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He scowled at that. “Don’t know why I should.”
She hid a grin, wondering what made her think this smart-mouthed kid was a gift from above.
She gave him a stern look. “Because I have been your Sunday school teacher since you were a toddler, Tommy Flanagan, and I don’t lie.”
“Never said you did,” he mumbled. “Just don’t know why I should think you’re any different than all those other people who promised I’d get to stay, then kicked me out.”
“Nobody kicked you out. You keep running away,” she reminded him. “Isn’t that right?”
He shrugged off the distinction. “I suppose.”
“Why did you do that?”
“They just took me in because they had to. I know when I’m not wanted. I just made it easy for ’em.”
“Okay, then, for however long it takes to find your family–or forever, if it comes to that–you are going to have a home right here with me. And I’m going to see to it that you don’t have any reason to want to run away. Don’t take that to mean I’m going to be a pushover, though.”
She said it emphatically and without the slightest hesitation. Her gaze locked with his. “Do we have an understanding?”
“I guess,” he said, apparently satisfied for the moment that she meant what she said.
Relief washed through her. This was going to work out. She could feel it. Daisy didn’t even consider the fact that she’d caught him trying to hot-wire her car as a bad omen. Hopefully Tommy wouldn’t mention that little detail to anyone. She certainly didn’t intend to.
She did worry ever so slightly about the repercussions once word got back to her father, but she was convinced she could handle that, too. She just hoped it would take the grapevine a little longer than usual to reach Cedar Hill. King wasn’t as easily won over as a scared kid.
In the meantime, she knew she did have to call Frances Jackson. Frances took her job at Social Services very seriously. Tommy’s disappearances were wearing on her nerves. Daisy reached for the portable phone.
“Who’re you calling?” Tommy demanded, scowling.
“Mrs. Jackson. She needs to know that you’re with me and that you’re okay.”
“Don’t see why.” He gave her a pleading look. “Couldn’t we just keep this between us? You tell her, and the next thing we know she’ll have the sheriff over here hauling my butt away.”
“The sheriff won’t lay a hand on you,” Daisy reassured him fiercely, but she put the phone back on the table.
“How come?”
“Because the sheriff is my brother and he’ll do what I tell him to do.” At least she hoped he would.
Tommy still looked skeptical. “Have you got something on him?”
Daisy chuckled. “Not the way you mean. Just leave handling Tucker to me. It won’t be a problem. Besides, when you go back to school on Monday, people are going to want to know where you’re staying. We might as well be up-front about it.”
“I thought maybe I wouldn’t go back,” he said, looking hopeful. “It’s almost summer, anyway.”
“Not a chance,” Daisy said firmly. “Education is too important–you can’t take it lightly. And there are weeks to go before summer, not days. You will go to school and that’s that. Now go on upstairs, Tommy, take a bath and then get a little rest. I’m sure you didn’t sleep much last night. There are clean towels in the closet, and you can have the guest room at the end of the hall. If you need anything, just ask. We’ll talk some more later.”
Tommy nodded and started out of the kitchen, then paused. “How come you’re being so nice to me?”
For an instant he allowed her to see the vulnerable, lost little boy behind the defiant facade. “Because you’re worth being nice to, Tommy Flanagan,” she told him.
He seemed a bit startled by that, but he gave a little bob of his head and took off, thundering up the stairs, Molly trailing after him.
“And because I need you as much as you need me,” she whispered when he was out of earshot.
Once again she reached for the phone and made the call to Frances.
“Oh, Daisy,” the social worker murmured when she’d heard what Daisy had to say. “Are you sure you want to do this? Tommy’s a real troublemaker. Not that it’s not understandable, given what he’s been through, but he needs a firm hand.”
“He needs love,” Daisy retorted. “And I intend to see that he gets it.”
“But–”
“Is there some reason I’m not a fit foster mother for him?” Daisy demanded.
“Of course not,” Frances said, as if the very idea that someone would consider a Spencer unfit was ludicrous.
“Then that’s that. Tommy stays here.”
“Until I find a relative,” the social worker reminded her.
“Or not,” Daisy said. “You’ll take care of the paperwork, then?”
Frances sighed. “I will. I’ll drop it by later for you to sign, though I can’t imagine what King is going to say when he hears about this.”
“Then you be real sure not to tell him,” Daisy retorted. “Or I’ll make him think this was all your idea.”
Frances was still sputtering over the threat when Daisy hung up. A little grin of satisfaction spread across her face. It was about time she gave the residents of Trinity Harbor something to talk about besides her long-ago broken engagement and her pecan pie.
“Sis, you are out of your ever-loving mind,” her brother Tucker, the local sheriff, told Daisy when he arrived within an hour of her conversation with Frances.
Obviously the instant he’d heard what she was up to–probably straight from the social worker–Tucker had hightailed it over to lecture her as if she were sixteen instead of thirty. Hands on hips, he was scowling at her as if she’d committed some sort of crime, instead of simply seizing the opportunity that had been presented to her.
“That boy’s going to land in juvenile detention,” he declared in his best doom-and-gloom tone. “You mark my words. Doc’s caught him stealing comic books. He broke Mrs. Thomas’s window. And he rode his bike through Mr. Lindsey’s bean patch and mowed down most of his plants. Something tells me that’s just the things we know about. There could be more. He’s headed for trouble, Daisy.”
Daisy stared right straight back into Tucker’s eyes, ignored his stony expression, and countered, “Well, of course he is…unless someone steps in and does something.”
“And that has to be you?”
“Do you see anybody else who’s willing?” she demanded. “He’s already run through half the foster families in the area. As for those pranks of his, you and Bobby did worse and nobody did more than call Daddy to complain.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Tucker squirmed uneasily. “It just was, that’s all.” He tried another tack. “When Dad hears about this, he is going to go ballistic.”
She shrugged off her brother’s assessment as if it was of no consequence. “Dad is always going ballistic about one thing or another. Usually it’s you or Bobby who gets him all worked up. It’s about time I took a turn. Being King Spencer’s dutiful daughter is starting to wear thin.”
“You’ll get your heart broken,” Tucker predicted, his expression worried. “You can’t just take in some stray kid and decide to keep him. That’s no way to get what you want, Sis.”
Her big brother knew better than anyone how desperately she wanted a family. He had been the one to console her when Billy had walked out, leaving her convinced she would never marry. Even without knowing anything more than the fact that Billy was the one to break the engagement, Tucker had wanted to throttle the man. Daisy had persuaded him not to, assuring him that Billy Inscoe wasn’t worth another second of their time, much less the risk of an assault charge that could ruin Tucker’s career in law enforcement.
“Sooner or later, they’ll find Tommy’s family,” Tucker warned, regarding her protectively.
“I don’t know what makes you so certain of that,” she said. “There’s been no sign of anyone so far, and you know how dogged Frances is when she’s working a case.”
“That’s exactly what makes me believe she’ll eventually get results. When she does, you’ll have to let him go.”
“And until then, he’ll have me,” she insisted stubbornly, not wanting to consider what she would do when that day came.
“Where is he now?” Tucker asked.
“Upstairs.”
“Cleaning out your jewelry box, no doubt.”
She scowled. “Sleeping,” she contradicted.
“Wanna bet? If I prove otherwise, will you forget about this?”
Without responding one way or the other, Daisy marched to the stairs, then waved Tucker up ahead of her. “See for yourself, smarty-pants.”
Unfortunately, just as they reached the top of the stairs, Tommy bolted out of her bedroom, pockets bulging, Molly trailing along behind him in a way she never did with Daisy. Tucker snagged Tommy by the scruff of the neck but kept his gaze on her. He plucked a favorite antique necklace out of the boy’s pocket and dangled it in front of her. Great-grandmother’s diamonds sparkled mockingly.
“I rest my case,” he said.
Daisy refused to let her brother see that she was even remotely shaken by the discovery. “Tommy,” she said sternly, “you know perfectly well that doesn’t belong to you.”
“No, ma’am,” he said, his expression defiant. “But I was taking it anyway.”
Avoiding a lecture on the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments, all of which they had studied thoroughly in Sunday school, she instead asked, “Why?”
“To buy me some food.”
Molly meowed plaintively, as if to lend her support to Tommy.
“There’s plenty of food downstairs in the kitchen, if you’re hungry,” Daisy said.
“That’s now. Sooner or later you’ll send me packing. I need to have the money for backup supplies. I figured I could pawn this stuff over in Colonial Beach or maybe even down in Richmond. Then I could head someplace brand-new where nobody would be on my case all the time or tell me how sorry they are that my mom is dead.”
She brushed aside Tucker’s restraining hands and rested her own against the boy’s cheek. “We’ve been over this. I will not send you packing,” she said very firmly. “However, nor will I tolerate you stealing from me. You’re grounded until we can discuss this further. Go to your room.”
She wasn’t sure who was most surprised by her pronouncement, Tommy or her brother. But Tucker had known her longer. He heaved a resigned sigh and stared at Tommy. “I’d get a move on, if I were you, son. My sister generally means what she says. Take it from someone who knows, don’t mess with her.”
Relief washed over Tommy’s face, though he was quick to duck his head to hide it. He started to scoot down the hall, but Tucker halted him with a sharp command.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, son?”
Tommy’s gaze rose to clash with his. “What?”
“Empty those pockets.”
Tommy dug his hands into his pockets with obvious reluctance, producing more of her jewelry. Most of the rest had more sentimental than monetary value, but its glitter clearly had appealed to Tommy.
Tucker took the baubles and handed them to Daisy. “Costume jewelry or not, I’d get this stuff into your safety deposit box if you ever expect to wear it again.”
Daisy met Tommy’s gaze. “I don’t think that will be necessary, do you, Tommy?”
He looked for a moment as if he might make some sort of defiant retort, but Daisy’s gaze never wavered, and he finally wilted under the stern scrutiny. “No, ma’am.”
When he had gone, the cat on his heels, she turned a smile on her brother. “Satisfied?”
“Far from it, but I can see you’re not going to listen to a word I say.”
She patted his cheek. “Smart man. And don’t try sending Dad over here to raise the roof, either.”
“I won’t have to send him. Once he hears about this, you’ll have to bar the door to keep him out.”
“Well, he can rant and rave all he wants, but it won’t work. For once in my life I am going to do exactly what I want to do, what I know is right.”
Not that her declaration would stop her father from trying to interfere when he finally found out what she was up to. Despite the precautions she’d taken by warning Frances off, Daisy predicted it wouldn’t take long.
Trinity Harbor was a small town. Cedar Hill, the Spencer family home for generations, was the biggest Black Angus cattle operation in the entire Northern Neck of Virginia. Her neighbors would probably fight for the chance to be the first to tell Robert “King” Spencer that his sensible spinster daughter had just taken in a stray troublemaker.
The story would be even juicier if anyone found out Tommy had already tried to steal her jewelry and her car. She was pretty sure she could keep a lid on the attempted car theft, but Tucker might not be so discreet about the jewelry. In fact, since that necklace had been in her father’s family for generations, he might feel obliged to tell their father that it had come very close to heading for a pawnshop.
And then, she concluded with a resigned sigh, this little squabble with Tucker was going to seem like a romp in the park.
2
W ashington, D.C., detective Walker Ames had just finished investigating his fifth drive-by shooting in a month. This had been worse than most–a five-year-old girl who’d done nothing more than sit on her front stoop playing with her doll on a pleasant spring evening. She’d caught a stray bullet meant for a gang member who’d been walking past her run-down apartment building in southeast Washington. The intended victim hadn’t even stopped to see if he could help.
This kind of incident was not the reason Walker had become a policeman. He’d wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, not just clean up after the tragedies. Innocent babies dying, grandmothers shot without a second glance, kids on school buses killed over a pair of sneakers…there was something seriously wrong with the world when a cop had to spend his days working crimes like that. His stomach churned with acid just thinking about it.
He’d been at it for fifteen frustrating years now, and not a day went by anymore when he didn’t wish he’d chosen another profession. Unfortunately, law enforcement was the only one he cared about, and he happened to be good at it. His arrest-conviction ratio was the best in the department, because he refused to give up until he had the right suspect in custody. Few of his cases were ever relegated to some cold case file left for others to solve years from now.
“You get a line on those punks that did it?” his boss asked when he spotted Walker crossing the squad room and heading straight for the industrial strength coffee.
“Half a dozen people on the street at the time of the incident,” Walker told Andy Thorensen, the caring, compassionate chief of detectives who’d also been his best friend since he’d joined the department. Andy was fifteen years older and going gray, but pushing papers hadn’t dimmed his street smarts or his indignation over crime.
“Four people claim they never saw a thing,” Walker added as he poured a cup of coffee and took a sip. “The two who admit they did aren’t talking. The girl’s mother is too upset to question. I’ll go back when things have settled down and try again. Maybe when it sinks in that it was a five-year-old who got caught in the cross fire, their vision will improve.”
His boss gestured toward his office, then waited till Walker was seated before asking, “What about the guy the bullet was meant for?”
“Vanished. He has to live in the neighborhood, though. We’ll find him. I’m not letting go of this one, Andy.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, battling exhaustion and the sting of tears. He tried not to let these things get to him, but that was impossible. He had kids of his own, boys he thought about every single time he had to handle a case like this. He might not be raising them since his divorce, but they were never far from his thoughts.
To buy himself a minute, he gazed out the window and finished his coffee, then said, “You should have seen the kid, Andy. She was just a baby, still clutching her doll. Somebody’s going down for this, if I have to drag every gang member in D.C. in here for questioning.”
