Because of a Girl

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Didn’t it figure he’d pounced right on the contradiction she’d admitted to him. Something cool in the way he was looking at her suggested all that friendly understanding had been thrown in to soften her up. So much for letting down her guard. They were not friends.

  But this was important, and he had to ask. She took a minute to examine her feelings.

  “When I thought back,” she said slowly, “after the lie about where they were going that evening, I realize how elaborately casual she was. Plus, saying I could call Maria’s mother if I wanted should have been a flashing red light. Usually she’s really touchy about me checking up on her. Now that I think back, there have been a few other times, too. It was so obvious.” She was embarrassed to have been so gullible. “As far as the stuff with Sabra goes, Emily isn’t an actor. She likes behind-the-scenes with the drama club, but has never tried out for a part. I don’t believe she could fake all the anxiety and fear she seems to be feeling.”

  He watched her, evaluating every word that came out of her mouth and undoubtedly coming to his own conclusions. He finally gave an abrupt nod. “I see what you mean.” Lines formed between his eyebrows. “Occurs to me, though, that it doesn’t take any acting to not tell you something.”

  No. Some things she refused to believe. Emily might be emotionally volatile, but she was responsible.

  “I trust her.” Meg couldn’t allow any other possibility. “She is scared for Sabra. Why wouldn’t she tell us if she knew anything?”

  He nodded, his gaze never leaving her face. He made her self-conscious in a way she didn’t remember ever feeling. Because he represented authority? No authority had ever done her any good. She’d had to save herself. What’s more, self-employment meant she rarely had to answer to anyone. But...she didn’t think who or what he represented had much to do with her feeling off balance. He shook her up on a much more personal level, because of the way he watched her, the gleam she sometimes saw in his eyes.

  Men had looked at her that way before, but she’d never felt any reciprocal interest. Zip. This...tingle of excitement was unsettling in and of itself. Never mind the way he blew hot and cold.

  “Do you mind my asking what you do for a living?” he said abruptly, yanking her from her uneasy reverie.

  “I consider myself an artisan,” she said a little stiffly. “I hook rugs.”

  Was she imagining that his lip curled? She couldn’t tell, because his gaze flicked to the pillows scattered on the sofa before resting on the sheepdog near his feet. “Like that one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hook?”

  She gave a very short explanation of the technique.

  “You can make enough to live on doing that?” He sounded incredulous.

  “If you work hard enough and market your product effectively.” With her crispness, she hoped she conveyed that, yes, it was work.

  “Like arts and crafts fairs?” Disbelief and the faintest hint of scorn sounded in his voice.

  Stung, she wouldn’t have explained at all if she wasn’t painfully aware he was investigating her right along with the girl who’d gone missing under her care.

  So she said calmly, “I still do a few of those, but being on the road like that isn’t very practical when you’re raising a child.” Once upon a time, Emily had loved helping her at summer festivals. “I sell through a number of galleries and gift shops. Increasingly, most of my sales come from my shop on Etsy and my own website. Additionally, I design my own patterns—everything I do is original—and sell kits made from them. I’ve also licensed a couple of patterns, which means women in China or Bangladesh hook hundreds or thousands of the exact same rug that is then sold through a catalog or in stores. Those are very profitable.” She wasn’t about to tell him about the offers she’d declined, when she doubted the quality of the company’s products. He could think what he wanted about her. “I’m putting together a proposal for a book right now.”

  His expression had become unreadable, another good reason not to trust him too much. His current stare annoyed her. She stared right back, afraid her chin had lifted in a subtle challenge.

  If so, he didn’t react to that, either. His jaw did tighten. When he finally broke the silence, he managed to take her by surprise.

  “Tell me what you know about Sabra’s father.”

  * * *

  JACK WAS IN a foul mood by the time he left Meg Harper’s house. Déjà vu. Mostly he was angry at himself. He’d stayed too long, let the conversation veer into irrelevancies. For minutes at a time, he’d let himself forget why he was there, and he couldn’t afford that.

  He stalked across her unkempt lawn and swung himself into his department-issue SUV.

  The woman was still a cross between a suspect, an informant and a witness. He couldn’t yet rule out the possibility that she had a role in Sabra’s disappearance. He sure as hell hadn’t been able to prove she’d driven the girl to school the way she claimed.

  From her glorious hair to eyes that betrayed her every thought to her ripe curves and quick movements, she did it for him physically, big-time; he couldn’t deny that. So what? He’d already made his decision. Beyond the purely physical, she was the absolute last kind of woman he’d want to get involved with.

  With a snort, he fired up the engine. An artisan! And she’d said it with a straight face. What she did was a craft. One with a folk art charm, sure—but to call it work? Glorifying the pretty rugs she made gave her an excuse to play instead of keeping other commitments.

  Something like anger roared through him. With a real job, she might be able to buy a decent car or get some work done on her house. Was “hooking” rugs going to pay for her kid’s college education? Or was she capable of thinking that far ahead?

  She was pretty damned emotional, too, her eyes getting moist because her daughter was acting like every other fifteen-year-old in existence did. Who was she kidding?

  Backing out of the driveway, he continued to brood over the woman he’d just left.

  Yeah, she’d done a generous thing, taking in a troubled kid just because she was a friend of her daughter. The impulse was good, even if the execution had been as slapdash as he suspected everything else she did. She’d gotten nothing in writing. Letting the authorities know she had the girl? Why would she want to do that?

  What annoyed Jack most was how she aroused his protective instincts. He’d had her on his mind all day, worrying about how hard the Child Protective Services worker would come down on her. He had flinched to see the pain in her eyes as her daughter flung angry words.

  His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He would have to step carefully with her. Avoiding her would be best, but that probably wouldn’t be possible, if only because he couldn’t lean too heavily on Emily without her mother’s presence or permission.

  And lean he would. Emily was key. If she didn’t know what was going on with Sabra, she suspected. Despite her mother’s denials, he’d put money on it. And, for no good reason, his gut was telling him that the pregnant girl was in trouble, if not already dead.

  During the short drive back to the police station, unease just kept tugging at him, a taut line attached to something unseen. He told himself he was letting other people influence him. It was like an infection, passed first from the principal, with his obvious suspicion of Meg. And then there was Emily. Whatever she knew or didn’t, she was scared, just as her mother had said. At her age, she should believe in easy explanations. There were a lot of logical reasons for a teenager to go AWOL. Happened all the time. But Emily had known from the minute Sabra disappeared that she was in trouble.

  Mulling it over, he decided Emily Harper’s fear had been the most contagious of all.

  And part of what had him on edge? Teenagers would do a lot to protect a friend, a boyfriend. But despite their natural desire to pull back from parents
, that loyalty ran deepest of all. Emily would be most likely to keep her mouth shut if she knew or feared something bad about her mother. She was angry at her mom, no question. Could be normal teenage rebellion. But what if her anger had a different cause?

  If that was the case, breaking down her resistance wouldn’t be easy. Even abused kids wouldn’t speak out against a parent. The fear of the unknown was too great. In Emily’s case...he didn’t know if she had anyone else. Was her father in the picture? Aunts, uncles, grandparents? He’d have to find out.

  Jack pulled into the lot behind the police station, parked and then sat there for a long time, frustrated and confused, uncomfortably aware he was stumbling over his own preconceptions when it came to Meg Harper—when he wasn’t imagining her naked instead. And he liked that even less, given the root of those preconceptions.

  Groaning, he bumped his head a couple of times against the headrest.

  So, okay. He knew what was eating at him. That meant he could adjust accordingly. Starting now.

  Jack got out, locked his vehicle and, as he hunched his shoulders against a chill that did not feel like spring, tried to figure out what came next.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT TURNED OUT to be way easier to get people to talk than Emily had expected. Instead of dodging everyone at school on Wednesday, she threw herself into conversations whenever she heard Sabra’s name.

  “I’m really freaked,” she’d say. “You were her friend, too. What do you think?” After a while, she would slip in, “You hung out with her after school sometimes, didn’t you?”

  A few kids said they did but claimed it wasn’t very often. The last guy she’d talked to, Kent Roker, who was really a geek, looked flattered at the idea anyone thought he might be friends with Sabra Lee.

  At the front, Mr. Fuentes was writing on the blackboard. At the top, underlined, was “Gritar. To shout or yell.” Below, he began a list.

  Yo gritaré

  Tú gritarás

  Emily stared for a minute. Oh, joy. They were starting future tense.

  Kent leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Sabra’s locker is right near mine. So we talk sometimes. You know.”

  He wished. He was, like, six foot three or four and probably weighed less than Emily did. She’d never seen anyone so skinny in her life. He claimed the basketball coach had tried to get him to go out for the team, but no one believed him. He fell over his own feet. Speaking of tenses, at least he hadn’t said, “We talked.” People were doing that automatically, as if Sabra was gone forever.

  “I bet she didn’t like to hurry to catch the bus, did she?” Emily said. “Sabra never hurried anywhere.”

  He frowned. “I don’t think she ever took the bus. She’d still be poking around in her locker when I left, and since I walk, I take my time.”

  “Poking around? For what?”

  Kent shrugged. “I don’t know.” Then he sort of made this face. “It was really messy. I mean, her locker. Like, piled high with stuff. I don’t know how she found anything.”

  Movement out of the corner of her eye had Emily jerking to attention. Without her noticing, Mr. Fuentes had strolled down the side of the classroom and was looming over her, making her want to scrunch down in her chair.

  “Kent. Emily. If you have something to say in Spanish, we’d all be interested.”

  Titters erupted. Emily flushed and stared down at her desktop. She hated drawing attention. It was worse because Mr. Fuentes wasn’t that much older than his students, and all the girls thought he was hot. His full name was Joaquin Fuentes, which she really liked. She’d never told even Sabra how much she liked him, or that sometimes she thought of him as Joaquin.

  Satisfied to have silenced her and Kent, he wound through the room, talking. Usually she paid attention in this class, trying to soak up the Spanish accent that gave her goose bumps. For once, she tuned him out, her thoughts reverting to Sabra.

  It was true she was a slob. Emily hadn’t told Mom, but most of what she had to pick up the other night was Sabra’s. She’d take a clean pile of clothes from Mom, go to the room and just drop them. Eventually, they’d get kicked apart and mixed with dirty clothes. She got dressed right off the floor and never worried about whether a shirt might be wrinkled.

  Because she was confident, unlike Emily, who always worried about whether she was wearing the right clothes, or looked too skinny, or had put on too much makeup. Of course, no matter what she did, boys noticed Sabra instead.

  Well, maybe not so much lately, except her boobs had gotten even bigger, and boys did stare at them.

  It was girls like Sabra that boys noticed. Blonde. Really curvy, instead of flat-chested and boyish. Maybe most of all, confident. Emily kept thinking that confidence might spread to her, but it hadn’t happened. Maybe it was pheromones. Sabra’s shouted, Look at me!

  “Yo desagradaré,” Mr. Fuentes said.

  Wait. That wasn’t shout. Degrade...? No, dislike.

  “Tú...?” He waited, his dark eyes moving from face to face.

  Kent raised a hand. Didn’t it figure. “Tú desagradarás.”

  Mr. Fuentes smiled. “Sí.”

  Emily suddenly knew she had to get into Sabra’s locker. And, wow, she should have thought of it sooner. Sabra showed her texts, and Emily had even seen her call log as Sabra was scrolling down it. So...if her boyfriend didn’t call or text, maybe he’d given her presents or written her notes or something. Where else could she keep stuff she didn’t want anybody to see? Emily was pretty sure she remembered the locker combination. She’d skip newspaper today but still stay after school.

  The bell rang at last. She stuffed her binder into her backpack, zipped it up and rose to her feet, joining the shuffle toward the door. But, behind her, Mr. Fuentes said, “Emily, may I speak with you for a moment?”

  “Um...sure.” She turned reluctantly to where he half sat on his desk. The heat in her cheeks told her she was blushing. “I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention,” she said, fast, before he could say anything.

  He shook his head. “I understand you’re distracted. I actually just wanted to find out how you’re holding up, and whether you’ve learned anything at all about what happened to Sabra.”

  She gave one of those shrugs that probably looked stupid. “I’m okay. But... I don’t know where Sabra is. The police are searching for her, you know.”

  He nodded, expression sympathetic. “So I understand. I guessed you might know more than anyone else.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’d have thought she would have told you, if anyone, who the father of that baby is.”

  She really looked at him. Why was he so interested?

  “She is one of my best students, you know.”

  “She doesn’t even have to work at it.” Emily cringed, knowing that sounded whiny. But it was true! Sabra never even studied, and she remembered vocabulary and could conjugate and put together sentences with an accent that sounded like Mr. Fuentes. When Emily asked how, she just shrugged and said, “It’s easy. The way math is easy for you.”

  When Mr. Fuentes smiled, Emily’s cheeks got even hotter.

  “You’d better hustle or you’ll be late for your next class,” he said kindly.

  She backed right into a desk in the front row, scraping it across the floor. She was such a klutz. Not wanting to see if he was laughing at her, she rushed for the door, only to find at the last second that it was blocked.

  Detective Moore filled it, one shoulder propped against the doorjamb, like he’d been standing there for a while. Listening?

  “Emily.” He nodded and stepped aside.

  She kept her head down, mumbled something and hurried past, even more embarrassed because the way his eyes lingered on her meant he’d noticed that her face was red.

&
nbsp; She barely made it through the door to her next class before the bell rang.

  * * *

  THE SPANISH TEACHER looked interested rather than uncomfortable at Jack’s appearance. “Detective Moore? I heard you were making the rounds.”

  Jack shook hands with him, curious to see what teenage girls thought was “hot.” There were at least three young male teachers he’d overheard girls talking about as he wandered the halls of Frenchman Lake High School. One taught upper-level math and coached boy’s football and baseball, so mostly the girls caught glimpses from afar. That left Joaquin Fuentes, Spanish, and Remy Bouchard, computer science.

  Fuentes looked about twenty-two but was probably older than that. He had the glossy black hair and dark eyes that went with his name. Jack guessed he was handsome enough, but he probably wouldn’t draw a lot of attention from anyone but hormone-ridden teenage girls.

  He wondered if Emily’s mother knew she had a crush on her Spanish teacher.

  He also wondered whether Sabra Lee might have a crush on him, too—and whether there was the slightest chance it was reciprocated. Wouldn’t be the first time a high school teacher got involved with a student.

  The teachers were all present and accounted for, however. When the thought had crossed his mind, he’d checked. The only absence this week was the French teacher, female and midfifties, who had had her gallbladder surgically removed and was expected back Monday. To Fuentes, Jack said, “Then you know I’m grasping at straws. Hoping one of Sabra Lee’s teachers overheard or saw something that might help provide answers.”

  “There’s been enough talk—any of us would have come to you.” He sat down behind the desk at the front of the room. “Have a seat,” he added.

  Instead of squeezing into a student desk, Jack leaned against the radiator that ran beneath the windows. “I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation with Emily. I’d give a lot to know who fathered Sabra’s baby.”

  The Spanish teacher nodded, looking serious and concerned. He did the expression well. “That’s why I asked Emily. I thought she might be more likely to talk to me than to a police officer or her mother. You know how it is with kids.”