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.
How well Jack remembered that painful stage. The guys swaggered when no girls were present, some claiming they got it all the time, most of them at least implying sex was no longer a mystery to them. Even though kids seemed to be having sex earlier than they used to, he bet the majority of freshmen and even sophomores were still lying through their teeth, especially in a town like Frenchman Lake surrounded by a rural county.
Inclined to believe the boy, he crossed his arms and studied Asher. “Do you know when Sabra started seeing someone else?”
“When school started. We hung out all summer, but the minute we were back, she started making excuses. I said what’s going on, and she said nothing, but I could tell. I got mad, and she said what she did wasn’t any of my business.” Indignation rang in his voice. “So that was it,” he concluded with a shrug, but his face twisted at the memory. Either because he really had liked her or because he’d been humiliated. Maybe both.
“Have you seen her with another boy?”
He shook his head. “I figured it must be someone from out of town. Or even a community college student?”
Jack thought he could rule out students at Wakefield College. The kids accepted at the private liberal arts college in town were supposed to be the cream of the crop from across the country. Smarter, surely, than to become involved with a fifteen-year-old girl—and to impregnate her, besides. Plus, the college was pretty insular, in some ways. Why would a guy from there hook up with a local, and a sophomore in high school at that? Jack knew for sure his peers wouldn’t think it was cool.
The community college, now, a lot of those students were locals. This might be a kid who graduated from the high school as recently as last year. Someone who thought Sabra was hot, didn’t give a thought that he might get arrested for having sex with her.
Jack asked a few more questions, but he couldn’t break Asher. The boy never had sex with her, the baby couldn’t be his and he had no idea who she started seeing after she ditched him. As mulish as he was, he came across as sincere.
Jack poked his head out and asked for Emily Harper next, then sat doodling on his notepad.
At a knock, he said, “Come in.”
The girl who entered looked enough like her mother he would have recognized who she was if they had passed in the hall. Meg Harper had an earthy quality the daughter lacked, but some of that was just maturity. Woman versus girl. Emily was almost delicate, with fine bones and a pointy chin that gave her a pixie look.
“Mrs. Seacrest said you’re a cop? Is Sabra hurt, or...or...?” She didn’t seem to want to spit out any other possibilities.
To be polite, he half stood. “I’m Detective Jack Moore. And, no, I’m trying to figure out where she could have gone. Please, have a seat.” He sank back down while she plopped into a chair across from him. “I understand you’re Sabra’s best friend.”
“She can’t have taken off without telling me! She wouldn’t do that.” Big brown eyes beseeched him, and she finished more softly, “Something bad must have happened.”
Despite