The Mother

When Audrey turned to go, Zoe called, “Wait. Don’t leave.”

Audrey paused and glanced over her shoulder.

“Uh … J.D. and I, we don’t communicate all that well. We both always wind up saying the wrong things.” Zoe gazed pleadingly at Audrey. “Was it like that for you and your dad?”

J.D. noted the slight hesitation and the quickly concealed odd expression as it crossed Audrey’s face.

“Yes, Zoe, it was. My father and I had communication problems, too.”

“Are all fathers like that? I mean, do all of them think you’re still a baby when you’re not? Do they all try to run your life and assume they know what’s best for you even when they’re wrong?”

“Yes, to some extent all fathers are like that, so it’s up to daughters during their teen years to be patient and understanding and do their best not to give their fathers a heart attack. Of course, giving him a few gray hairs is a different matter. That’s a given.”

Zoe looked at J.D., and she and Audrey laughed.

Yeah, funny. He hadn’t missed the joke. His hair had already begun turning prematurely gray before Zoe came to live with him, but he had to admit that it was getting grayer every day.

Zoe went over and stood in front of J.D. “If I apologize to you, will you let me say good-bye to Dawson before we leave?”

Letting his daughter anywhere near that young hoodlum was the last thing J.D. wanted to do, but when he glanced at Audrey, she gave him a cautionary meet-your-child-halfway stare.

“Yeah. Okay,” he said reluctantly.

“I’m sorry I said all those awful things to you. I—I didn’t mean them.” Zoe gulped. “Well, I didn’t mean most of them.”

J.D. nodded. At least she was truthful. That alone was a step in the right direction. “Apology accepted.”

“Now, may I say bye to Dawson?”

“Make it quick.”

“I will.”

Everything was going along just fine. Everybody was calm and rational, even Zoe. And J.D. managed to keep his resentment of Audrey Sherrod’s interference under control. Okay, so the woman had worked some kind of magic on Zoe, but she’d had no right to—

God damn it. What the hell?

Zoe stood on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around Dawson’s neck, and kissed him. Kissed him on the mouth. And both his mouth and hers were wide open!

J.D. growled like the papa bear he was and felt like ripping Dawson apart, limb from limb. Just as he moved forward, intending to grab Zoe, Audrey reached out and clamped her hand over his forearm.

“Don’t,” Audrey whispered. “It’s just a kiss. Give her that much.”

J.D. snapped his head around and glared at Audrey. “She’s a child. My child.”

“She’s a child on the verge of womanhood. And unless I miss my guess, your daughter is strong-minded and stubborn, and the more you object to something, the more appealing it is to her. The harder you push, the harder she’ll push back.”

J.D. clenched his teeth. He wanted to tell Audrey Sherrod to go to hell. But he didn’t. As bad as he hated to admit it, she was right. Zoe was just like him, God help them both. She was as strong-willed and stubborn as he was, and she reacted just as he did to being issued orders.

The kiss ended before J.D. could explode. And when Zoe came back to him and said, “I’m ready,” he noticed that Audrey’s long, slender fingers still circled his forearm.

“You can let go now,” he told her.

She jerked her hand away as her gaze flashed from his face to Zoe’s. “If you ever need someone to talk to, give me a call.”

J.D. barely managed to keep from telling Audrey to back off and leave his daughter alone.

“Thanks,” Zoe said. “I just might do that, Dr. Sherrod.”

Audrey smiled warmly before turning and walking away.

“I like her,” Zoe said. “Why can’t you date somebody like Dr. Sherrod instead of that stuck-on-herself-because-she’s-so-wonderful Holly Johnston?”

“Whom I date is none of your business,” J.D. told her as he escorted her downstairs and out of the police station.

“That should work both ways,” Zoe said.

“It will when you’re twenty-one.”

Zoe groaned and rolled her eyes skyward.

Damn. Fatherhood should come with a how-to book.

Chapter 8

After they had made love, while he held her close, Wayne had told Grace about the two toddler skeletons found with the bodies of the two murdered women. He hadn’t needed to say more than that. She had guessed what he had dreaded telling her. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t said much. But he knew she was as torn up inside as he was.

Now she lay cuddled against him, her breast pressing into his side and her head resting on his shoulder. He had known her for almost twenty-five years, but they hadn’t become lovers until ten years ago. They had met under the most horrific circumstances—Grace’s two-year-old son, Shane, had been abducted not long after Blake had been kidnapped. Their mutual hurt and anger and unbearable grief had created a bond between them, a bond that intensified because they each not only lost a child, but lost a mate. Enid had committed suicide, leaving Wayne alone and lost in his agony. Grace’s husband had become an alcoholic and drank himself to death less than five years after Shane’s disappearance, leaving her to raise their older son Lance alone.

Over the years Wayne and Grace had stayed in touch. In the beginning, it had been nothing more than Wayne sharing information with her whenever he heard about anything that might possibly be remotely connected to their sons’ abductions. Eventually, they started meeting for coffee, and that led to getting together for dinner, and after fifteen years of gradually becoming dear friends, they had become lovers.

Grace was a part of his life that he didn’t share with anyone else. Willie and Geraldine knew about Grace and he was pretty sure Garth did, too. But the kids didn’t know, Audrey and Hart. Hell, they didn’t know much of anything about his life, and he knew very little about theirs. And it was his fault that things were the way they were. He had been the one who had abandoned them. Emotionally abandoned. While they were growing up, he had kept them housed, fed, and clothed, and had paid the bills, but he had ceased being a father to either of them years ago.

Grace eased out of bed and headed toward the bathroom. He watched her, enjoying the view. No longer young, firm, or slender, her body still looked damn good to him. She was a giver, his Grace, not a taker. Looking back over the past twenty-five years, he wasn’t sure he would have survived without her.

He got out of bed and joined her in the bathroom. She had already freshened up and slipped into a floor-length blue cotton robe.

“While you’re cleaning up, I’ll go fix us some supper,” Grace said.

“Don’t go to any trouble, honey.” He nuzzled the side of her neck as he pulled her backward against him.

She rested there in his arms for a couple of minutes, then pulled away from him. “How about scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast?”

“Sounds good.”

When she left the bathroom, Wayne stared at himself in the vanity mirror over the sink. His brow was deeply furrowed and his eyes and mouth were framed by wrinkles. And his once-dark hair was now light gray, almost white. How the hell had he gotten so old so fast? Sometimes it seemed as if it had been only yesterday that he’d been twenty-one, his whole life ahead of him. Now he was sixty-one, most of his life behind him.

He turned on the cold water, cupped his hands to catch the water, and tossed it into his face. Then he filled the sink with warm water, picked up the soap, and lathered his genital area. Afterward, he retraced his steps, picked up his discarded clothing, and dressed.