A Season for Grace. Linda Goodnight
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him in on Mitch’s likes and dislikes, his grades in school, the places he hung out. And then she started in on the child advocate thing. She told him how desperately the kid needed a strong male in his life. That he was a good kid, smart, funny and kind. A computer whiz at school.
This time there was no Delete button to silence her. Trapped inside the car, Collin had to listen.
He put on his signal, made a smooth turn onto Tenth Street and headed east toward the boy’s neighborhood. “How do you know so much about this one kid?”
“His mom, his classmates, his teachers.”
“Why?”
“It’s my job.”
“To come out on Sunday afternoon looking for a runaway?”
“His mother called me.”
“Bleeding heart,” he muttered.
“Better than being heartless.”
He glanced sideways. “You think I’m heartless?”
She glared back. “Aren’t you?”
No, he wasn’t. But let her think what she would. He wasn’t getting involved with anything to do with the social welfare system.
His radio crackled to life. A juvenile shoplifter.
Mia sucked in a distressed breath, the first moment of quiet they’d had.
Collin radioed his location and took the call.
“It’s Mitchell,” Mia said after hearing the details. “The description and area fit perfectly.”
Heading toward the complainant’s convenience store, Collin asked, “You got a picture of him?”
“Of course.” She rummaged in a glittery silver handbag and stuck a photo under his nose.
Collin spotted the 7-Eleven up ahead. This woman surely did vex him.
He pulled into the concrete drive and parked in the fire lane.
“Stay here. I’ll talk to the owner, get what information I can, and then we’ll go from there.”
The obstinate social worker pushed open her door and followed him inside the convenience store. She whipped out her picture of the Perez kid and showed it to the store owner.
“That’s him. Comes in here all the time. I been suspicious of him. Got him on tape this time.”
Collin filled out the mandatory paperwork, jotting down all the pertinent information. “What did he take?”
The owner got a funny look on his face. “He took weird stuff. Made me wonder.”
Mia paced back and forth in front of the counter. “What kind of weird stuff?”
Collin silenced her with a stare. She widened rebellious eyes at him, but hushed—for the moment.
“Peroxide, cotton balls, a roll of bandage.”
Mia’s eyes widened even further. “Was he hurt?”
The owner shrugged. “What do I care? He stole from me.”
“He’s hurt. I just know it. We have to find him.”
Collin shot her another look before saying to the clerk, “Anything else we should know?”
“Well, he did pay for the cat food.” The man shifted uncomfortably and Collin suspected there was more to the story, but he wouldn’t get it from this guy. He motioned to Mia and they left.
Once in the car, he said, “Any ideas?”
She crossed her arms. “You mean, I have permission to talk now?”
Collin stifled a grin. The annoying woman was also cute. “Be my guest.”
“I know several places around here where kids hang out.”
He knew a few himself. “I doubt he’ll be in plain sight, but we can try.”
He put the car in gear and drove east. They tried all the usual spots, the parks, the parking lots. They showed the kid’s picture in video stores and to other kids on the streets, but soon ran out of places to look.
“We have to find him before he gets into more trouble.”
“I doubt he’d come this far. We’re nearly to the city dump.”
As soon as he said the words, Collin knew. A garbage dump was exactly the kind of place he would have hidden when he was eleven.
With a spurt of adrenaline, he kicked the patrol car up and sped along the mostly deserted stretch of highway on the outskirts of the city.
When he turned onto the road leading to the landfill, Mia said incredulously, “You think he’s here? In the city dump?”
He shot her an exasperated look. “Got a better idea?”
“No.”
Collin slammed out of the car and climbed to the top of the enormous cavity. The stench rolled over him in waves.
“Ew.” Beside him, Mia clapped a hand over her nose.
“Wait in the car. I’ll look around.”
Collin wasn’t the least surprised when she ignored him.
“You go that way.” She pointed left. “I’ll take the right side.”
Determination in her stride, she took off through the trash heap apparently unconcerned about her white shoes or clean clothes. Collin watched her go. A pinch of admiration tugged at him. He’d say one thing for Miss Social Worker, she wasn’t a quitter.
His boots slid on loose dirt as he carefully picked his way down the incline. Some of the trash had been recently buried, but much more lay scattered about.
He watched his step, aware that among the discarded furniture and trash bags, danger and disease lurked. This was not a place for a boy. Unless that boy had no place else to turn.
His chest constricted. He’d been here and done this. Maybe not in this dump, but he understood what the kid was going through. He hated the memories. Hated the heavy pull of dread and hurt they brought.
This was why he didn’t want to get involved with Mia’s project. And now here he was, knee-deep in trash and recollections, moving toward what appeared to be a shelter of some sort.
Plastic trash bags that stretched across a pair of ragged-out couches were anchored in place by rocks, car parts, a busted TV set. An old refrigerator clogged one end and a cardboard box the other.
Mia was right. The kid had smarts. He’d built his hideout in an area unlikely to be buried for a while and had made the spot blend in with the rest of the junk.
As quietly as he could, Collin leaned down and slid the cardboard box away. What he saw inside made his chest ache.
The kid had tried to make a home inside the shelter. An old blanket and a sack of clothes were piled on one end of a ragged couch. A flashlight lay on an up-turned crate. Beneath the crate, the kid had stored the canned milk, a jar of water, cat food and a box of cereal.
In the dim confines Mitchell knelt over a cardboard box, cotton ball and peroxide in hand.
Collin had a pretty good idea what was inside the box.
At the sudden inflow of light, the kid’s head whipped around. A mix of fear and resentment widened his dark eyes.
“Nice place you got here,” Collin said, stooping to enter.
“I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“Stealing from convenience stores isn’t wrong?”
“I had to. Panda—” Mitchell glanced down at the box “—she’s hurt.”
Curiosity