Janice Kay - Because Of A Girl

“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.