Love, Marriage And Family 101

He had almost reached her when something hard smacked Hally right between the shoulder blades at the same time as her legs got tangled up with someone else’s. She lost her footing and her breath simultaneously. She stumbled and fell to her knees, and the sea of humanity closed in around her. She tried to get back on her feet. Couldn’t. Couldn’t get up, couldn’t breathe. Feet stepped on her, bumped her. She screamed.

“Halloran! Halloran McKenzie!”

Hally could hear Mike Parker’s voice, but blackness was closing in. She was being smothered, trampled. Help!

“Oh, God. There you are.” Strong hands hauled Hally to her feet, supported her as she swayed, gasping for air. “Are you all right?”

Hally blinked back the fog clouding her vision. Her ears rang. Mike Parker’s worried face wove in and out in a dizzying pattern. She choked back a wave of nausea and dug her nails into his sleeves. “I’m f-fine…”

“I doubt it,” she saw as much as heard Mike say before he half dragged, half carried her to the edge of the crowd. Like a distant observer she was aware of him wiping dirt off her face and smoothing down her clothes. His ungainly hands were incredibly gentle.

The moment that registered, Hally stepped away from him with a choked, “Thanks.”

Mike’s hands dropped to his sides, closed into fists. “What’re you doing here?” His face was gray. “You could’ve been killed.”

“Yes, well.” Gradually the world slid back into focus and Hally was able to meet Mike’s bleak, searching gaze. She ran a shaky hand through her short crop of curls. She cleared her throat.

“C-Corinne?” she croaked.

If possible, Mike’s face grew grayer still. “All I know is that she’s here. Somewhere…”

“I was afraid of that.”

For just an instant they stared into each other’s eyes and recognized an emotional connectedness that neither would have consciously welcomed or acknowledged. It was gone with the flick of a lash as Hally heard the frantic call of her name.

“Ms. McKenzie! Ms. McKenzie!”

She looked around and spotted another woman in the thick of things. She was waving her hands and bobbing up and down like a cork in the sea some fifteen feet away. Hally recognized her as the parent of one of her former, as well as present students.

“Mrs. Undser!”

“Have you seen Susan?” the woman shouted as the jostling crowd dragged her in a direction away from Hally and Mike.

Hally shook her head, hard. “No. But I’ll keep an eye out for her, okay?”

The woman’s answering nod was distracted. She was fighting against the current of humanity just as Hally had been.

“Look.” Mike’s fingers bit into Hally’s arm and reclaimed her attention. “Over there. Corinne.”

Hally swiveled her head in the direction he pointed. Sure enough, Corinne Parker’s spiky bleached hair surfaced for a moment in the sea of restlessly milling youngsters the police had cordoned off.

“Come on.” Grabbing Hally’s hand, Mike shoved toward the line of patrolmen with aggressive purpose.

Hally used her own free arm and hand to help him clear a path. “They’re herding her into that police van over there!” she yelled, needlessly, since Mike could certainly see what was happening, too.

“Officer.” They had reached the armored human wall around the kids. “Please,” Mike implored the nearest policeman. “I’ve got to get through. That’s my daughter over there. She’s only fourteen, an innocent bystander. I know she didn’t do anything.”

Except steal from me.

“Move along, sir,” the beleaguered lawman said curtly.

“But she didn’t do anything!” Mike repeated with angry exasperation. “If you’ll just let me go and get her…”

“I’m telling you only once more,” the officer bellowed. “Move along. They’re all innocent to hear them tell it.”

The officer glared at Mike, brandishing his nightstick. “Move now. Get”

“Come on, Mike.” Hally tugged on Mike’s arm to end the glaring contest she knew Mike had no chance of winning. The policeman held all the cards.

“Where are they taking the kids?” she asked the patrolman.

“Downtown.”

“Come on.” Hally pulled the fuming and reluctant-tocapitulate Mike forcibly away.

“There’s nothing you can accomplish here,” she told him across her shoulder. “But at least you can be at the other end to bail her out. Where’s your car?”

“Don’t have it,” Mike said grimly.

Hally frowned at him. “Then how…”

“Got a ride from a neighbor.” Mike clenched his teeth, rage consuming him. Damn that stiff-necked policeman. And damn Pam Swigert for getting Corinne into this mess in the first place. He didn’t care that it wasn’t entirely fair to blame the woman, any more than he cared to admit that this stranger his daughter had become would have found a way to get here, no matter what. He needed to blame someone—anyone.

And for the moment he was too overwrought to concede that the only one he should be blaming was himself.

“Where is he?” Hally asked, meaning the neighbor.

“She,” Mike absently corrected, frowning as he looked around. He had only just become aware that Pam had become separated from him somewhere along the line. “I don’t know. She’s a redhead…”

He scanned the crowd, concerned now for his neighbor’s well-being in spite of his anger. What if Pamela had fallen and been trampled, like Halloran McKenzie had nearly been? This was no place for anyone alone, least of all a woman.

“Is that her?” Hally pointed, already moving that way.

Mike followed. “Yes.” Alarm slammed into him. Pam was surrounded by several other women. She was crying. Black rivulets ran down her cheeks. Her always perfectly coiffed hair looked like a swarm of birds had gotten tangled up in it. She was obviously in great distress. “Pamela!”

He surged toward her, Hally in tow. “For God’s sake, what happened?” He let go of Hally to take hold of and support his distraught neighbor instead.

“Some kids beat on her pretty good,” one of the other women said when Pam just wailed and buried her face against Mike’s chest.

“Take me home,” she cried, blindly reaching out with one hand. To Mike’s shock and surprise, Latisha was there to take it. Corinne’s socalled friend.

Rage overcame him once more. “Why aren’t you with Cory?” he shouted at the hapless girl who, he only then noticed, was sobbing and as disheveled as her mother.

“W-we g-got se-separated and…and….”

“Never mind,” Mike said tiredly, his anger gone as abruptly as it had been aroused. It was all such a mess, such total madness. And there was nothing to be gained by yelling and carrying on.

“Halloran…” Guiding Pamela and her daughter out of the melee, he turned to Hally. “Look, I’ve got to drive them home. Could you…I mean, I know it’s an imposition, but could…”