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“Besides the center being a meeting place for teens, we’re going to offer special classes,” Brenna said. “Drama, music, other courses that have been eliminated due to budget cuts.”
“Classes?” the girl asked. “Over and above having classes in school?”
Okay, maybe that sounded lame, but Brenna knew several students who would take advantage of enrichment courses. “There will be activities, too,” she explained to Carrie. “Movies, dances, games, a whole range of choices.”
Carrie didn’t comment on the center, but halfway through the cheesy casserole, Brenna saw the girl smile for the first time.
“This is really good,” the girl said. “Thanks for fixing it.”
“You’re welcome. We make this in class, you know. About midway through the semester.”
“That’ll be cool.”
Brenna carried her plate to the sink and looked over her backyard. The sun was setting, turning the trees on the other side of the river to gold. “It’s late,” she said. “Maybe you’d better call your father and tell him to pick you up.”
“He’s not worried about me.”
“Well, regardless, you can’t walk home in the dark. It’s a long way to the mill.”
“I’ll be okay. I take care of myself.”
Brenna took her seat on the other side of the table and stared at Carrie for a moment. The girl looked down and forked her leftover noodles around the plate. “Is there something you’d like to tell me, Carrie?” Brenna asked, hoping the girl wasn’t harboring a big secret, the kind that had led to heartbreaking decisions once before. She swallowed, knowing she could have opened the door to something she didn’t really want to hear. “Is everything all right at home?”
Brenna held her breath. Please just let this be a case of a new kid in town who’s experiencing some loneliness.
Carrie mumbled into her lap. “It’s that obvious?”
Oh, boy. “Is someone treating you badly?” Brenna asked.
Carrie swallowed hard. She didn’t answer the question.
Brenna leaned over the table but resisted the instinct to place her hand over the girl’s. “Has someone hurt you, Carrie?”
Still no answer. Carrie didn’t look up.
“Because if so, there are people who can help. But you need to tell someone...”
She never finished giving advice because movement in front of her house caught her eye. Through her open door she saw a police cruiser pull to the curb. Carrie gasped and stood up.
“This is about you, isn’t it?” Brenna said.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to be any trouble. I’ll just go out the back...”
“No, you won’t. You’re coming with me.”
Like a prisoner being led to the gallows, Carrie walked ahead of Brenna to the living room. She sat in a chair out of sight of the front door. Brenna opened the screen to police officers she knew well. “Hi, Boone, Lila. What’s going on?”
“We’ve had a missing-kid report, Bren,” Boone said. “She’s one of your students and we’re following every lead.” He took out a photo and showed it to Brenna. “This is the girl.”
A sweet face surrounded by a tumble of black curls smiled at Brenna from a typical school photo.
“Her name’s Carolyn Langston,” Lila Menendez said. “Her father’s about ready to tear the town apart.”
Brenna opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
The officers walked to the middle of the room and stared at Carrie. “You’re her, all right,” Boone said. He pressed a button on a device on his shoulder. “Located the girl. She’s at...” He waited for Brenna to give him her exact address and repeated it.
“How’d she end up here, Brenna?” he asked.
She briefly explained how she’d found Carrie on her porch. “Can we talk outside?” she asked the officer.
“Sure.” Boone spoke to his partner. “Lila, you stay here with the kid. Make sure she doesn’t go anywhere.”
The young police officer crouched beside Carrie. In a soft voice she said, “Are you okay, honey?”
Carrie nodded and Brenna led Boone to the end of the porch, where their voices wouldn’t carry to the interior of the house. “I think this kid’s in trouble,” Brenna said. “I’m suspecting some kind of abuse.”
“Did you see any injuries?”
“No, but she’s very unhappy. She doesn’t want to go home.”
“Well, Brenna, that describes a bunch of teenagers. Even me a few years ago.”
“That may be, but this girl’s reaching out for help. I think you need to notify someone in authority.”
“I’ll talk to the chief about it. But right now I’ve just got to return this kid to her father. He’s probably on his way over here to pick her up. He seemed plenty worried to me.”
Yeah, and I wonder why. Was the father afraid the kid would tell on him? “You won’t let her go if you think something’s not right, will you, Boone?”
“I’ll check it out, Brenna.” He pointed to the street, where a blue pickup was screeching to a halt behind the cruiser. “There’s the dad now. I’ll explain things to him, tell him the kid came here of her own accord. We don’t want him holding you responsible.”
“I don’t care about that,” Brenna said. “I’m just concerned about Carrie.”
The driver’s door swung open and a man in a beige jumpsuit stepped to the asphalt.
“Hey, I know that guy,” Brenna said. She stared at the man of few words, Mike the mechanic, as he strode purposely up the walk to her door.
CHAPTER TWO
“WHERE’S MY DAUGHTER?” The words shot from Mike’s mouth like blasts from a pistol. He headed straight for the front porch, looking neither right nor left.
Boone stepped in front of him and put his hand on Mike’s chest. “Hold on a minute, buddy. Let’s all calm down.”
Mike evaded the officer with a defiant maneuver. “Calm down? Are you kidding? Is Carrie in this house or not?”
“Yes, she’s in there. And she’s fine.”
He released a pent-up breath, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Okay.” Then he glanced around, seeming to take in the darkness that had settled over Brenna’s shrubs, the unfamiliarity of his surroundings and, finally, Brenna. “I know you,” he said. “You’re the silver Mazda.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Actually, the silver Mazda is my car. I’m your daughter’s home ec teacher.”
Confusion battled with panic in Mike’s face. “What’s Carrie doing here? Did you bring her?”
“Brenna had nothing to do with Carrie showing up at her house,” Boone said. “That was your daughter’s decision. Brenna has just been talking to her. She didn’t know until we got here that a missing-child report had been filed.”
Mike glared at her. “And it didn’t occur to you to call me?”
Struggling to control her temper, Brenna said, “First of all, I don’t even really know you. Second of all, a teenage girl is capable of calling her parents herself—if she feels confident doing so.”
His mouth opened and then closed again. Apparently he hadn’t come up with a way to respond to the implied criticism. “All right,” he said after a moment. “I’ll just get my daughter and leave.”
Brenna kept her features blank, though inside she was seething.
Mike took another step toward the porch. “I’ll talk to her about what happened. She won’t bother you again.”
“That’s not the point.”
Ignoring her, he marched up the steps to her door. His work boots sounded heavy on the polished wood planks of her porch floor. It was as if this man had come to claim property. She glared at Boone and gave him a do-something look. Mike and Boone were about the same age with similar builds. Boone was a good cop who wouldn’t be intimidated by Mike’s aggressive behavior. And besides, Brenna had always suspected that Boone had a thing for her, and she knew he would intercede because she’d asked him to.
Boone grabbed Mike’s elbow. “Not so fast. I’d like to talk to you before you go in to get your daughter.”
Mike turned sharply. “What do you mean?”
He nodded to the front lawn. “Come on down here so we can speak privately. I’d like to clear up a few things in this investigation.”
“What things? And how did this suddenly become an investigation?”
Though obviously not pleased with the delay, Mike did follow Boone’s orders. The two men ended up under Brenna’s ornamental cherry tree. Boone spoke in a calming manner but gestured dramatically with his hands.
At first Mike’s features remained stoic. Then his eyes widened. His jaw dropped. His expression took on the veiled semblance of disbelief. His mouth formed the words no and never.
Boone eventually put his hand on Mike’s upper arm. The two had seemed to reach an accord or perhaps a stalemate. Brenna could only hope that Boone had made his point clearly and with the full power of his badge.
They both came back to the porch. “I should tell you that I’m going to leave this case open for a while,” Boone said. “Just until things settle down.”
Mike turned around to stare at him but said nothing.
“We take our kids’ safety seriously in Mount Union. As a father, you can understand that,” Boone added.
Mike went to the screened door. “Carrie, come on out now. It’s okay. We’re going home.”
Carrie walked onto the porch. Lila was with her and had her hand on Carrie’s shoulder. When she saw her father, Carrie hooked her thumb in the waistband of her jeans and gave him a little wave. “Hi, Dad.”
He shook his head once and looked down at her. “Are you all right?”
“Sure. I’m sorry if I worried you. I just thought I could talk to Miss Sullivan for a while. I didn’t realize how late it was getting or that you’d be wondering where I was....”
“You didn’t think I’d be wondering?” Mike looked at Brenna. The anger in his eyes had dimmed just enough so she felt Boone had accomplished something with his talk.
“We’ll discuss this when we get home,” he said to his daughter. He started down the sidewalk with Carrie by his side. As he passed Brenna and Boone, he said, “Thanks for your help. My daughter and I will be fine.”
Brenna watched him open the passenger door for Carrie. The girl looked back once and then climbed inside. Through the window, Brenna saw Carrie’s shoulders slump. She stared into her lap and seemed so very small in the large truck cab. Mike started around to the other side of the vehicle.
“Mr. Langston,” Brenna called out.
He stopped under a streetlight and looked back.
She hurried down the walkway to meet him in front of his truck.
“What is it, Miss Sullivan? I thought we were done here.”
“I know,” she said, looking into those seriously dark eyes again. Only now they seemed even more mysterious in the shadows of night. What was going on behind those eyes? She stammered, something she hadn’t done since she was ten years old, “I...ah...I like your daughter, Mr. Langston. She’s a sweet kid. And I’m sorry for any distress this situation caused you.”
His brow furrowed. “I’ll get over it.”
“Yes, I’m sure you will. Carrie and I had a nice talk. I think she might be a bit lonely, being new to the area and all. I don’t think she meant to worry you. She was just reaching out...”
Mike leaned on his truck hood and gave Brenna a top-to-bottom scrutiny. “Miss Sullivan, I’m sure your intentions were good, but a fourteen-year-old girl doesn’t need to be out on her own at night. If she wants to reach out, she can darn well tell me she’s doing it before she goes off to the house of someone I don’t even know.”
Brenna bit her bottom lip as her temper flared once more, heating her face. She couldn’t argue that a child shouldn’t be going places without telling the parent, but the last time she looked at her clock, it had said 8:30 p.m. Hardly a dangerous hour for people to be out, especially in Mount Union, Georgia. But maybe Mike didn’t realize how safe his new town was.
“I think we know each other better now, Mr. Langston,” she said. “And I’m starting to know Carrie. I’m going to make myself available to her whenever she needs to talk.”
Brenna shuddered. Had she actually stated outright that she intended to become involved with a student?
No doubt about it. She had.
“I’ll be checking in with her,” Brenna added. “Just so Carrie knows she has someone older to talk to, a woman. It can’t be easy living with a father only.”
“Nothing’s easy about this, Miss Sullivan.” Mike scrubbed his hand down his face. He suddenly looked tired. “You check to your heart’s content, but I don’t want my daughter in your house or anyone else’s without my knowledge. I hope I’m making myself clear.”
“Crystal.” Brenna managed a smile and a wave at Carrie in the truck. When she turned back to Mike, she made sure her features displayed the seriousness of her intent. “You have a good night now,” she said.
He strode around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel. When he turned the ignition, Brenna felt the rumble of his truck engine through the soles of her sandals. Carrie stared out the window while the truck pulled away. Brenna stepped onto the curb and watched them until the vehicle had rounded a curve in the road and the taillights had disappeared.
* * *
THEY HAD ALMOST reached the town boundaries when Mike spotted the Golden Arches ahead. He turned to his daughter and spoke the first words he’d uttered since they’d gotten into the truck. “You want something from the drive-through?”
“No. I ate at Miss Sullivan’s.”
He continued past the McDonald’s. “You like her, this teacher?”
“She’s okay. She seemed real nice in class. Made it sound like we’d have fun trying different things this semester. I thought she might be like Mrs. Grant, my history teacher at home.”
Mike gripped the steering wheel. He wished Carrie would start thinking of Georgia as “home.” But no, she kept referring to the small California town near Camp Pendleton that way. Mike couldn’t blame her. After thirteen years in the military, he was having a hard time adjusting to civilian life in quiet, tradition-bound Mount Union. But they both had to try. Mike didn’t want to go back, and in his heart, he believed a break with the old life was best for his daughter, too.
“You know why I was so upset about what you did, don’t you?” he asked.
