Page 191 of Sing with Me

“I don’t know. They don’t tell me when I ask. I go with her because she wants me there, but they won’t let me in the interview room, so I sit in the lobby and try to get some work done,” Diehl said. He turned on his blinker, and he now drove in the middle lane of Interstate 85. “However, Detective Jeong said that Elisa has been helpful to the DHS because she saw things at the places Romina took her.”

“That’s amazing.”

“I know, right. When I was twelve, I don’t remember helping with national security. Did you?”

“I was learning how to make sandwiches,” Skye said.

“I probably played too many video games at that age.” Diehl chuckled. “Elisa is growing up fast. She’s strong and sure. She told me yesterday that when she grows up, she wants to be a policewoman.”

“When you were a kid, what did you want to be?” Skye asked.

“I wanted to be like Grandpa Brooks. He did nothing all day long except walk on the beach and check on his collection of violins and pianos. Somehow money grew on trees.”

They laughed.

“You?” Diehl glanced over at Skye.

Outside the car, the sun had almost set. Through the side rearview mirror, Skye could see red and vermillion bands across the sky behind them as they drove eastward toward the college town of Athens.

“I wanted to cook,” Skye said. “I dreamed of a beautiful kitchen, and there I was in the kitchen, cooking.”

“That’s all you ever want to do?”

“Once I got in the youth group at church as a teenager, I started getting asked to babysit. The pay was good, but most of all, I loved those little babies. I started wanting…uh…”

Too much information.

Skye looked away.

“Skye?”

“I thought that as soon as I finished school, God would send me the man He wanted me to marry, and we’d have lots of kids.” Skye shook her head. “I was such a dreamer.”

“Were you? Wanting to be a mother is a noble thing.”

“I didn’t want to bring it up, but I’ve had boyfriends in my life, you know, and none of them worked out.”

“That’s because they were all wrong for you.” His voice sounded certain.

“Really?”

He rubbed her hand with his palm. “I’m sure because God prepared you for me.”

“Are you sure?”

“You have no idea how sure I am. Remember back at the restaurant, I asked you if you believe that people could fall in love quickly?”

Skye nodded. “We never got to the end of that, did we? We talked about how our siblings fell in love, but that was it.”

“I didn’t tell you how Parker fell in love with his wife, Riley. They were on a canoe trip in the Okefenokee. Singles retreat out in the middle of mosquito land. Can you believe it? Parker fell in the crocodile-infested swamp, and she pulled him out. Well, actually it was she and others.”

“That sounds…romantic.”

“When he got in the boat, Riley scolded him for not wearing his life jacket. He was like, this total stranger—who didn’t know his name—was mad at him for not wearing a life vest. He was in love with her from that point onward.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. They dated for two years, he proposed, and they were married for eighteen years, before he fell overboard again without a life vest—this time while deep sea fishing—and drowned in the ocean.”

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