Because of a Girl (3 page)

“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

H
OW
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.

* * *

T
HE
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?