Beth Andrews - Unraveling the Past

“Uh-huh.”

“I did.” She added a foot stomp to go with her pouty tone. “I don’t even care if you believe me or not. I’m telling the truth. I’m Katy Perry. Katy,” she said, stretching the name out as if speaking to someone who’d recently been hit on the head with a rock. She looked pointedly at Layne’s notebook. “Like…do you need some help spelling it? It’s K-A-T—”

“Thanks, but I think I can sound the rest out.”

Layne wrote the name down and put the notepad into her back pocket. A light breeze blew smoke into her eyes and picked up a few strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail. She smoothed them back. The wood pallets in the fire behind her crackled. Sparks shot into the night sky.

Chances were, the elderly gentlemen who’d called the station to report suspicious activity never would’ve known the kids were partying out here if they hadn’t had flames reaching thirty feet high.

She glanced toward her squad car. Evan, his brown hair cropped close to his head, his dark blue uniform hanging on his thin shoulders, tried to calm down the pudgy brunette who’d been sobbing since they’d pulled into the clearing. Out of the six kids they’d corralled, only two had proof they were eighteen and both had passed the Breathalyzer, leaving the brunette, Nate and the other boy—with longish hair, baggy jeans and a T-shirt advertising the store where it’d been bought—standing in a row illuminated by her car’s headlights. While the girl bawled, the boys wore similar smirks, Nate having found his cocky bluster upon returning to the company of his buddy.

Layne rubbed at the headache brewing behind her temple. Ah, the joys of youth. Rebellion. Recklessness. The certainty that nothing bad could ever happen. And the arrogance to believe that if, by some crazy coincidence you did get busted, an endless supply of smart-ass comments or, better yet, copious tears and hysteria, would get you out of trouble. All you had to do was stick with it long enough to wear down the dumb adult trying to force you to obey their archaic rules.

She and Evan were stuck dealing with two of the little darlings each—while their intrepid leader only had to take care of his niece.

“You know,” she said conversationally to the blonde, “being a police officer means being able to read people and situations. For example, see that Audi over there? The red one?”

“What about it?” faux-Katy said in a snotty tone that reminded Layne of when her sister Tori had been sixteen. Come to think of it, Tori still used that tone with Layne.

“Well, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that car belongs to you.”

“I never said that,” the teenager said quickly.

“No, you didn’t. But this is where my detecting skills come in real handy. You see, a car like that? It has ‘you’ written all over it.” If only because it went so well with the girl’s expensive, dark jeans, silk top—silk, at a bonfire in a quarry—and expertly applied highlights. But really, that silver Princess vanity plate gave it away most. “Which means that, since I’ve already written down the license plate number of every vehicle parked here, all I have to do is plug those numbers into my computer to find out who, exactly each vehicle is registered to. Katy.”

The girl paled, her expression no longer quite so confident that she’d put one over on some stupid cop.

Layne bit back a smile. “You can rejoin your friends.”

She did, but not before glaring at Layne as if she could incinerate her on the spot. Such was one of the consequences of being on the side of law and order.

Evan divided the teens, putting the girls into the back of Layne’s cruiser, the boys in his, then walked toward Layne, his short hair sticking up on the side as if he’d run his fingers through it. Repeatedly.

“I didn’t know someone could cry that much,” he muttered, the fire casting shadows on his round cheeks. “At least not without becoming dehydrated or passing out from lack of oxygen.”

“The human body is capable of many amazing and wondrous feats. Especially when helped along with massive quantities of alcohol.”

“Do you think you should search for the chief? He’s been gone awhile now. Maybe he got lost.”

“It’s been fifteen minutes,” she said. “And how could he be lost? All he has to do is walk toward the lights.”

“Maybe…” Evan ducked his head toward her. “Maybe something happened. You heard his niece scream. Maybe the chief…snapped.”

Layne snorted. “He has too much control to snap. Besides, she’s just messing with him.”

But Evan was completely serious. Nervous. God, had she ever been that young? That earnest?

“How can you tell?” he asked.

“Let me explain it to you, grasshopper. Once, many moons ago, I was a teenage girl myself. Plus I raised my younger sisters who, at one time or another, were also teenage girls.” And thank the dear Lord those years were over. “Believe me, that scream wasn’t real.”

It was a cry for help, though. One she doubted Chief Ross Taylor would heed.

Not her problem, she assured herself. She’d raised her sisters, had taken care of her family. She’d done her time.

“Captain?” Taylor’s voice came through her radio as clearly as if he stood beside her.

“See?” she said to Evan as she unhooked the radio. She lifted it and clicked the talk button. “Yes, Chief?”

“Turn them loose.”

Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

“The kids. Give them a warning and let them go.”

“And here I thought we were going by the precept of the law being black and white.”

“Let. Them. Loose. Have Campbell escort anyone you suspect of drinking home. They are not to drive. Am I clear on that, Captain?”

“Crystal,” she managed to say. As if either she or Evan would let some kid—or anyone else—get behind the wheel after they’d been drinking. “Anything else? Sir.”

“I want Campbell to walk each child to their doors and make sure they are remanded into the custody of their parents. As soon as you’ve given him his orders, get back out here with me. Bring some flares, a blanket and a camera.”

Flares? A blanket and camera? She could feel Evan watching her curiously. She flicked the radio’s button. “Uh, Chief, I’m not sure what you think you and I are going to do with a blanket and a camera—”

He growled. The man literally growled at her. “Get out here. Now.”

Yet one more item to add to his growing list of faults. No sense of humor.

When the radio remained silent for three heartbeats, she clipped it back to her belt. “You heard him,” she told Evan. “We have our orders.”

She helped Evan transfer the girls into his car, the brunette still sniffling. Poor Evan. Layne didn’t envy his job, dealing with four teens and their parents.

But she did thank God—and Chief Taylor—she didn’t have to do it.

She returned to her cruiser for a blanket, flares and the camera she kept in the trunk. Looping the camera’s strap around her neck, she tucked the blanket under her arm, turned on her flashlight and headed back into the woods.

Whatever had happened must be big for “there’s right and there’s wrong” Chief Taylor to let those kids go with a warning. Or maybe Evan had it right. Maybe spending so much time in a town so small it didn’t even have a Starbucks, combined with his niece’s wild ways and running a department of officers who didn’t want him there, had finally gotten to Taylor and he’d cracked. At least enough to dislodge that stick he had up his ass.

Or maybe he decided to listen to her good sense on this one.

And that was as likely as Layne handing in her badge to follow in her father’s footsteps. Or, even more impossible, her mother’s.