Chapter One
Heidi
Hearing the frantic knocking on the door, I sighed and put the book I’d been reading face down on the coffee table.
I was child-free for the first time in months, and all I wanted was some time to myself. Was that really too much to ask for?
As the knocking continued, I accepted that apparently, the answer to my question was a resounding ‘yes.’
Getting up, I made my way toward it, muttering to myself. “Have a night off, Heidi, they said. The peace and quiet will do you good, they said.” Flicking on the porch light, I finished on, “So why the hell am I not feeling relaxed or surrounded by said peace and quiet?”
Pulling the door open and expecting to hear about how Jesus could save me or what cookies were on sale for a good cause, I froze when I saw my new neighbor, Marisol, standing there looking scared out of her mind.
“Sol?”
“Jenny snuck out while I was putting the baby to bed. I went in to check on her, and she’d put her pillows under her covers to try and trick me.”
Marisol was originally from Belize and had five kids who would dominate the world by breaking hearts wherever they went. That’s not to say they weren’t good kids, but they had the kind of looks and beauty that made the air get trapped in your throat. At sixteen, Jenny was the eldest and wildest of them all. With their dad away working on an oil pipeline, Sol was the one who had to wrangle her into being responsible and steer her clear of shit she was way too young to be involved in.
This being a perfect example—sneaking out to who knows where at night.
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
“Marcos says there’s a party at some guy’s apartment tonight that Jenny was talking about. It’s a costume one, so she said she wouldn’t have any problems getting in,” she croaked, wringing her fingers together as she revealed what her thirteen-year-old son had told her.
I winced, knowing precisely what kind of costume Jenny’d had in mind. Hell, we’d all been there at some point.
Grabbing my keys from where they were hanging on the holder and the cardigan I’d left on the console table, I shoved my feet in my Converse. “Do you want me to stay with the kids while you go out looking for her, or do you want me to go?”
“Zoyla isn’t feeling well,” she said, her voice stuttering with how anxious she was. “I think she might have a stomach bug. If I go out, I’ll have to take her with me because she won’t settle if I’m not there, and—”
Holding my hand up, I smiled gently at her. “It’s all right, Mamakins. You stay with your sick baby, and I’ll bring Jenny home. If I need to, I’ll call the sheriff or one of the guys to help out, okay?”
Smiling gratefully at me, she took in a shuddering breath. “We were blessed the day you and Nemi moved in next door, Heidi. I thank you for always being there for us.”
Closing the door behind me and locking it, I winked at her as I walked past her to my car. “That’s what friends and neighbors are for. Keep your phone near you but put it on silent in case Zoyla falls asleep and I need to call you.”
As I reversed out of the drive and onto the cul-de-sac I lived on, I thought about the situation with Jenny and applied it to Nemi. She was almost three, now, and in fourteen years, she’d be doing wild shit like this, and, as a single mom, it’d only be me who’d be there to discipline her and kick her ass when she did.
I was a pretty relaxed person, and I was hoping I’d still be like that if and when she did something like this, so I didn’t lose my ever-loving mind at Nemi. Not that I would, I wasn’t a monster, but taking away cell phones, changing the Wi-Fi password, grounding for months not days, shit like that counted as kicking ass still, right?
Chewing on my lip, I tried to picture all the places in Piersville that a sixteen-year-old could be hanging out at. It couldn’t be that far away if she’d walked there, and it’s highly doubtful the local cab firm would’ve picked her up and taken her to a party at night. The town might be growing, but people still knew each other by sight, and I’d hope that a young teenager dressed up for a party would raise some questions.
So, putting on my PI head—which would have been handy if I was a PI, but I wasn’t—I began driving around, looking for signs of something going on at the properties I passed by.