A Mother's Gift by Charlotte Hubbard

Author:Charlotte Hubbard [Hubbard, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Alice stood beside Adeline at their bedroom window, gazing out at the patch of lantern light that bobbed through the evening shadows toward the barn. “Let’s get going, while Dat’s doing the chores.”

“Do you suppose Leah and Lenore will stay busy in the kitchen long enough?” Adeline whispered.

“It’s a chance we have to take. We’ve got to find that cell phone before Dexter gets any madder at us for not answering it or texting him.”

Silently, barefoot, the two of them slipped into the hallway. Outside of Dat’s room, they paused to listen for noises downstairs before entering. Hearing nothing, they went directly to the dresser. They had agreed to leave the door open so the hinge wouldn’t creak.

“It’s got to be here,” Adeline whispered as she silently opened the top drawer on her side. “Most likely Dat put it someplace obvious like his sock drawer, figuring we’d never dare come looking for it.”

“Or maybe Leah hid it. It would be just like her,” Alice pointed out as she began rummaging through Leah’s kapps and black stockings. “Hmm . . . it’s not here, so maybe it’s in her underwear drawer—”

Adeline grabbed Alice’s arm and sucked in her breath. “Who was that?” she whispered frantically as she gazed into the dresser mirror. “I swear I heard something—saw a blur of somebody passing by in the hall. Please tell me it wasn’t Leah spying on us.”

“You’re just jittery,” Alice hastened to reassure her. “We can’t lose our nerve—and besides, what can she say? That phone doesn’t belong to us, and it was wrong of Dat to take it.”

“But she’ll tell him, and then he’ll—”

“Quit worrying and keep looking!” Alice muttered as she opened another drawer. “We don’t have much time.”

“It would be easier if we could light the lamp.”

“Like that’s going to happen,” Alice shot back. “Besides, what else would they have that feels slick and flat like a cell phone?”

Adeline shrugged, sighing loudly in frustration. She eased the third drawer shut and opened the bottom one.

“So whaddya doin’? Why’re ya in Dat and Leah’s room?”

Stevie’s voice nearly made Alice jump out of her skin. She gazed at Adeline in the darkness and then stared into the dresser mirror. Their little brother stood silhouetted in the doorway, leaning against the jamb as though he might’ve been there for a while. “Just putting away laundry,” she replied nonchalantly. She turned, flashing Stevie a smile.

“And when we saw how messy these drawers were, we decided to straighten them,” Adeline added as she, too, turned to look at Stevie.

Alice’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so she saw how Stevie’s brow furrowed in disbelief. “Then why don’t ya light the lamp, so’s you can see what you’re doin’?” he asked.

“We can put away laundry without wasting a match—we do it all the time, you know,” Alice replied in a tone that brooked no argument. “Why aren’t you out in the barn helping Dat with the chores?”

“But this is Wednesday, and ya washed the clothes on Monday,” Stevie pointed out.

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