His grin floored her, making her chest ache. She couldn’t figure out how this man could distract her so easily, at a time when distraction was the last thing she needed.
“I agree.” He sounded almost cheerful. “And there has to be more, or the DA won’t let them charge you. I’ve got a friend who works in the sheriff’s department. Let me do some digging.”
Relieved, she nodded. “Okay. My brother Reid used to be a detective and he promised to check around, too.” She took a deep breath. “Now that we’ve discussed my situation, why don’t you tell me about your niece?”
“Renee?” A shadow darkened his features as he spoke the name. “Do you remember my older sister, Denice?”
“Vaguely. She wasn’t around a lot. Wasn’t she tall, and really pretty? I think she liked to party.”
“She did. And with a father like ours, I couldn’t blame her. At least, not at first. But once she got pregnant, she cleaned up her act. I really thought she’d be a great mother...” His voice trailed off.
As the silence stretched out, she exhaled and prompted. “But? There’s always a but.”
He shrugged, clearly pretending to be unaffected, though the pain in his eyes told another story. “She wasn’t. She and Renee’s father married. Joshua was an addict and in a band. She started traveling with him. I’m sure you can guess the rest.”
She nodded. “What happened to them?”
“Denice was driving drunk. Her husband and Renee were in the car. She drove onto I-635 going the wrong way. The head-on collision killed Denice and him instantly. Renee was asleep in the backseat. She was lucky. She had numerous broken bones and had to be hospitalized for a couple of weeks while they tried to get the swelling around her brain to go down. When she finally healed enough to be released, I brought her home with me. She was sixteen.”
Her heart wrenched. “Poor girl. That had to be hard.”
Gazing off into the distance, he nodded. “It was. The worst part was the screaming. She kept reliving the moment when she woke up in the wrecked car. Luckily, she had her seat belt on, but she was hanging upside down. Her mother was dead in the front seat and her father...”
Dragging a hand across his mouth, he swallowed. “Needless to say, I’ve been sending her to therapy. I really thought it was beginning to help.” His grimace told her what he thought about that.
“Enough about the past,” he finally said. “I need to find her. I couldn’t save my sister, but I refuse to give up on her daughter.”
Despite barely knowing him, Piper battled the strongest urge to go to him and wrap her arms around him. For comfort, nothing more. Or so she told herself, trying to ignore the way her mouth went dry at the thought of touching him.
Instead, she forced herself to focus on his statement. “Tell me about her. What does she like to do for fun? Does she have any hobbies?”
His blank look told her he truly didn’t know.
Briefly, she closed her eyes. “How involved in her life were you, exactly?”
He swore. Under his breath, but still loud enough for her to hear. “I tried.” His grim voice contained both bewilderment and guilt. “She pushed me away at every turn. Renee couldn’t come to grips with the thought of living with me, an uncle she barely knew. She constantly tried to re-create her parents’ lifestyle. I guess she believed she could find comfort in the familiar.”
Unable to find the right words, Piper said nothing. She actually had to curl her fingers into her palms, nails digging into her skin, to keep from reaching out to him.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Pushing to his feet, he shook himself, like a dog shaking off water. “I don’t mean to sound so pitiful.”
“You don’t. I get what you’re telling me. It was a lot more difficult than you expected, trying to raise a teenager.”
“Yes.” Sounding relieved, he sat back down. “I probably was overprotective. I didn’t want her to make the same mistakes her mother made.”
“I bet the more you pushed, the worse she pulled in the other direction. Poor kid just wanted love and acceptance. She didn’t understand you were loving her the only way you knew how.”
“Exactly.”
She thought for a second. “Okay, let’s start with the basics. Did she graduate high school?”
“Yes.”
“Good. What were her plans for after graduation? College? Junior college?”
He snorted, then looked ashamed. “She had no plans that I know of. I figured she liked to party. At least she had a job.”
“Aha.” Finally something concrete. “Where did she work?”
“Several places. All waitressing jobs. She liked waitressing. And she did well, until she got fired.”
“Why? What’d she do to make them let her go?”
“Actually, I’m not sure. I figured partying, but for all I know she could have stolen something.”
Shocked, Piper struggled with the idea that Cord hadn’t bothered to find out. “Getting fired is a direct hit on anyone’s self-confidence. You never asked her why?”
“Hey.” He spread his hands in a defensive gesture. “Every time I tried to talk to her about anything, whether it was about the weather or something more personal, like school or her job, she’d shut down and refuse to answer.”
“What about after graduation?”
“The only time I ever heard her mention any sort of aspiration was that she wanted to tend bar. She said she was tired of waitressing. I told her she wasn’t old enough to be a bartender. She looked at me and told me there were ways around her age.”
With a sigh, she tried to keep her tone light. “Her last job—did she quit or get fired?”
He took another swig of water before answering. “I guess you could say both. She stopped showing up for work and they fired her.”
“I assume since you appear to have covered all the bases that you’ve already talked to her friends.”
To her surprise, he grimaced. “I tried. But she never brought anyone to the house and her coworkers couldn’t think of any friends—male or female—either.”
Her heart squeezed. “Poor kid. She was trying to cope all on her own.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “But the more realistic possibility is that she does have friends. Friends that are the type to stay hidden. The kind she knew I wouldn’t approve of. Drug dealers and addicts. People like the ones she must have grown up around, since her parents no doubt brought them home.”
“I don’t know.” Piper shook her head. “Have you ever considered the possibility that she might want the opposite lifestyle? She’s new here. Maybe she’s shy. It’s really hard on teenagers moving to a new place and school.”
“She’s been here two years. Even the biggest wallflower in the world would have made a friend or two after all that time. Remember, she liked to party. No one does that alone.”
Since she hadn’t actually met his niece, Piper figured he’d be more equipped to know. “Okay. Did you talk to her school? The teachers, her guidance counselor, anyone like that?”
“Yes.”