The Runaway Daughter. Anna DeStefano
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thought how lucky she was to have her mom, and now her dad and Uncle Tony in her life. Even crusty old LeJeune was growing on her. Her Oakwood family took care of each other like nobody’s business, the part of her newfound southern heritage she liked best. To people down here, family meant fighting to the death for the people you loved.
But Claire had no one to fight for her but scummy Sam.
And me. She has me.
“Don’t you dare tell Sheriff Rivers,” her friend warned. “No cops. They’d want to question Sam and his family. They’d take Max away from me, ’cause I have no way to take care of him without Sam’s money, then the Walkers—”
“My dad wouldn’t do that—”
“I swear, Maggie. If you tell anyone about this—”
“Okay! I won’t.”
“If you do, I’ll never speak to you ag—”
The bathroom door swung open.
Claire sucked in the rest of her threat.
“Hey girls.” Angie Carter’s smile lost some of its customary gusto as she absorbed their stunned silence. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” Claire grabbed the diaper bag and all but trampled Oakwood’s chief deputy rushing out the door.
Maggie picked up the packet of baby wipes her friend had left, and tried to slip away, too. The hand on her arm wasn’t exactly a command to halt, but Maggie skidded to a stop inside the door all the same.
She should tell Angie what was going on. But Claire would never trust her again if she did.
“What’s up?” Angie’s voice was friendly but firm, which was a pretty good description of the woman herself.
For a cop, Angie got along great with the kids at the center—she and Uncle Tony, both. They’d become a great team, spending most of their off-duty afternoons coordinating cool activities. They didn’t talk down to anyone, either. They treated teens like grown-ups. Like friends.
No matter who you were, you were okay with them, no questions asked. And one smart-mouthed kid after another in the county had started to trust them. Except Claire, who didn’t trust anybody but Maggie.
“Nothing’s up.” Her stomach tightened at the lie.
“I know you two are friends.” Angie looked at Maggie, as honest and straight-shooting as ever, even in her everyday khakis and a knit golf shirt. Today’s shirt was the same cool green color as her eyes. “But Claire’s been hanging with a pretty rough crowd lately. If she’s in some kind of trouble—”
“Claire’s fine.” Maggie held her breath against the urge to blurt out what she knew about Sam Walker. She ducked her head. “I…I’ve got to get home and help my uncle Tony with my parents’ going-away thing. I…I’ll see you later.”
She made a quick escape, leaving Angie no chance for more questions. As she jogged toward the side door her friend had most likely left through, she thought of that night’s family dinner and couldn’t help but smile.
Her parents were leaving for New York in the morning, to scout places for the three of them to live in the fall. Maggie was staying behind this trip, finishing summer school and the two classes she needed to graduate. She’d missed tons of school last year. The liver-donor surgery that had saved her mom’s life had taken months to recover from.
Two more classes and her future was ahead of her. The kind of future Claire would never have if she kept hooking up with losers like Sam.
Outside, there was no sign of Claire or the boys they’d been hiding from. Boys, including Garret Henderson, who hung with Sam Walker almost every afternoon—doing what, Maggie could only guess.
What if telling Angie tonight was the right thing? What if it was the only way to keep Sam from hurting Claire and the rest of the kids in town more than he already had?
Maggie shook off the what-ifs and headed home. She wanted to go after her friend. She wanted to go back and spill her guts to Angie. She wanted to fill her parents in on everything, and help shut Sam Walker and his drugs down for good. But she couldn’t do any of it, not tonight.
She’d talk some sense into Claire in the morning. After her parents left for the airport, she’d head over and confront Sam himself if she had to.
Whatever it took to get her friend out of that apartment.
ANGIE WATCHED Maggie hightail it through the side door of the youth center as if the girl’s low-rise jeans were on fire. Seeing her running scared was a shock.
Maggie was a Rivers through and through. Brown hair, intelligent brown eyes and a heart of gold. And a Rivers didn’t run. From anything. In fact, they’d fight to the death—particularly to protect the people they cared about. And Maggie and Claire Morton had been as thick as thieves from the moment they’d met six months ago, when Maggie had tagged along during one of her uncle’s volunteer nights at the center.
It had been an odd match, the sheriff’s kid and a runaway who’d zeroed in on the toughest badass in town, gotten herself knocked up, and then moved herself and the baby in with Sam Walker for good measure. But Maggie had seen something in Claire worth saving, and that had been the end of her parents trying to talk her out of hanging with the girl every afternoon.
Something was up. Angie could smell it. But was she sure enough to make a stink about it, when her ability to work with the kids around here hinged on not interfering in their life choices unless it was an emergency?
The teens at the center were practically her surrogate children. She’d accepted the reality years ago that she couldn’t have kids of her own. She’d dealt with the devastating impact that news had had on her dreams, and her never-to-be marriage to Freddie. Then she’d gone out and found a way to fill her life with kids regardless. Over the last few years, her volunteer work at the center and her career had become her salvation.
The teens here needed her, and she needed them. Her goal, the goal of all the volunteers who gave their time here, many of them sheriff’s deputies like herself, was to keep the often at-risk kids coming back. Kids from broken or dual-income homes, where parental control was either scarce or nonexistent. Rural families that often didn’t or couldn’t provide the kind of supervision restless teenagers needed. She was a big sister here, a confidante who listened and helped any way she could, while doing everyday things like playing a friendly game of Ping-Pong or basketball.
Angie gritted her teeth against the memory of her last game of hoops with Travis Reynolds. She’d let Travis down by not getting rid of the crap someone had sold him. And now Claire Morton was acting nervous. And big-city-smart Maggie Rivers looked more worried than Angie had ever seen her. It didn’t take a decade in law enforcement to guess what the problem was.
Baby Max’s father was bad news. There were rumors Sam Walker was into Oakwood’s crystal meth trade up to his eyeballs. The department had no proof. Yet. But he’d been working his way to the top of their suspects list ever since their first meth collar eight months ago. And the chance that Maggie had gotten herself involved in the drugs overtaking their county like cancer landed a knot dead center in Angie’s stomach.
She couldn’t let this slide.
Maggie’s parents were leaving in the morning, and they’d been planning tonight’s family dinner all week. With as little information as Angie had, she wasn’t stirring up trouble their last evening in town. But once tomorrow’s shift was over, Maggie Rivers had some questions to answer. Which would leave Angie talking to Tony if there was any truth to her suspicions.
Damn.
The man was the last person she should be spending her off-duty time talking to. She couldn’t get it out of her head, the confused, almost disappointed look on his face when she’d pulled away from him at the Eight Ball.
Tony wore unattached like some kind