeing those eyes somewhere before. Finally, she decided that it wasn’t