Alanna stared out the window. Around the curve, the field opened up and revealed a ragtag assortment of trailers and ramshackle cottages. Dozens of dogs ran through the dirt between the trailers. It was the Travellers’ community the private investigator had mentioned in his letter.
The camp was much like the one she remembered from her childhood. Constant commotion: yelling people, barking dogs, shouting children. Hearing those same sounds through the open car window brought back the desolation she experienced when she realized she’d been abandoned by her mother. Other women had cared for her, but always with impatience. She remembered being lonely, so very lonely, while surrounded by people. The day she met Liam had changed everything, and the moment she left the community had been the happiest day of her life.
“Ready?” Ciara asked after putting the car in park.
“Right.” She shoved open her door and stepped out into a light breeze that brought the smell of cooking stew over an open fire to her nose.
“Where shall you be starting?” Ciara asked.
“With that group of women around the fire.” Alanna realized she had left her shoes in the car. With her feet in good Irish dirt, she was a child again, but it wasn’t a good feeling.
She walked toward the group of six women. Dressed in brightly colored clothing and jewelry, they stood around the campfire chatting in a language she hadn’t heard in over ten years.
She greeted them in Cant, amazed it came so easily to her lips. “I’m Alanna Costello, daughter of Maire. I heard she passed this way recently.”
The oldest woman, her hair wrapped with a red kerchief, looked Alanna over, glaring from under heavy brows. “You have the look of Maire,” she said grudgingly. “She was here.”
Alanna couldn’t hide her disappointment. “She’s not now?”
“She left two weeks ago. Went back to America.”
“America? Has she been living there all these years then?”
The woman nodded. “Twenty-five years now, she said.”
She’d deserted Ireland totally. Not even concerned about the three-year-old daughter she left behind. What could cause a woman to leave her child? Alanna couldn’t imagine leaving the baby she carried under any circumstances. She wanted to ask if her mother had asked after her, but she knew the answer.
She reminded herself that her mother cared only about Neila. “Did she have her daughter with her?”
“You were saying that you are her daughter.”
Alanna’s fingers curled into her palms. “I am, but I have a sister. Neila. Did you see her?” Though Neila would be in her midthirties, Travellers often lived together all their lives.
The woman shook her head. “She was alone.”
Of course she was. She’d probably abandoned Neila along the way somewhere too. Alanna would never find her. “Do you have any idea where Maire lives?”
The woman bent over to stir the stew and her ornate necklace dangled perilously close to the pot. “Somewhere in the South.”
Alanna felt her last grasp at hope slipping away. “The South is a large area. You wouldn’t know what state? She said nothing that might indicate where her home is?”
“From something she said, I think she was near water, maybe the Atlantic.”
The woman’s tone held an air of dismissal. She took a bowl from the woman on her right and began to ladle up the stew. “We eat. You go now,” she said. “I cannot help you more.”
Alanna nodded. “Thank you for the information.” Near the Atlantic and in the South. She could research Travellers’ communities there and see how many she could find. Surely there weren’t more than a dozen, if that many.
She slipped into the car. “Well?” Ciara demanded.
“She’s not here,” she said. “She went back to America.”
Ciara dropped the car into drive and pulled away from the side of the road. “America?”
“According to the woman I spoke to, she’s lived there twenty-five years. She must have gone there straightaway.”
Ciara glanced at her. “Shall you be dealing with it okay?”
“I knew long ago she didn’t care anything about me.” Alanna managed a shrug though she wanted to cry. To sit in the dust and howl. She didn’t have any blood relatives left, and with Liam gone, there was no one who really loved her. Oh she had no doubt Ciara and her other band members cared. But someday they might go their separate ways.
Her hand smoothed her tummy. She would soon have her child. The minute she laid her eyes on her baby, she would know him. His imprint was already part of her. But first, she had to get out of Thomas’s long-armed reach.
“We must get home to pack,” she said. “We’ll leave as soon as the funeral is over. Thomas won’t be expecting me to return to America so quickly, and I shall be able to escape.”
“Can you be getting a plane ticket out so soon?” Ciara asked. “Our flight back isn’t scheduled for another week.”
“I hope so.” What would she do if she couldn’t? “I think I’ll call Barry. He might be able to change flights for us.”
Ciara didn’t object. Alanna pulled out her cell phone and dialed their manager’s number.
Barry answered on the first ring. “Alanna?”
“I need your help, Barry.”