If they hadn’t lost the girl, Meg wouldn’t have found Jack...

She hadn’t hesitated to take in Sabra, her daughter’s pregnant best friend. Yet maybe that was Meg Harper’s first mistake. It was hard enough raising one teen, but two? And now the girl has disappeared. Because Meg’s the responsible adult, police suspicion falls on her. Which brings her entirely too close to Detective Jack Moore. The man’s clearly attracted to her, but she hasn’t been in a relationship in years and she doesn’t even remember how to begin. Her past is...complicated. One thing she does know: she absolutely doesn’t want Jack to be her second mistake. Her heart couldn’t take it.

The sound of footsteps was followed by a lock disengaging.

The door opened a cautious crack, letting him see the woman within, every bit as hot as he’d remembered from down at the police station. The snug, faded jeans she wore gave Jack a better look at long legs and curvaceous hips. She had a redhead’s skin with a scattering of freckles over her nose and cheeks. Cinnamon and cream.

And, damn it, he needed to quit looking.

“Mrs. Harper?”

“It’s Ms.”

Which meant...what? She was divorced? Had never been married?

Irrelevant.

He pushed back his shirt to expose the badge hooked on his belt. “I’m Detective Jack Moore with Frenchman Lake Police Department. I’d like to talk to you about the disappearance of Sabra Lee.”

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I know exactly where my stories come from—an overheard conversation, a newspaper article, even one of those aha moments. Because of a Girl isn’t one of those. It came from a note I made years ago that said something unhelpful like “missing pregnant teenager.” But if I wait long enough, my subconscious moves puzzle pieces around until...they fit!

I’ve always liked teenagers. I vividly remember the sheer irrationality, the roller coaster moods, and yet the sense of limitless possibilities. All those qualities make teenagers incredibly vulnerable.

Sabra was a fun character to create in a lot of ways. She’s a diva like her mother, yet is also a good friend and maintains her dignity and confidence under circumstances that would humiliate the average fifteen-year-old girl. She’s definitely preyed upon, but holds a whole lot of responsibility for the huge trouble she gets into. She’s only in a couple of scenes, and yet everything that happens is indeed because of her—a snotty, romantic, credulous girl who changes many other lives, including those of a man and a woman who have each been alone for too long.

Hope you wince a few times when you meet Sabra Lee!

Best,

Janice

Because of a Girl
Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

An author of more than ninety books for children and adults, JANICE KAY JOHNSON writes about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. An eight-time finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008 for her Harlequin Superromance novel Snowbound. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.

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Contents

COVER

BACK COVER TEXT

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU ARE SERIOUSLY telling me you won’t even take a report?”

The woman arguing with the desk sergeant caught Jack Moore’s attention. He’d come out from the back because someone claiming to be a witness to a carjacking was here to talk to him as detective on the case. The crime had been ugly, and he had stayed late at the station even if it was Friday night. As with a homicide, the more time passed, the less likely an arrest would ever be made.

Surely this wasn’t his witness?

She was so intensely focused on Sergeant Todd, she wasn’t noticing anyone else.

Used to dealing with distraught people, his colleague said calmly, “Ma’am, you say you saw her this morning. She hasn’t even been gone overnight.”

Whatever she was here for had nothing to do with Jack, then, at least until a missing persons report was filed. And the sergeant was right; most people who went missing turned up on their own. The police department couldn’t waste resources chasing people who had chosen to run away from their lives.

Even so, curiosity made him pause, his hand still on the waist-high swinging door partway down the long counter, to find out why this particular woman was so hot and bothered.

“Sabra is fifteen years old and six months pregnant. That means she’s exceptionally vulnerable.”

Yeah, it did, Jack thought.

“She’s an age that’s moody,” the sergeant pointed out. “Chances are good she’s at a friend’s house.” He shrugged. “Probably the boyfriend’s place.”

“I have tried calling every friend I know of.” The woman’s voice held a faint tremor now. “Unfortunately, Sabra has been unwilling to tell anyone who the father of her baby is.”

“Well, then,” the sergeant said, as if there was the answer.

In a way, it was. The kid hadn’t even been gone twenty-four hours? Hard to get excited unless there was a solid reason to suspect an abduction. A fifteen-year-old girl who was pregnant? Volatile as gunpowder.

Jack became uncomfortably aware that he was loitering not because the story was interesting, but because the woman was. She had glossy hair of a color that made him think of desert sandstone, confined in the fattest braid he’d ever seen. It lay over her shoulder and reached below her breasts. Big, greenish-hazel eyes shimmered with intensity. Medium height, she had enough curves to explain why he was still hanging around for no really good reason.

He didn’t much like the batik skirt she had on. It was a dark sea green that shaded to almost cream around the hem, which was at midcalf. She wore clunky boots below it and on top what might be a man’s white shirt over some kind of camisole. He wasn’t a big fan of multiple piercings, either, and there were three earrings in the ear he could see.

While he appraised her, she and Sergeant Todd had apparently concluded their standoff. She gave an angry huff, turned so fast the skirt swirled and strode out of the police station with long strides. The heels of her boots came down in a hard staccato that would have told anyone, absent the rest of the scene, that she was pissed.

Both cops watched her yank open the door and stomp out. Then the sergeant glanced at Jack and grinned. “Not a happy lady.”

“No shit. Is it her kid that’s pregnant?” Though she didn’t look old enough to have a teenager.

Todd shook his head. “A friend of her daughter’s, from the sound of it. Man. If Kelly turned up pregnant at fifteen, I’d chain her to her bed.” He seemed to mull that over, for good reason since his daughter had just turned thirteen. “Maybe I should chain her now.”

Laughing, Jack started in motion again. The low, swinging door closed behind him.

“The lady you’re looking for is off in that corner.” The sergeant jerked his chin that direction.

Lady? More like a teenager. Jack assessed the thin, anxious-looking girl who stared fixedly at the entrance. Because she wanted to run? Or because she was afraid of who might come through the doors?

When he stopped in front of her, she jerked and swung a panicky look at him.

He introduced himself. Then, although there was enough privacy for them to have talked out here, he suggested they go back to his desk.

She jumped to her feet. “Thank you.”

When he asked what worried her, she said, “If some friend of his sees me, I’m dead.” Once he had her seated in front of his desk, Jack bought her a cold can of Coke and made friendly conversation until she loosened up a little. At this time in the evening, they had the detective unit to themselves, although there were still occasional passers-by in the hall. He left the door open to avoid alarming her.

Sometimes he could tell just from looking at someone that her life hadn’t been easy. Robin Buckley was classic: too skinny, with rounded shoulders and stooped posture. She gazed down at her hands on her lap more than she did at him. Nobody had ever taken her to an orthodontist. Even so, she might have been pretty if hopelessness wasn’t so apparent in her eyes.

At last, she sneaked a desperate look at Jack and said, “This is all my fault. If I’d waited for him...”

Waited? “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” he suggested. “You know who committed the robbery and carjacking.”

She nodded, face pinched. “He’s my boyfriend. Was my boyfriend, I guess. I mean, I was living with him, but now I don’t know what I’ll do.” She took a deep breath. “His name is Dustin Tackett.”

“You told the desk sergeant you saw the carjacking.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Tell me how that came about,” he asked gently. He’d chosen to half sit on the front of his desk, one foot braced on the floor, rather than plant himself behind it like a stern principal judging a wayward student. The technique seemed to relax people.

The story came out in fits and starts. She’d driven the boyfriend to the convenience store and waited in the car while he went in. What he hadn’t told her was that he carried a gun under his denim shirt and planned a holdup. Through the glass front of the store, she saw him pointing the gun at a young clerk. Scared and shocked, she’d put the car into Reverse, rocketed out of the parking spot and accelerated away. He came racing out and chased her to the street before apparently deciding he wouldn’t catch her.

“He was so mad,” she said softly.

To her horror, he jumped into another car idling in front of the store.

“I stopped because, well, I thought maybe it would be better if I didn’t leave.” She bowed her head, lank brown hair veiling her expression. The hopelessness he’d seen in her eyes leaked from her voice. “Because I didn’t know where to go.”

Jack had to clench his teeth together or say something he shouldn’t. Something that wouldn’t be at all helpful right now. She wasn’t the first person and wouldn’t be the last he’d dealt with who was so entirely on her own, she couldn’t imagine any real refuge. He’d be willing to bet she’d grown up in an abusive home and had therefore gravitated toward an abusive man, unable to believe in any other reality.

She continued her story in the same soft, almost expressionless voice. The boyfriend had punched the young woman driver, then flung her, unconscious, out onto the pavement like garbage.

“She...she sort of flopped.” She did shudder there. “I don’t think he saw that I’d pulled over to the curb. He drove past, going really fast.”

The victim’s Chevy Malibu had been found two hours later, about ten miles out of town, on a dirt road graded for farm machinery between a vineyard and a wheat field. Pure chance anyone had noticed it so soon. It was currently in an impound lot. The department’s crime scene investigator was going over it with a fine-tooth comb.

Presumably, a buddy had picked up the scumbag.

“You think he’ll come after you,” Jack said.

“I know he will!” she flared. “He’ll kill me!”

He had to ask, even though he knew the answer. “Has he hurt you before?”

Hands writhing on her lap, she finally nodded. “He burns me,” she whispered.

“Show me.”

After a brief hesitation, she swiveled in her chair and lifted her T-shirt in back.

For all that he’d seen on the job, Jack cringed and then swore. A couple dozen small, round burns showed on skin that should have been smooth. Some were long-healed scars; a few, likely infected, seeped.

It was damn lucky for Dustin Tackett that he wasn’t there at that moment. Lucky for Jack’s career, too, he realized, anger sizzling his nerves like an electrical surge.

“We need to get you to the ER to have those looked at and documented,” he said, voice deceptively composed. “Once we pick him up, he should be charged for what he’s done to you as well as the holdup and carjacking.”

Robin protested, but not very hard. He guessed she was used to being obedient to a stronger will.

He asked some questions designed to find out whether she’d really seen the boyfriend at the store, since reporting him could be a revenge ploy. But she gave details she’d have had no way of knowing if she hadn’t witnessed events.

She also had a good idea where Dustin would be holed up. He had a best friend who was the same kind of scum. She knew, more or less, where this buddy lived. Jack ran him and came up with an address that matched her recollection.

While he was behind the computer, he ran her, too, and was sorry to see that she was older than she looked, barely twenty-one, which limited the resources available for her.

He drove her to the community hospital, where a woman doc went silent and grim upon seeing the damage. After talking quietly to the doctor, Jack called the founder of a battered women’s shelter here in Frenchman Lake and explained the circumstances. Without hesitation, she said she was on the way.

ICU was his next stop. There he was told the carjacking victim had yet to regain consciousness. Nobody was quite sure whether the punch had done the damage, or the skull-concrete collision.

Finally, Jack called out the combined county/city SWAT team, and set out to make an arrest that was going to give him a whole lot of satisfaction.

* * *

MEG HARPER COULDN’T settle to work or read or even just sit after her maddening visit to the police station Friday evening. Her worry consumed her. Her anxiety ran in a loop, replaying every few minutes.

Her truly awful week had started with the phone call from the police department Tuesday night letting her know that Emily and Sabra were being detained after a noisy kegger had been raided. And on a weeknight! Worse yet, the two girls were supposed to be at a friend’s house working on a project for school. In other words, Meg’s own, formerly reliable daughter had flat-out lied to her face so she could get drunk and... Please not have wild sex or do drugs.

To her shame, Meg wanted to blame Sabra, who had to be leading Emily astray. Right? And, yes, Emily’s best friend was pregnant, which meant she had already gone astray, so to speak. But Meg had a suspicion she had been hiding her head in the sand. Yes, Sabra was pretty mixed up right now—thus getting kicked out of her own home and needing refuge in Meg’s—but Emily was rebelling in her own way, something Meg had foolishly believed would never happen.

If only the school had called her, the way they should have. She should have known first thing this morning that Sabra had gone missing, instead of only finding out when Emily tore into the house after getting off the bus at the end of the day.

“How come you let Sabra stay home?” She had glared at her mother.

With a punch of shock, Meg echoed, “Stay home?”

Emily sank onto the couch, her book bag clunking to the floor. “She wasn’t at school today at all.”

“But... I dropped her in front five minutes before the first bell.”

Moving slower than usual that morning, Sabra had whined about her back hurting. Meg remembered acute back pain late in her pregnancy. Sabra wasn’t anywhere near that far along yet, but... Oh, God, what if she was having contractions anyway? The fetus wouldn’t have a chance of survival.

But Sabra had insisted the pain wasn’t anything like that. She’d just slept funny.

Of course, when the bus came, Sabra’s bag was upstairs, and she hadn’t made a lunch. Meg had waved Emily, protesting, out the door, then made a sandwich for Sabra while she’d finished getting ready.

Finally, Meg had driven her to the high school, pulled up to the curb in front of the main entrance and waited while she got out.

Not until that afternoon when she learned that Sabra hadn’t gone to her first class or any thereafter did she wish she’d stayed at the curb until the girl was inside. But apart from cutting a few classes here and there, Sabra had attended school without protest. She was smart, an A student in subjects that interested her. A few weeks back, the art teacher had told Meg that Sabra was gifted with exceptional creative ability. She’d pulled out Sabra’s portfolio, which included charcoal sketches, colored pencil pictures and some watercolors, and Meg could see right away what Ms. Guzman was talking about.

Looking out the front window at the dark street now, as if part of her expected Sabra to stroll up the walkway any minute, Meg murmured, “Where did she go?”

“I don’t know!” her daughter cried from behind her. “I suppose you think I’m lying.”

Meg had to gird herself before she turned around. Why, oh why, had Emily decided to go off the deep end now? “I was talking to myself. I know you’d tell me if you had any idea where she went.”

Emily’s face crumpled, and she began to cry. “She’d have told me if she was going to run away. I’m sure she would have.”

“Oh, honey.” Meg covered the short distance and gathered her daughter into her arms. Emily grabbed hold and sobbed. She would hardly ever consent to a hug anymore. Even hating to see her grieve, Meg was relieved that she would turn to her.

She pressed her cheek to wavy, bobbed hair the same color as hers. They looked so much alike, people sometimes stared. In the past year, Emily had inched up enough that they were now close to the same height, too, which still disconcerted Meg. Emily had her father’s brown eyes, though, and was slimmer.

Instinct had Meg rocking slightly on her feet as she said softly, “We’ll find her. She’s impulsive. She probably went off with someone today and will be back tomorrow. Or one of her other friends will hear from her.”

Sniffling and wiping her wet face with her shirtsleeve, Emily backed away. “It’s just...doesn’t she know we’ll be scared?”

“You’d think.” Meg hesitated, unsure how Emily would react to anything that edged toward criticism of her friend, but decided to say this anyway. “Sabra is pretty self-centered these days.” Meg held up a hand when she saw the outrage forming on her daughter’s face. “It’s normal, to some extent, for a pregnant woman to be that way. She turns inward. In Sabra’s case, well, she must have a lot of fears.”

“She doesn’t act like she does,” Emily mumbled.

Now there was a surprise: an honest observation.

“No, I’ve noticed that,” Meg admitted. “It’s been worrying me. She doesn’t seem to realize what a tough road she has ahead.”

“The truth comes out.” In an abrupt reversion to war, Emily sneered. “You just say all that stuff about how glad you are you had me because you think you have to.”

The ground between truth and lies was tricky. Were there times I did wish I hadn’t gotten pregnant? Of course there were. The first few years had been terrifying, lonely and dangerous. But overall, the joy of having this perfect, formerly sunny child more than compensated for every challenge she had faced.

“It’s hard to take care of a baby when you’re only sixteen,” she said, refusing to let herself feel hurt by the attack. “Especially if you don’t have the support of parents.” She’d kept the uglier details about those first few years from Emily, who did know Meg had been on her own from the instant she’d admitted to her pregnancy. Emily had never met either set of grandparents. “But I have loved you every minute since you were born, and you know it.”

A flush spread on Emily’s cheeks, and she ducked her head.

“Why don’t you get ready for bed?” Meg suggested.

“How can I sleep?” Emily wailed, lifting her head again to expose a blotchy face.

“Staying awake won’t do any good.” Meg dared another swift hug. “And we both know the chances are that Sabra is with the father of her baby, safe and sound.”

“Do you think they got married today?”

“I don’t see how they could have,” she said honestly. “Sabra is too young.”

“She says her mom would probably give legal consent, because she doesn’t want her anyway.”

Meg winced. What sounded like typical teenage melodrama might, unfortunately, be true. Meg could imagine Sabra’s mother doing just that. Which, she reminded herself, might be for the best, depending on the age and maturity of the baby’s father.

Would I have married Carson if he’d asked? As scared as she’d been, the answer was probably yes, but it would have been a disaster. And...she’d survived and somehow protected Emily through everything.

“I’m pretty sure Mrs. Lee would have told me if she’d done something like that.” Until Meg had called her this evening, Sabra’s mom hadn’t even known Sabra was missing. All she knew about was the phone call from the school. Which she had ignored, having dramatically washed her hands of her child. Meg was seriously angry at the school administration, from the secretaries on up to the principal. They had all been amply informed about the change in Sabra’s home situation yet hadn’t set in place a mechanism to keep her informed.

Emily gave a forlorn snuffle. “Will you wake me up if you hear anything?”

Meg managed to smile. “Promise.”

“Do I have to go to school Monday?”

She hesitated, at war between her desire to somehow regain their closeness and her hard-won knowledge that she had to be a parent first, friend second to her daughter. “Yes, you do,” she said, sounding firmer than she felt.

“But—”

Meg raised her eyebrows.

“Fine,” her kid snapped. “I’m going to bed.” She rushed out of the living room and thundered up the stairs.

A moment later, Meg heard water running.

She should go to bed, too. The mantel clock had bonged the hour not long ago. With it after ten, she couldn’t imagine she’d hear anything about Sabra unless it was the police to let her know there had been an accident or—no, she wouldn’t let herself think about any other possibilities. And if there’d been a car accident, why wouldn’t she already have been informed?

Because they’d gone to her home of record?

If something awful had happened, Meg wanted to believe Andrea Lee would have let her know.

No, she had no doubt her foster daughter had rushed off joyously to be with the man who had promised her the moon. Somehow, Meg doubted she’d given a thought to the people who would be worrying about her.

And...why the secret in the first place? Why hadn’t the baby’s father come forward by now? Why would he sweep Sabra away without letting anyone know what they were doing?

Chilled, Meg nonetheless made herself begin her usual evening routine of checking door and window locks and turning out lights before she, too, headed upstairs to try to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

THE DOORBELL PRODUCED a bong deep inside the house. Waiting on the wide front porch, Jack breathed in crisp air that tasted more of winter than spring as he checked out the front yard crowded with giant shrubs surrounding a lawn that really needed mowing. The lilacs he recognized, though they wouldn’t be blooming for a good while. March in eastern Washington could feel like spring one day and pound you with a snowstorm the next.

Then he focused on the handsome old door with an oval insert of beveled glass veiled with a lace curtain. He had to ask himself again why he was here. Yes, he had cleared his most urgent case Friday night, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t still follow-up he hadn’t finished this weekend, not to mention the reports he had to write. Plus other investigations that had been put on the back burner.

But damned if he hadn’t raised a hand this morning, feeling like a good little boy in a third-grade classroom, and said, “I heard the beginning of this drama. I’ll handle it.”

Nobody argued, and why would they? They all had too much to do and not enough time to do it. The lieutenant had written his name on the whiteboard where they tracked who was working on what, and Jack started gathering details not so different from what the woman had claimed Friday and in her second attempt to file a report on Sunday, but more worrisome.

The sound of footsteps was followed by a lock disengaging. The door opened a cautious crack, letting him see the woman within, every bit as hot as he’d remembered. The snug, faded jeans she wore gave him a better look at long legs and curvaceous hips. She had a redhead’s skin with a scattering of freckles over her nose and cheeks. Cinnamon and cream.

And, damn it, he needed to quit looking.

“Mrs. Harper?”

“It’s Ms.”

Which meant...what? She was divorced? Had never been married?

Irrelevant.

He pushed back his shirt to expose the badge hooked on his belt. “I’m Detective Jack Moore with Frenchman Lake Police Department. I’d like to talk to you about Sabra Lee.”

Meg Harper’s face lit with relief. “But I’ve been told twice—oh, never mind. Come in. Please.” She stepped back.

As was his habit, he scanned entry, stairs, the hall that led to the back of the house and what he could see of a room to the left that should have been a dining room but appeared to be in use as...some kind of sewing room? The living room was visible through a wide opening to the right. No other people, and he heard only quiet. The place was warm and homey. It took a second look for him to see how shabby it was, too. Scratched and scuffed floors, missing balusters on the staircase railing making him think of the gaps in a five-year-old’s smile. The ceilings had to be ten feet high, which must make the place a bitch to heat.

The cushions on the sofa in the living room sagged, the wooden rocker she went to needed refinishing and the carved fireplace mantel might really be something if someone took the time to strip off the thick accumulation of paint. The house was clean enough, though, what he could see of it.

The brightest note in the living room was a large wool rug in ruby red with gamboling white sheep and—yeah, a sheepdog in one corner. He had to resist a smile at the humor of the design. Half a dozen pillows on the sofa were done with the same technique, too, he saw, each individual and interesting although he didn’t allow himself to look closely.

“Please, sit down,” Ms. Harper urged him, plunking down in the rocking chair.

As she clearly expected him to take the sofa, he chose one end. His ass settled into a sinkhole. Getting back up might be a problem.

“Oh!” She bounced back to her feet. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Not now, but thank you.”

Expression dimming, she sank back down and waited.

He removed a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “I heard some of what you told Sergeant Todd Friday, but I’d appreciate it if you’d start from the beginning for my benefit.”

She absorbed his words, suspicion appearing belatedly. He wondered if she had any idea how expressive that girl-next-door face was.

“Yes, but...he wouldn’t even take a report. And they still wouldn’t Sunday. I don’t understand why you’re here.”

“Mr. Rivera gave us a call this morning to express his concern.” Rivera was the high school principal, and some of the concern he’d expressed had to do with this woman.

“Oh, I’m glad. Well. Did he explain why Sabra is living here rather than with her own mother?”

“I gathered that they clashed over her pregnancy.”

“Clashed?” Ms. Harper gave a funny laugh. “I suppose the pregnancy is at the root of it, but I think they’d been going at it longer than that. Mrs. Lee threw her out of the house.”

Jack frowned. “Literally?”

“I can’t tell you whether there was any physical contact. Mrs. Lee did lock Sabra out and then dumped her clothes and school bag on the front lawn. My daughter, Emily, helped her gather everything.”

“How long ago was this?”

She seemed to count. “Six weeks? More or less.”

“Have you communicated with Mrs. Lee?”

“Yes, repeatedly. She’s...fine with Sabra living here.”

“Fine?” he echoed. That was a word that covered a lot of territory.

“She didn’t understand why I’d want her, but she supposed Sabra was lucky to have found a place to roost.” Ms. Harper’s tone was understandably dry. “I...called a few times to keep her updated, but she is unwilling to consider counseling and seems to have no interest in Sabra returning home.”

“Do you have any kind of written contract? Or is DSHS involved?” He assumed she did know the Department of Social and Health Services oversaw the foster care system.

Now Ms. Harper looked wary. “No, so far it’s been informal. Honestly, I assumed at first that she’d only be with us for a week or two at the most. But since her mother hasn’t relented, I’ve let the school know the situation, and the teachers seem willing to talk to me when she has issues.”

“The administration must be in something of a bind, considering you don’t have legal custody,” he suggested.

“Is that what their problem is?” Temper kindled in her hazel eyes. “It’s been so frustrating. Bureaucracy in action. We’d have had a lot better chance of finding her if they’d let me know right away that she was noted as absent in her first class. But, no, what do they do but have that annoying robo-call go to Sabra’s mother, who told me the last time that she was just going to ignore them from now on. There isn’t a soul in the front office who doesn’t know Sabra lives here.”

“Mr. Rivera did indicate to me that he is uneasy with this type of placement. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t call DSHS this morning.”

Her mouth fell open. “He’s reporting me to Child Protective Services? Like I did something wrong? Is that what you’re saying?” She appeared genuinely bewildered.

“I can’t speak for what he will or won’t do.” Yeah, that was mealymouthed as hell, but Jack didn’t want to get diverted from the real issue here: a very pregnant fifteen-year-old girl was missing, and despite Ms. Harper’s claim to have dropped her off in front of the school, none of the staff in the office had seen Sabra, Ms. Harper or her gaudily painted Volkswagen van.

As one of the secretaries put it, “You can’t help but look up when that van pulls up to the curb! It makes me think of the 1960s. The Grateful Dead and all that.”

He had yet to see the van, likely parked in the detached garage.

“That’s unbelievably insulting.” Bewilderment had matured into temper. Steam was all but shooting out of Ms. Harper’s ears. “All I’ve done is offer a home and...and supervision to a girl whose own mother booted her out. What should I have done, let her start rooting in Dumpsters downtown for something to eat?”

“Is the mother paying you to take care of her daughter?”

“She hasn’t offered.” She bristled. “And I don’t need the help.”

Pride went only so far, but he didn’t say so.

“It might have been a good idea to give DSHS a call and explain that you’re willing to keep the girl but need to have some legal authority,” he said mildly.

“I didn’t think I’d need—” Her shoulders sagged. “I suppose I would have called when she went into labor.”

“Or even at her next prenatal doctor visit.”

“I took her to that, and nobody said anything.”

“Did they realize she was no longer living at home?”

Her lips tightened mutinously, which made her look even younger than she probably was.

What kind of flake was this woman? And why had he let himself get diverted again?

Physically, she pushed his buttons, but she was pushing other buttons, too, ones that flashed a warning red. Just as well, since he was investigating her.

“Let’s focus on Friday,” he suggested, and watched her turn wary.

* * *

TO THINK SHE’D been glad to see this guy on her doorstep. Meg had even, at first sight, found him...appealing. Sexy, a word that rarely to never crossed her mind.

And, yeah, he was tall, lean and broad-shouldered, with a bony face, light brown hair and chocolate-brown eyes. Which might have added up to sexy for a woman who was into the expressionless military/cop look: hair worn too short, face impassive, eyes watchful and a gun plastered to his hip. What was he going to do, shoot her if he wasn’t satisfied with her answers to his questions?

It was bad enough that he clearly thought she’d done something wrong when she took in a teenager who needed someplace to stay. But once she figured out that he didn’t believe she’d ever driven Sabra to school, that he thought she had something to do with the girl’s disappearance, any belief that he was here to help evaporated. “You seriously think the school secretary notices every single vehicle that pulls up in front? Even when she’s on the phone or talking to a parent or student or, hey, making a copy or sticking her head into the principal’s office?”

No change registered on that face. “It would be good if we could find someone who saw you. Anyone at all. Another parent, a student...? You say you arrived approximately five minutes before the bell rang.”

How was it that she could hear his doubt even when his voice remained neutral?

“Yes.”

“Aren’t there usually other last-minute arrivals? Did you notice any students crossing the parking lot? Another car coming or going? A late bus unloading?”

“I didn’t, but I was preoccupied. I admit—I was a little annoyed I’d had to drive her. I wanted to get home. I’ve driven Emily to school often enough. It’s not like there’s anything new to see. I paid attention to traffic. That’s all.”

“And there wasn’t any.”

“I didn’t even look toward the parking lot. In the drop-off lane, no. I worried she’d be late, but, according to my watch, she should have had time to make it to class if she hustled.”

“I see.” He didn’t immediately say anything else. Instead, he watched her until she wanted to squirm. But no way would she give him the satisfaction.

She kept her hands folded on her lap and gazed back at him as if she didn’t have a reason in the world to be anxious or mad. Of course, now she probably looked as intelligent as a cow placidly chewing its cud.

Finally, he stirred. “Ms. Harper, how do you think she managed to vanish somewhere between the curb and the school entrance? That can’t be more than twenty, twenty-five yards. There are a couple of spindly little trees in planters, but I don’t see her hiding behind one of them.”

Guilt clogged her throat. “I think she had a plan.” And how she hated knowing she’d been played. “The minute I drove away, she must have gone to a car in the parking lot. Somebody was waiting for her.”

“What if you’d seen her and gone back?”

Meg hesitated. “I’d have been exasperated because she was risking being late, but I don’t know if I would have gone back even if I’d noticed her heading into the parking lot. I’d have assumed she’d spotted a friend arriving and was going to meet her.”

His eyebrows climbed. “Her?”

“Or him.” Fuming, she exclaimed, “What’s the point of this? I didn’t look back. I wish I had, but I didn’t. If I had the slightest idea what happened to her, I’d tell you. All I want is Sabra to be home, safe.” Tears burned in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

His gaze seemed to drill a hole in her, as if he thought he could see beneath her lies to where she’d buried the body. But at last he nodded.

“I’m headed over to the school. I’d like to speak to your daughter. Do I have your consent?”

“Yes, but I don’t know what she can tell you. She’s helped me call every friend she can think of. Emily is really scared.”

“Scared?” Those damn eyebrows were the only expressive part of his face. “That’s an interesting choice of words. Why would she be scared? Does she have reason to think Sabra was taken against her will?”

Meg’s shoulders sagged. “No. Of course not. It’s just that they’re good friends. Emily can’t believe Sabra wouldn’t have told her if she’d intended to take off. She said...” She had to swallow. “She thought Sabra trusted her.”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, appearing, for an instant, genuinely reflective. “Is it possible Sabra did? And that your daughter thinks she’s living up to that trust?”

“No.” Despite their recent conflict, she knew Emily. “I’d have been able to tell if she was lying about something that big. She’s...not that good at it. We’ve had a little more tension between us lately, but we’ve always been close. She really thought I’d let Sabra stay home.”

“I’d still like to talk to her.”

What could she do but consent? She dipped her head. Maybe she’d been kidding herself and he would succeed in worming something out of Emily with his Guantánamo Bay interrogation tactics.

“I understand a nine-one-one call was made this past week bringing an officer out to your home to investigate a loud altercation.”

Meg’s cheeks flamed. He knew about that. Of course he knew. He’d have looked her up before he came here this morning. She’d been humiliated enough, but she hadn’t let herself realize how the “altercation” would look now.

It was suddenly hard to breathe. He really thinks I could have hurt or even killed Sabra.

“Emily and Sabra were caught at a party some officers broke up,” she said, voice thin. “I thought they were at a friend’s. I had to go pick them up. They were...not falling-down drunk but inebriated. I never yell, but... I guess I must have.” Oh, who was she kidding? Of course she had yelled. And the witch next door had called the cops.

“I see.” Still with that poker face, he studied her. “Have you looked at Sabra’s room to get an idea what she actually took with her Friday morning?”

Meg blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “She only had a small backpack. How much could she have packed?”

“Are you sure it held books?”

She hesitated, trying to picture it, but she couldn’t. Sabra had clutched it rather than slinging it over her shoulder when she got out of the car, and Meg hadn’t noticed the shape when it sat on the van floor by Sabra’s feet. Galvanized, she jumped to her feet. “No. The girls share, and I think Emily would have said if it was obvious stuff was missing, but...”

He nodded and rose to his feet, too. “Do you mind if I take a look at her room?”

“No.” She hurried to the stairs, aware of him mounting them right behind her.

The girls’ bedroom door was shut. Meg usually allowed them their privacy, but now she walked in without hesitation.

Bedcovers were flung aside. Clothes were strewn everywhere: on the floor, over chairs, wadded on the single dresser, hanging out of the wicker hamper. Meg didn’t allow herself to look at the detective for fear she’d see disdain. For a moment, she scanned the room helplessly. Amid this mess, how could she tell what Sabra might have taken?

“If she packed clothes, then her schoolbooks have to be here somewhere,” she said, thinking aloud.

Meg didn’t see either Sabra’s iPod or phone, but she always had those with her. She didn’t see a charger, either, but the girls might have both been using Emily’s.

Detective Moore went to the closet. Meg dropped down on her hands and knees to peer under the bed, wincing at the dust bunnies sharing space with a couple of stray socks, a CD case, a dirty plate, candy wrappings and a bra that looked like it might have crawled under there. No books or binder.

When she pushed herself to her feet, she saw that he’d been watching her, something different about his face. Had he been checking her out? Right this minute, she was too stirred up to care.

He turned back to the closet, and she began yanking open dresser drawers. The contents of the top one seemed skimpy, but given the quantity of clothes that were dirty or had never been put away after being laundered, that was hardly a surprise. The second drawer was full, but when she picked up a couple of garments, she saw that they were things Sabra wasn’t able to wear right now. Her maternity wardrobe was limited.

Third drawer...was heavy. Too heavy. Heart sinking, Meg crouched to tug it open. Then she stared, aghast, at the pile of textbooks and a binder. And, oh no, there was her calculator.

Meg didn’t move.

Her very stillness must have caught the detective’s attention. He crossed the room and looked over her shoulder. “Well, we know what she didn’t take with her.”

“She ran away.”

“Appears that way,” he agreed but with an odd note in his voice.

When Meg turned to look at him, she found he was back to watching her...and she had a very bad feeling she knew what he was thinking.

CHAPTER THREE

HOW IN HELL could he be attracted to a woman who reminded him in any way at all of his mother? Driving toward the high school, Jack grappled with atypical bafflement.

Unfortunately, his mother had been at the forefront of his mind since she’d decided to reconnect with the son she had ditched.

He had barely given her a thought in fifteen years or more, until he’d answered his phone three weeks ago to a big surprise. The number wasn’t one he recognized. Given his job, a lot of people had his cell phone number. He hadn’t recognized the area code, either, but these days so many people kept their same phone numbers when they moved across the country, he hadn’t given that a thought.

Until he heard her voice, feminine and yet...rich. Huskier than it had been when he was a boy. “Jack?” She sounded astonished, even awed. “It’s really you?”

The fine hairs on his body had risen.

He’d heard himself say, “Mom?” even as his belly began to churn.

She had probably practiced the speech she delivered then, about how terribly she’d missed him all these years—all twenty-five of them, he hadn’t been able to help thinking—and she wanted nothing more than to sit down and talk to him. To see him.

“To hug you,” she had finished softly.

Rage had roared through him like a forest fire. But blasting her—that would imply he cared.

He didn’t anymore.

So he’d simply ended the call, and declined to answer the other half-dozen times he’d seen her number on the screen of his phone. If she showed up in person... Jack still didn’t know what he’d do. He hoped she’d get the idea that he didn’t want to see her. He surely didn’t want the heartfelt reconciliation she seemed to imagine. He’d rather not even think about the woman who had abandoned him as a kid to “find herself.” Specifically, to become a singer, a career that, as far as he knew, hadn’t made it off the launchpad.

Despite telling himself he didn’t care, Jack harbored a hell of a lot of anger at his mother.

Truth was, she had always been impulsive, fanciful, a brightly colored butterfly. Irresponsible. The polar opposite of his stolid, hardworking father.

And that brought him full circle, back to Meg Harper.

They didn’t look anything alike. He wasn’t twisted enough to be physically drawn to a woman who bore the slightest resemblance to his mother.

In other ways... He had no idea what Meg did for a living, but he was willing to bet it was unconventional. But the qualities that had him on edge were more intangible than a profession. The VW bus he had yet to see that was painted in psychedelic designs. Her clothes, not outrageous but subtly standing out. The bright, playful rugs and pillows nobody could call practical. In the snapshots of his mother he could easily summon, she was wearing colorful, swirly clothes, her blond curls unrestrained. He’d never had trouble tracking her down in the house because she was always singing, whatever else she was doing.

Solid, suspicious, conservative in his thinking, he was more like his father than he could ever be like his mother. So he didn’t get why he had responded the way he had to Meg Harper’s comfortable, casual home, or why that silly rug had struck a chord with him. It had to be the small part of him that was his mother’s son, who remembered a time when his own home hadn’t been so sterile.

He swore under his breath.

So, okay, Meg had stuck around to raise her child, more than his mother had done. Because of that, he’d give her the benefit of the doubt—but his fantasies of getting her into bed weren’t happening. Not my type. He’d continue telling himself that. Fortunately, the anger his mother’s repeated phone calls kept simmering was a good reminder to maintain his distance from Ms. Harper.

Thank God he was at the high school, where he could refocus on doing his job.

* * *

THE GANGLY KID glared at Jack. “We used to have a thing. It’s been a long time. Since school started.”

“That would be...about six months.”

Asher Wright got his point, no problem. “It’s not my kid.”

The principal had allowed Jack to borrow a small conference room to meet with students. Sabra’s former boyfriend was the first sent in to talk to him. He had been able to reach the boy’s mother, who had given permission for this interview. Jack sat on one side of the table, Asher on the other.

“And how do you know that?” Jack asked. “Because she told you it wasn’t yours? You sure you want to take her word for it?”

The boy’s eyes darted this way and that. A flush crept up his neck and mantled his cheeks. “Because we never did it,” he mumbled at last. “So it can’t be, okay?”

“You never had sex with Sabra Lee.”

“No! I mean, people thought we were, because, you know, I never said.” The poor kid was fire-engine red now. “But I didn’t. She was my first girlfriend, and...” He trailed off.

How well Jack remembered that painful stage. The guys swaggered when no girls were present, some claiming they got it all the time, most of them at least implying sex was no longer a mystery to them. Even though kids seemed to be having sex earlier than they used to, he bet the majority of freshmen and even sophomores were still lying through their teeth, especially in a town like Frenchman Lake surrounded by a rural county.

Inclined to believe the boy, he crossed his arms and studied Asher. “Do you know when Sabra started seeing someone else?”

“When school started. We hung out all summer, but the minute we were back, she started making excuses. I said what’s going on, and she said nothing, but I could tell. I got mad, and she said what she did wasn’t any of my business.” Indignation rang in his voice. “So that was it,” he concluded with a shrug, but his face twisted at the memory. Either because he really had liked her or because he’d been humiliated. Maybe both.

“Have you seen her with another boy?”

He shook his head. “I figured it must be someone from out of town. Or even a community college student?”

Jack thought he could rule out students at Wakefield College. The kids accepted at the private liberal arts college in town were supposed to be the cream of the crop from across the country. Smarter, surely, than to become involved with a fifteen-year-old girl—and to impregnate her, besides. Plus, the college was pretty insular, in some ways. Why would a guy from there hook up with a local, and a sophomore in high school at that? Jack knew for sure his peers wouldn’t think it was cool.

The community college, now, a lot of those students were locals. This might be a kid who graduated from the high school as recently as last year. Someone who thought Sabra was hot, didn’t give a thought that he might get arrested for having sex with her.

Jack asked a few more questions, but he couldn’t break Asher. The boy never had sex with her, the baby couldn’t be his and he had no idea who she started seeing after she ditched him. As mulish as he was, he came across as sincere.

Jack poked his head out and asked for Emily Harper next, then sat doodling on his notepad.

At a knock, he said, “Come in.”

The girl who entered looked enough like her mother he would have recognized who she was if they had passed in the hall. Meg Harper had an earthy quality the daughter lacked, but some of that was just maturity. Woman versus girl. Emily was almost delicate, with fine bones and a pointy chin that gave her a pixie look.

“Mrs. Seacrest said you’re a cop? Is Sabra hurt, or...or...?” She didn’t seem to want to spit out any other possibilities.

To be polite, he half stood. “I’m Detective Jack Moore. And, no, I’m trying to figure out where she could have gone. Please, have a seat.” He sank back down while she plopped into a chair across from him. “I understand you’re Sabra’s best friend.”

“She can’t have taken off without telling me! She wouldn’t do that.” Big brown eyes beseeched him, and she finished more softly, “Something bad must have happened.”

Despite the high emotion, she sounded genuine. Even so, he found her to be less transparent than the ex-boyfriend had been. In his experience, teenage girls loved secrets and could be sly.

“What kind of bad thing do you think that could be?”

“What if somebody grabbed her? And dragged her into a car?”

“Hard to do that in plain sight, right in front of the school.”

For an instant, she looked a lot more adult and even a little sardonic. “Nobody saw Mom drop her off.”

He spread his hands, conceding the point. “You’d think Sabra would have struggled, though, wouldn’t you? Probably yelled. She could have jumped right out of the car again unless the person shoved her in the trunk. All of that is kind of eye-catching.”

“Mom’s van is, too,” Emily said sullenly.

A corner of his mouth curled. “So I hear. Thing is, people have gotten used to seeing it. I imagine she’s driven you to school plenty of times. A struggle, someone pushing a pregnant girl into the trunk of a car, that’s different.”

She took that in and finally nodded. “What if she went with him, just so they could talk or something, and then he wouldn’t bring her back?”

“I’d say that’s possible,” he said gently, “except your mother and I discovered she’d hidden her textbooks and binder in a drawer so she could put other stuff in her pack. Seems like she planned an outing.”

Unless, of course, Meg Harper had planted the books to make it look exactly like that, diverting suspicion from herself. He didn’t really believe that, but he had to keep it in mind. His job demanded he look at her first, as the last person to see Sabra. As he’d told her, it would be good if he could find a witness who’d seen her delivering her foster daughter to the school.

Speaking of... “Why didn’t you ride along with your mom and Sabra instead of taking the bus?”

“Sabra said she didn’t know how long it would take her to get ready.” Her tone told him she’d felt betrayed. “And Mom said it was bad enough if one of us was late.”

That Sabra hadn’t wanted Emily with them would seem to confirm the advance planning she’d put into her great escape.

“Before you went out the door, did Sabra say anything about the day?” he asked. “Maybe ‘I’ll see you in biology’?”

Emily’s nose wrinkled.

He smiled. “Or at lunch?”

“Biology is one of the classes we have together. Sabra especially hates it. The teacher is a douche. But Mom was practically pushing me out the door and ordering Sabra to get ready, so I didn’t even say goodbye. It wasn’t fair I couldn’t wait and go with them. Riding the bus sucks.”

She was right—it did. A reminiscent instant was forced on him. The diesel smell, the sway, the jerky stops had made him carsick. Then there were the weird kids, the assholes, the grumpy drivers.

It was reasonable enough that Ms. Harper had wanted Emily on that bus, but he couldn’t rid his mind of an alternate motive for her eagerness to get her own daughter out of the house, leaving her alone with the troublesome, pregnant teenager whose welcome might have worn thin.

He sat back, regarding her somberly. “Emily, I have to ask this. You may be the only person who Sabra has confided in. It’s really important that you tell me who fathered her baby.”

“But I don’t know.” She swiped angrily at sudden tears. “She said he was going to marry her, but he had to take care of stuff first and she’d promised not to tell anybody, even her absolute best friend in the world. She swore she wouldn’t do it without me, ’cuz I had to be her maid of honor. Which would be cool except...” Her worry suggested she was basically a good kid. “How can she have a boyfriend old enough to marry her? Do you think he might be trying to talk his parents into letting them move in with them?”

The thought had crossed Jack’s mind, but he was bothered by the absolute secrecy Sabra had maintained, tough for a girl her age.

“Word has gotten around she’s disappeared, hasn’t it?” he asked.

“Everyone knows now, because you’re here. Before, nobody would believe me.” Emily caught his drift. “You think if, well, he doesn’t know where she is, he’d be scared enough to say he’s the father.”

“That seems logical. If the secret is big enough to keep, I doubt the issue is as simple as a set of parents who disapprove.”

He could tell she understood and even agreed. She was probably still holding back, but how much? He kept her talking for a while, trying to get a better idea of her mother’s relationship with Sabra. The fight that had been loud enough to have a neighbor calling 9-1-1 was a red flag, but one he’d take more seriously if her yelling hadn’t come on the heels of the girls having sneaked out to a party where drugs and booze were available. Once cops broke up the party, he guessed parents all over town had been yelling. He hadn’t been surprised that Meg Harper turned beet red when he asked her about it. To her credit, she’d been openly embarrassed, not defensive.

He asked now about boys Sabra had hung out with once school started. Had she gone out with any? Disappeared for a while when the two friends were at a party? Emily kept shaking her head, although when pressed she named boys in their crowd.

“But I don’t think she was into any of them like that. You know?”

“What about after school or evenings? You must have gone separate ways some of the time.”

She ducked her head. “Well, after school.” Her mumble went with her sudden refusal to meet his eyes. “Evenings Mom is really strict. Mostly she makes us be home and do schoolwork. Once in a while we study at the library or something.”

Or sneak out to parties. Like her mother, her cheeks reddened, suggesting she’d had the same thought. Or was she thinking about other wild parties her mother didn’t know about?

She shot a resentful look his way. “It’s not like it was my business where she was all the time.”

Yep, definitely evasive, Jack decided.

With a sniff, she continued, “We have some different friends. Plus, I work on school plays and I started newspaper this year, so I don’t go right home after school a lot of days.”

“What about Sabra?” he asked. “She involved in any extracurricular activities?”

“Um...not really. Probably because of being pregnant. You know.”

Yeah, he didn’t suppose whatever teacher cast plays would want to put an obviously pregnant girl onstage. And nothing he’d learned about Sabra Lee encouraged him to picture her doing Science Olympiad or yearbook.

“Does she catch the bus and go straight home most days?” he asked.

Emily was back to studying her hands on her lap. “I think she hangs out with friends.”

“Can you give me names?”

Clearly feeling pressured, she offered a few she hadn’t included before.

Jack let her go back to class at last. He worked his way down a list of other students, learning nothing new. None of the friends whose names Emily had offered admitted to hanging out with Sabra after school.

In fact, one looked surprised and said, “I think she practically always catches the bus. I never see her after school.”

In other words, Sabra Lee had been practicing her vanishing act for a while. Possibly with some help from her best friend.

He and the principal huddled over a flyer to be sent home with students. It asked the students or parents to contact Jack if they had seen Sabra on school grounds on the relevant morning, or had any information pertaining to her disappearance.

He could only talk to teachers during their individual planning periods, which required him to put together a jigsaw puzzle. If he sat down with the geometry teacher fifth period, he’d have to leave World History until tomorrow. He’d long since missed the Spanish teacher’s planning period. Computer Science, too, he saw; that had been fourth period. And so on. He thought it was pretty unlikely any of them would be able to contribute, but he wasn’t ruling anything out.

And face it—the kid hadn’t been gone long at all. The police wouldn’t have gotten involved yet if not for Sabra’s irregular home placement, or if anyone had seen Meg Harper, her van or Sabra at the school Friday morning. Girls her age did impulsive things. It was still likeliest she was hiding out somewhere because of some mini-catastrophe that had her distraught. She and her guy could have headed for Seattle to hang out and pretend they were UW students for a few days. See a concert at the Showbox. Maybe they were on their way to Vegas in some beater of a car, convinced they could get married there, no questions asked. Who knew?

He chose to start with Carl Howard, biology, following a school secretary’s directions to the classroom. A bell rang just as he arrived, and he had to step aside and flatten himself against the wall to avoid being trampled. The kids might as well have exploded off starting blocks on a track.

When the last seemed to have passed, he peered cautiously into the classroom, where the teacher was wiping clean a whiteboard. As expected, “the douche” was neither young nor hip. In his forties, at a guess, skinny and balding. Nothing about him would stand out. He wore chinos, a plaid sport shirt and brown lace-up shoes that were starting to roll out.

Jack rapped lightly on the door and, when the teacher glanced his way, introduced himself.

The conversation was short and unhelpful despite Mr. Howard’s cooperation. Sabra Lee was a C student in his class, which frustrated him as he felt sure she had the ability to do well. She just wasn’t interested.

Jack asked how many students really were enthusiastic, and saw subtle signs of discouragement. The gung-ho, college-bound kids paid attention because they wanted the grades. Some seemed to enjoy the experiments. But science classes in general weren’t popular.

“Because they can’t skate in my classroom,” the teacher declared.

Had he noticed Sabra huddling with other students? Only Emily. They shared a table and partnered for lab work. Boys? He hadn’t noticed. Any talk among teachers? About her pregnancy, yes, and whether she should have been shuttled to the alternative school the minute she started to show, but otherwise? No.

Jack thanked him and moved on.

CHAPTER FOUR

ANDREA LEE WORKED at The Beauty Boutique, which along with haircuts and perms offered waxing, sugaring—he didn’t even let himself speculate about that one—and manicures and pedicures. He stepped inside cautiously, seeing only women. Every single head turned. A sharp, chemical smell overwhelmed Jack’s sinuses.

A middle-aged woman who had been folding tiny pieces of aluminum foil into a customer’s hair left her to step behind the small front counter. Lifting her gaze from his badge, she smiled tentatively. “May I help you?”

She seemed a little old to be Sabra’s mother, but he couldn’t be sure. Nobody he saw resembled Sabra, judging from the most recent school photo.

“I’m looking for Andrea Lee,” he said. “I understand she works here.”

“Oh!” She pressed a hand to her bosom. “We’ve all been so terrified, wondering what possibly could have happened to Sabra. Andrea was so brave to come to work today.”

“She’s here, then?” He studied the half-dozen women either cutting hair or working on someone’s fingernails. He was pretty sure every one of them was eavesdropping.

“Yes, let me get her.” His informant went rushing to the back, where a curtain blocked the view of a supply or break room. A moment later, a second woman emerged, short and blonde like Sabra.

Any pretense of a waistline had disappeared, and he could tell by the time she was ten feet away that the blond hair wasn’t natural—or, at least, wasn’t natural anymore. Blue eyes welled with tears, tracking mascara down her cheeks. A whiff of cigarette smoke accompanied her.

“At last!” she cried. “I thought the police were pretending Sabra didn’t have a mother.”

Oh, damn. She’d managed more high drama in one sentence than a dozen teenagers had in the several hours he’d been at the high school. Jack hadn’t gone out for theater in high school or college, and he didn’t like being dragged into a scene staged for the benefit of an enraptured audience.

“Mrs. Lee, can we step outside to talk about your daughter’s disappearance? Or is there somewhere private we can speak?”

“All of my coworkers know about Sabra. I’ve been so shattered.” The woman who had gone back to foiling hair had tears in her eyes now.

Mrs. Lee finally led him through the shop, eight pairs of eyes following them, and behind the curtain to what was, indeed, a cramped break room with a small refrigerator, a microwave and a couple of reasonably comfortable chairs.

Private it wasn’t, but Jack supposed it didn’t matter.

“Emily is such a nice girl,” Mrs. Lee burst out. “I thought her mother was trustworthy.”

Despite his own reservations concerning Ms. Harper, that irritated him. This woman had tossed her own kid out. Meg had taken her in.

He couldn’t resist saying, “I assume you visited the home where your daughter was living, to be sure it was suitable?”

“Well, of course I’ve met Emily’s mother,” she said sharply. “I was grateful when she offered to give us time to cool off, but now she’s lost my daughter.” She snatched up a napkin to pat at her cheeks.

“She didn’t say whether the two of you have been in counseling.”

Sabra’s mother gazed woefully at him. “Oh, what difference does it make now? I would give anything to go back!”

Jack found it interesting that Meg had said something similar.

He asked questions. Mrs. Lee evaded. It wasn’t her fault her precious daughter had gone MIA. Her woe-is-me shit rapidly became tiresome.

By the time he gave up, Jack had reached only two meaningful conclusions. The first was that, contrary to his suspicions, Ms. Harper had told the truth; Mrs. Lee hadn’t so much as spoken to her daughter since the grand fight, and very likely didn’t have any intentions of doing so in the foreseeable future. Second, Mr. Lee—if he existed at all—was also MIA. “He abandoned us!” she cried, but Jack couldn’t pin down when that was. Mrs. Lee claimed to have no idea where he was and insisted he’d never paid child support. Unfortunately, she had another child at home, a girl who was eleven. Bryony—she carefully spelled it for him—had a different father, who did pay child support, although his wife resented it and he hardly ever spent time with Bryony.

Poor kid.

Jack’s head was throbbing by the time he thanked the woman for her time, promised to keep her informed and left the beauty shop.

He sat behind the wheel of his SUV, doing battle with an inexplicable desire to return to the Harpers’ house. If Meg—no, he should stick to Ms. Harper—had learned anything new, she’d have called him. She had his number.

Home, he told himself. A beer, a Mariners game and a frozen pizza added up to the smart choice.

* * *

TUESDAY MORNING, MEG tensed when the doorbell rang. She could not believe that jerk Rivera had called Child Protective Services on her. No discussion with her about his concerns, no warning. He’d just done it.

As mad as she’d been and still was, it was nerve-racking to have a social worker standing on her doorstep, intent on assessing whether Meg had abused or neglected Sabra.

But she made herself take a deep breath and summon her anger. This was insulting. It was also a huge waste of resources. Instead of trying to blame her for some unstated sin, everyone should be looking for Sabra.

Squaring her shoulders, she opened the door. A middle-aged woman who reminded Meg of a favorite art teacher in high school looked back at her.

“Ms. Harper? I’m Kathryn Berry. Please, call me Kathryn. And thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”

As if she had any more of a choice than she had when either of the two police officers had appeared on her doorstep in the last week. Meg managed a polite smile and let the social worker in.

Leading the way, she said, “Would you care for tea or coffee?”

“Oh!” Kathryn darted into the living room to stare at the shepherd rug. “This is amazing. Where did you...” Her voice trailed off as she spotted the pillows. “Oh, my. These are wonderful. Did you make them?”

This might be an attempt to disarm her, but Meg didn’t think so. Her walls started to crumble.

“Yes, that’s what I do for a living. I design and hook wool rugs, pillow covers, wall hangings. I also sell and occasionally license the patterns and am working on a book that teaches technique and has some new patterns.”

“Where do you sell?” She looked chagrined. “I suppose we should get business over before I drool on your rug.”

Meg laughed. “Tea or coffee?”

The social worker chose tea, and she wandered after Meg to the kitchen, pausing only briefly to peek in the former dining room, now Meg’s studio. In the kitchen, she set her briefcase on the table. “This house has such charm.”

Either she was laying it on thick or she and Meg could be friends. In case of the former, Meg reminded herself to be wary.

Once she’d poured the tea, they sat down, facing each other across the table. Kathryn Berry had her wavy, gray-streaked hair cut short. She wore little if any makeup and didn’t seem to care about crow’s feet. She opened her briefcase and removed a pair of reading glasses, a notepad and pen. “I’m still low-tech,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“I’m so low-tech,” Meg admitted. “My daughter embarrasses me on a regular basis.”

“A five-year-old could embarrass me.” Kathryn smiled apologetically. “Okay, tell me about your daughter first.”

Meg did, relieved because, despite the recent outbreak of hormone-driven sullenness, Emily came across as successful. The social worker jotted down notes: daughter in honors English, stage-managed the high school’s fall musical, had a 4.0 GPA so far. Of course, none of that said anything about Emily’s real character, the qualities like kindness and generosity that Meg valued most.

But she heard herself continue talking. “Not a grain of artistic ability that I can see. Oddly enough, that’s Sabra’s strength. Her art teacher raved to me, and I had to agree that what she showed me was head and shoulders beyond what any of her peers are doing.”

She explained that Sabra and Emily had known each other since fifth grade, but had grown closer in middle school and become best friends the previous year. The past year, Meg had gotten an earful about Sabra’s tempestuous relationship with her mother.

“They’re both over the top emotionally. You know? Although at Sabra’s age, it’s a little hard to know whether she has a fiery personality or is just an average teenager. Plus, of course, there’s the pregnancy hormones.”

“And the very fact she is pregnant, which must alter how other kids perceive her.”

“Yes.”

Meg explained to this woman, as she had to Detective Moore, that she’d initially taken Sabra in on an emergency basis, not expecting her stay to extend the way it had.

“She’s proved a lot harder to deal with than I expected,” she confessed, making a face. “Right now, I’m voting for fiery.” Relieved by Kathryn’s laugh, she said, “I’ve just lately started to worry about what the next step should be for her. I can’t set everything aside to take care of her baby so she can stay in school.” And yet essentially abandoning Sabra the way her mother had wasn’t an option she could live with, either. “I suppose I would have called DSHS soon to ask for advice,” she said reluctantly, given a built-in wariness about institutions with more rules than heart.

Kathryn, she thought, had heart and might be willing to let some rules slide.

“Do you think Sabra imagined that she could stay long term?”

Meg shook her head immediately. “No. That’s been another worry. She acted as if she had a plan. She just wouldn’t say what it was. She told both Emily and me that she might get married, but she’s been adamant in not saying who the father of her baby is.”

“Hmm.”

“Have you spoken to Detective Moore who is investigating her disappearance?”

“I wasn’t aware anyone was yet,” Kathryn said, sounding surprised and possibly annoyed at having been kept in the dark. “Is there reason to believe she was abducted?”

“No,” Meg said, a little grimly. “There’s reason to believe she took off on her own.” She explained about the books, and that Emily had come up with a list last night of what she thought was missing, a list that included makeup and some of her favorite clothes. “Her toothbrush is here, but it’s possible she took a new one. Several were in the drawer.”

“Phone?”

“Yes, and her iPod, but she takes those to school on a normal day.”

Kathryn did suggest gently that Meg probably ought to have contacted DSHS if she was unable to persuade Sabra’s mother to sign a written contract. Meg didn’t say that the idea of a contract had never occurred to her. Apparently what she’d thought of as a kindness, being part of a village coming together to care for a child, wasn’t supposed to happen in the real world.

Kathryn asked to see Sabra’s bedroom, which Emily had, under duress, picked up last night. It still wasn’t organized, but at least without Sabra’s clothing strewn everywhere, only Emily’s, the room appeared spacious and airy with the high ceiling and a pair of double-sash windows looking out at the backyard.

They discussed possibilities for when—not if—Sabra returned, both staying completely positive. Kathryn offered her a card so she could call for any reason.

And then, a fanatical light in her eyes, the social worker said, “Now tell me how I can learn to hook rugs.”

* * *

THE DAY WAS completely unreal. Emily couldn’t believe she was supposed to go from class to class and concentrate on lectures, even take a pop quiz in geometry, when none of it was important compared with finding out where Sabra had gone.

Sabra was all anyone could talk about. And it wasn’t just to Emily. As she carried her tray through the cafeteria, snippets of conversation came to her.

“So she left with the guy who knocked her up? What’s the big deal?”

“She just wants attention.” That was a girl’s voice, and Emily knew her. She was being spiteful, because she liked being center stage. “Nobody was interested anymore. I mean, she was pregnant. We all knew that. So she had to do something.”

Emily was really tempted to trip and, oh oops, drop her tray on Belle Whitmore’s head. The Taco Surprise looked gross anyway. She could get something out of the machine instead.

But she never actually did the stuff she wanted to. Sabra could have done it and made everyone laugh. Emily knew she’d turn bright red, mumble apologies and slink away. She just wanted to blend in, to follow the rules.

So she kept going, finding a seat at a table of kids she knew from Drama Club. They were talking about Sabra, too, but they were almost done with their lunches, so after only a few minutes, she had the table to herself.

Mostly her food got cold in front of her while she tried to think.

She just didn’t understand. Sabra had her phone, so why wasn’t she answering it? Why did calls go straight to voice mail? They were friends. It hurt that she wouldn’t at least take Emily’s calls. Or even just text her. And explain.

Emily stared into space. Why hadn’t she tried harder to find out who the guy was? She so shouldn’t have covered for Sabra to meet some guy without knowing his name. But since Emily had helped her, why would Sabra have taken off like this without warning her?

And something she wondered but hadn’t heard anyone else say was, shouldn’t he be missing, too? If Sabra had taken off, her boyfriend must have, too. Right? If he went to school, or had a job, wouldn’t people notice he was gone? So why wasn’t someone saying?

She could pretend to have cramps today so she could get out of running, which she hated anyway. She’d done it before, and would be sent to the office to help make copies or collate handouts. If she had even a minute to herself, she bet she could find the attendance records in the computer. She’d look especially for a boy who’d been absent for three days now. And then she could maybe do some asking around.

Because, really, despite this voice in the back of her head she didn’t want to hear, some guy at the high school was likeliest, right? There had to be a good reason why Sabra wouldn’t name him. Last night, while Emily was trying to sleep, she’d suddenly thought, What if it was Dominic? Sabra knew Emily had a thing for him, so there was a good reason for her not to say, Um, see, it wasn’t you he was smiling at.

Except... Dominic was here today. She knew that for sure.

Anyway, attendance records gave her a place to start. Emily didn’t know how she’d find out anything about community college students, or any guys who’d already graduated and were working now.

And the other thought she’d had? It was so freaky, she just wanted to forget it.

Her gaze lifted to the big clock on the wall, and she gasped. The cafeteria was practically empty except for the lunch ladies with their hairnets. Metal banged in the kitchen. Emily jumped up and scraped her lunch into the garbage before bussing her tray and rushing to her locker.

* * *

“A FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD girl is smarter than you, huh?”

Mid-afternoon Tuesday, Jack lifted his gaze from his monitor to see that his friend and fellow detective John Troyer had paused by his desk. They were close to the same age and had joined the department within a year of each other. Troy had grown up in Frenchman Lake and decided, after a few years with Seattle PD, to come home. Jack’s choice of Frenchman Lake had been a little more random.

At the moment, Troy’s amusement was apparent. He’d been smart enough not to raise his hand to volunteer for this wild-goose chase.

Jack groaned and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head and stretching until he heard bones crack. “Looks that way.”

“Good going with the carjacker, by the way.”

He grimaced. “I can’t claim any brilliant detective work. The girlfriend handed the asshole to me as a gift.”

Troy shrugged. “You’d have gotten his fingerprints out of the car anyway. Not a real smart criminal.”

“He didn’t intend to touch anything. I watched the surveillance tape. He was damn careful to push the door open with his shoulder going in. Didn’t pick anything up. Pulled his gun right away. If all had gone as planned, he’d have grabbed up his bag of cash and exited the same way. Too bad for him he lost his cool when his girlfriend decided she didn’t want any part of a holdup.”

Troy’s expression hardened. “Guys like him have shit for impulse control. Or, at least, that’s one excuse for what he did to her.”

They saw a lot of domestic violence, however peaceful the town of Frenchman Lake appeared on the surface. They didn’t often see anything as sustained and cruel as what the scumbag had done to Robin Buckley. “Heard the victim woke up,” Troy mentioned.

“Thank God. The doctors were getting worried. Looks like she’ll be okay. She’s a department secretary at Wakefield, and her husband is a prof. The college president put me on speed dial. I’ll be glad to get him off my back.”

“I know him,” Troy said, a little drily, reminding Jack that Troy had solved a very cold case involving the college, probably earning that same president’s eternal gratitude. And that Troy’s wife, Madison, was the alumni relations director at the college.

Some yelling was taking place a few desks away. Both men glanced that way to be sure they weren’t needed, then tuned out the racket. Jack sighed.

“I’m getting a bad feeling about the missing girl.” He wished he had enough information to bounce ideas off Troy, but the truth was, so far he’d come up empty. “I’ve tried pinging her phone, and it’s dead.”

Troy’s eyebrows shot up. “A teenager?”

That said it all.

Troy stood looking down at him for another thirty seconds or so, then tapped his desk, said, “Let me know if I can do anything,” and walked out. He was probably heading off to interview adults instead of sixteen-year-olds with their own language and a built-in suspicion of authority.

How well Jack remembered. Would he have been straight with some cop who’d come to his high school to ask questions? He honestly didn’t know.

Right now, he went back to his search for the absent Mr. Lee. His identity and location were probably irrelevant—but any competent investigator would want to eliminate him as a player in the girl’s disappearance.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRST WORDS out of Emily’s mouth when she burst in the door were, “Did you hear anything?”

Meg quit turning the handle of her Fraser cutter, clamped to the edge of the table. She’d tried to concentrate on some patterns she was working out but found it impossible. At least cutting the wool garments she’d recently bought at garage sales and thrift stores into usable strips was something. It had to be done, and the task was so routine for her, she had been able to work on autopilot. Which left her plenty of time to worry and brood. Sabra’s pregnancy had stirred up too many memories for Meg, and she was finding she’d blanked out a lot of her own pregnancy and the first few years of Emily’s life. Watching the beginnings of a replay was...not pleasant. She supposed she’d been trying to change Sabra’s path, be the person she wished had been in her own life when she’d needed someone.

It would appear her attempt had been a complete failure. “Nothing,” she said now to Emily’s question, all the tension she felt in her voice. “Not a word from Sabra’s mom or the police or anyone.”

Eyes big and anxious, Emily kept hovering in the doorway, bag still slung over her shoulder. “Didn’t that CPS worker show up?”

“Yes, but it turned out she didn’t even know the police were involved yet.”

“She didn’t think you’d done anything wrong, did she?” In a typical swing of the teenage pendulum, Emily sounded mad that anyone would accuse her mother of wrongdoing.

Meg managed a smile of sorts. “No, I don’t think she did. We had a pleasant conversation, and I agreed to consult her when Sabra’s home again.”

“Oh.” Emily chewed on her lower lip. “I keep trying her phone, but it isn’t even on. Her phone is always on!”

“Did you check Facebook?”

“Of course.”

“Email?”

Her daughter gave her the look. “Who uses email?”

Meg had only a business Facebook page. What did she know? “Can she send something completely private just to you on any social media site?”

“Well, yeah, but...” Emily whirled and raced for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll check again now.”

The doorbell rang.

Meg’s heart took an unpleasant lurch. The doorbell had come to mean bad news. Friends called—they didn’t just show up. Even Emily’s friends called first.

A thunder of footsteps heralded Emily’s return from the kitchen, but Meg beat her to the door. Seeing the unmarked police SUV in her driveway out the window, she knew. It had to be him.

Scared to death, she flung open the door.

Detective Moore looked surprised at what he saw on her face, and he couldn’t have missed seeing Emily, too, hovering behind Meg.

“I don’t know anything new,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

She let out her breath with a wheeze—or was it a whimper?—and grabbed the door frame for support. “Oh, God. I thought—”

“I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it. “Uh...may I come in?”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” Meg retreated, Emily doing the same but sticking close. If she’d still been a toddler, she would have grabbed hold of her mommy’s leg and been sneaking peeks at this stranger.

“Emily.” He nodded at her daughter and followed them into the living room. There, he gave off the vibe that he was a little uncomfortable. Was it because he had hoped to tell her something he didn’t want Emily to hear?

This time, when Meg offered him a cup of coffee, he accepted.

“Sugar? Cream?”

“Just black.”

“Emily, would you mind pouring a couple of cups?” she asked. “There’s a pot on. You know how I like mine.”

A flash of rebellion showed, but the teenager shrugged and left the living room.

“Please, sit,” Meg said.

“Ah...” He glanced warily at the sofa and moved toward an armchair. She chose her usual rocker.

“Did you hear from CPS?” he asked in a low voice.

That was what he didn’t want Emily to hear?

“Yes, and a social worker came by this morning.”

“It go okay?”

Was he really interested or just trying to maneuver onto her good side now?

Deciding to take his question at face value, she said, “Yes, the woman seemed nice and, unless I misinterpreted her, didn’t believe I’d done anything wrong taking Sabra in. We did agree to talk once Sabra is home.”

“Good.” His broad shoulders relaxed. “The principal came on a little strong, I thought.”

Was he supposed to tell her things like that? Or, once again, was he trying to—

Meg made herself stop. Spinning in circles, trying to decide what everyone’s true agenda was, could make her crazy. And it wasn’t like her.

“I guess you could tell I was mad,” she admitted.

A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You’re right. I could.”

Emily appeared, a suspicious gaze aimed at the detective. “Um...here,” she said, less than graciously, plunking down a mug on the side table next to him. She brought Meg hers, then stood there looking stubborn.

“I’d like you to hear this, too, Emily,” he said.

She reached out and grabbed Meg’s hand. They held on tight. He’d lied when he said he didn’t have anything new. His expression right now had her pulse picking up again.

He looked at Emily. “Please be honest with me. Have you heard anything at all from Sabra since Friday morning? Phone message, text, a secondhand message?”

She shook her head vehemently. “I’ve been calling and calling, but her phone’s off.”

“It’s not just off, Emily.” His deep voice was gentle. “I’m guessing it’s been destroyed.”

“You mean, like, she dropped it or something?” Emily didn’t sound as if even she believed it had been a simple accident.

“It’s possible.” There was the unexpected kindness again. His chocolate-brown eyes met Meg’s briefly. “If she dropped it on the street, a car could have run over it. If it went in the lake, that wouldn’t be good for anything electronic. Who knows? I’m finding it worrisome, though. I’d think she would want to stay connected.”

“Emily was just telling me that Sabra never turned her phone off,” Meg heard herself say.

“Most kids don’t.”

“Aren’t you looking for her?” Emily burst out.

“I am, in a roundabout way. I can’t search physically until I have some idea where to look.” He sounded as if he had all the time in the world to answer her questions. “I’ve been talking to students, teachers, Sabra’s mom. I even talked to her little sister today.”

“Sabra really missed Bryony,” Emily said.

Meg hadn’t known that.

“I was hoping Sabra had told her things she hadn’t told anyone else, but it seems not,” he said. “This is a puzzle to me, because I’m getting the feeling Sabra was usually...” He seemed to be searching for the right word. “Outgoing. Open with her emotions.” More slowly, his gaze keen on Emily’s face, he said, “Maybe even had trouble hiding what she was thinking or feeling.”

For a moment, Emily stood silent, her forehead crinkling as if she didn’t get what he was saying. Then she dropped her mother’s hand, a glare that could have started a grass fire aimed at him. “You think I know who he is, don’t you? That Sabra couldn’t keep it to herself. Well, you’re wrong. Okay? She didn’t tell me!”

Tears already brimming in her eyes, she raced from the living room and tore up the stairs as impetuously as Sabra had the last time Meg tried to get her to see sense.

After a discernible pause, the detective said, “Well, that went well.”

Meg’s laugh broke. “But oh, so familiar.”

“She does that when you talk to her, too, huh?”

“We’ve always been so close. Then, this last year, she jumps on anything I say.” She backtracked. “No, that isn’t true. I get glimpses of the Emily I know, but the next second she’ll be yelling at me because I treat her like a little kid. I never wanted to be the kind of parent who—” She made a face. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear this. You’re here about Sabra, not—”

“I don’t mind.” His expression was kind...no, more. It was...she couldn’t quite decide, but it sent her pulse thrumming for a different reason. “I’m pretty good at listening.”

Because it was his job, she reminded herself, trying to resist the tug of this unfamiliar attraction. She bet he was really good at getting people to spill their worries and, yes, secrets.

Even so, she started talking, because he was here and offering. “She’s always accusing me of lying to her. Just lately, she’s become convinced I wished she’d never been born.” Oh, boy. She shouldn’t have told him that. But he looked sympathetic, so her stupid mouth kept flapping. “The irony is she’s gotten pretty good at lying to me.” And she shouldn’t have said that, either, not after she’d assured him the other day that she could tell when Emily was lying.

His eyebrows rose. “About?”

“Oh, you know about the party last week. Right to my face, she told me they were making a video for Spanish class with another girl. Maria Espinosa. Did you talk to her?”

“I did.”

“I gave permission for them to spend the night at Maria’s. I could call her mom if I wanted, Emily said, as casual as could be. No, I trust you, I said. Of course, she and Sabra had intended all along to go to that party instead. Maria may have known about it—I don’t know—but she stayed home. I talked to Mrs. Espinosa. There’d never been any plan for them to spend the night.”

“You think it might have been Sabra’s idea.”

“Sabra claimed Emily had wanted to go because some boy she likes was there.” Feeling helpless, she shook her head. “I actually think I believe her. I just never expected—”

Jack Moore smiled at her. “Your kid to turn into a teenager? Come on—didn’t you go wild when you were her age?”

Meg shook her head. “In a way, but I never defied my parents right to their faces. I wouldn’t have dared. I suppose that’s why—”

“You wanted a different kind of relationship with your own daughter.”

She stared at him. He understood, at least on the surface.

His phone must be on vibrate, because he took it from a pocket and looked to see who was calling. An intense expression came and went on his face so fast, she couldn’t pin it down. Then he put the phone away and looked at her again, eyes flat.

“If your daughter lied successfully to your face, why are you so sure she isn’t lying about Sabra?”

Didn’t it figure he’d pounced right on the contradiction she’d admitted to him. Something cool in the way he was looking at her suggested all that friendly understanding had been thrown in to soften her up. So much for letting down her guard. They were not friends.

But this was important, and he had to ask. She took a minute to examine her feelings.

“When I thought back,” she said slowly, “after the lie about where they were going that evening, I realize how elaborately casual she was. Plus, saying I could call Maria’s mother if I wanted should have been a flashing red light. Usually she’s really touchy about me checking up on her. Now that I think back, there have been a few other times, too. It was so obvious.” She was embarrassed to have been so gullible. “As far as the stuff with Sabra goes, Emily isn’t an actor. She likes behind-the-scenes with the drama club, but has never tried out for a part. I don’t believe she could fake all the anxiety and fear she seems to be feeling.”

He watched her, evaluating every word that came out of her mouth and undoubtedly coming to his own conclusions. He finally gave an abrupt nod. “I see what you mean.” Lines formed between his eyebrows. “Occurs to me, though, that it doesn’t take any acting to not tell you something.”

No. Some things she refused to believe. Emily might be emotionally volatile, but she was responsible.

“I trust her.” Meg couldn’t allow any other possibility. “She is scared for Sabra. Why wouldn’t she tell us if she knew anything?”

He nodded, his gaze never leaving her face. He made her self-conscious in a way she didn’t remember ever feeling. Because he represented authority? No authority had ever done her any good. She’d had to save herself. What’s more, self-employment meant she rarely had to answer to anyone. But...she didn’t think who or what he represented had much to do with her feeling off balance. He shook her up on a much more personal level, because of the way he watched her, the gleam she sometimes saw in his eyes.

Men had looked at her that way before, but she’d never felt any reciprocal interest. Zip. This...tingle of excitement was unsettling in and of itself. Never mind the way he blew hot and cold.

“Do you mind my asking what you do for a living?” he said abruptly, yanking her from her uneasy reverie.

“I consider myself an artisan,” she said a little stiffly. “I hook rugs.”

Was she imagining that his lip curled? She couldn’t tell, because his gaze flicked to the pillows scattered on the sofa before resting on the sheepdog near his feet. “Like that one.”

“Yes.”

“Hook?”

She gave a very short explanation of the technique.

“You can make enough to live on doing that?” He sounded incredulous.

“If you work hard enough and market your product effectively.” With her crispness, she hoped she conveyed that, yes, it was work.

“Like arts and crafts fairs?” Disbelief and the faintest hint of scorn sounded in his voice.

Stung, she wouldn’t have explained at all if she wasn’t painfully aware he was investigating her right along with the girl who’d gone missing under her care.

So she said calmly, “I still do a few of those, but being on the road like that isn’t very practical when you’re raising a child.” Once upon a time, Emily had loved helping her at summer festivals. “I sell through a number of galleries and gift shops. Increasingly, most of my sales come from my shop on Etsy and my own website. Additionally, I design my own patterns—everything I do is original—and sell kits made from them. I’ve also licensed a couple of patterns, which means women in China or Bangladesh hook hundreds or thousands of the exact same rug that is then sold through a catalog or in stores. Those are very profitable.” She wasn’t about to tell him about the offers she’d declined, when she doubted the quality of the company’s products. He could think what he wanted about her. “I’m putting together a proposal for a book right now.”

His expression had become unreadable, another good reason not to trust him too much. His current stare annoyed her. She stared right back, afraid her chin had lifted in a subtle challenge.

If so, he didn’t react to that, either. His jaw did tighten. When he finally broke the silence, he managed to take her by surprise.

“Tell me what you know about Sabra’s father.”

* * *

JACK WAS IN a foul mood by the time he left Meg Harper’s house. Déjà vu. Mostly he was angry at himself. He’d stayed too long, let the conversation veer into irrelevancies. For minutes at a time, he’d let himself forget why he was there, and he couldn’t afford that.

He stalked across her unkempt lawn and swung himself into his department-issue SUV.

The woman was still a cross between a suspect, an informant and a witness. He couldn’t yet rule out the possibility that she had a role in Sabra’s disappearance. He sure as hell hadn’t been able to prove she’d driven the girl to school the way she claimed.

From her glorious hair to eyes that betrayed her every thought to her ripe curves and quick movements, she did it for him physically, big-time; he couldn’t deny that. So what? He’d already made his decision. Beyond the purely physical, she was the absolute last kind of woman he’d want to get involved with.

With a snort, he fired up the engine. An artisan! And she’d said it with a straight face. What she did was a craft. One with a folk art charm, sure—but to call it work? Glorifying the pretty rugs she made gave her an excuse to play instead of keeping other commitments.

Something like anger roared through him. With a real job, she might be able to buy a decent car or get some work done on her house. Was “hooking” rugs going to pay for her kid’s college education? Or was she capable of thinking that far ahead?

She was pretty damned emotional, too, her eyes getting moist because her daughter was acting like every other fifteen-year-old in existence did. Who was she kidding?

Backing out of the driveway, he continued to brood over the woman he’d just left.

Yeah, she’d done a generous thing, taking in a troubled kid just because she was a friend of her daughter. The impulse was good, even if the execution had been as slapdash as he suspected everything else she did. She’d gotten nothing in writing. Letting the authorities know she had the girl? Why would she want to do that?

What annoyed Jack most was how she aroused his protective instincts. He’d had her on his mind all day, worrying about how hard the Child Protective Services worker would come down on her. He had flinched to see the pain in her eyes as her daughter flung angry words.

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He would have to step carefully with her. Avoiding her would be best, but that probably wouldn’t be possible, if only because he couldn’t lean too heavily on Emily without her mother’s presence or permission.

And lean he would. Emily was key. If she didn’t know what was going on with Sabra, she suspected. Despite her mother’s denials, he’d put money on it. And, for no good reason, his gut was telling him that the pregnant girl was in trouble, if not already dead.

During the short drive back to the police station, unease just kept tugging at him, a taut line attached to something unseen. He told himself he was letting other people influence him. It was like an infection, passed first from the principal, with his obvious suspicion of Meg. And then there was Emily. Whatever she knew or didn’t, she was scared, just as her mother had said. At her age, she should believe in easy explanations. There were a lot of logical reasons for a teenager to go AWOL. Happened all the time. But Emily had known from the minute Sabra disappeared that she was in trouble.

Mulling it over, he decided Emily Harper’s fear had been the most contagious of all.

And part of what had him on edge? Teenagers would do a lot to protect a friend, a boyfriend. But despite their natural desire to pull back from parents, that loyalty ran deepest of all. Emily would be most likely to keep her mouth shut if she knew or feared something bad about her mother. She was angry at her mom, no question. Could be normal teenage rebellion. But what if her anger had a different cause?

If that was the case, breaking down her resistance wouldn’t be easy. Even abused kids wouldn’t speak out against a parent. The fear of the unknown was too great. In Emily’s case...he didn’t know if she had anyone else. Was her father in the picture? Aunts, uncles, grandparents? He’d have to find out.

Jack pulled into the lot behind the police station, parked and then sat there for a long time, frustrated and confused, uncomfortably aware he was stumbling over his own preconceptions when it came to Meg Harper—when he wasn’t imagining her naked instead. And he liked that even less, given the root of those preconceptions.

Groaning, he bumped his head a couple of times against the headrest.

So, okay. He knew what was eating at him. That meant he could adjust accordingly. Starting now.

Jack got out, locked his vehicle and, as he hunched his shoulders against a chill that did not feel like spring, tried to figure out what came next.

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