Family at Stake

He took a step into the room and she almost stiffened. It felt as if there were two hands at her back. Pushing. Always pushing.

Leave me alone! The scream clawed at her throat, but she just sighed, like a sound sleeper. Her back was to him so she didn’t bother closing her eyes. She knew how to fake sleep. She’d done it enough.

“I love you, Amanda,” he whispered.

Then why did you have to screw everything up?

She bit her lip until she tasted blood and waited him out. Finally, he walked away toward his room, where he would take a ten-minute shower and then try to read for about five minutes before he passed out with the light on and the book on his chest.

And once Dad was out it would take an earthquake to wake him. That’s what Mom used to say, anyway, but she always said it like she wished the earthquake would wake him and swallow him whole.

Amanda waited for half an hour, just to be on the safe side. Once she’d only waited twenty minutes and her dad had caught her. She’d made up a lie about getting a drink and he’d tried to turn it into some conversation about secrets, which was hilarious since he didn’t know the first thing about that. Anyway. She waited half an hour just to be sure.

Midnight on the nose, Amanda slipped out of her bed, grabbed her tennis shoes and slid past her open door without making a sound.

She held her breath in the hallway. His bedside light was still on, but she could hear him snoring like crazy.

Mom always said he was predictable.

She crept toward the front door, sticking to the sides of the hallway where the boards never creaked. She stepped over the middle stair and opened the front door with a fast jerk. If she opened the door slow the hinges whined, not real loud but loud enough.

She turned on her flashlight and picked her way through the forest, over rocks and fallen trees. Animals scattered in the underbrush and something dark and small flew by her head. She ducked but didn’t stop. Didn’t turn around.

She crested the top of the hill. Halfway down the other side she took the old fire road to the rock quarry.

She checked her watch again and hoped she wasn’t too late. Last time Christie had already left by the time Amanda got there.

Every night she thought about running away again. Just taking off from Christie and Dad and social workers and all the memories of Mom and the happy family they used to be. And every night the idea sounded better and better. One of these days she was going to walk out that front door and never come back.

CHAPTER FOUR

“AMANDA’LL BE DOWN IN A second.” Mac stepped into the kitchen where Rachel sat, waiting for her one-on-one interview with Amanda. At the sound of his voice, all of her senses immediately tuned to him like a radio dial searching through static to finally settle in on a clear station.

She could hear him breathe.

Good God, she could smell him—sunshine and soap.

She felt the breeze he made as he walked to the fridge and grabbed a can of pop.

“She just hopped in the shower. She helped me in the orchard today after school.”

“Does she do that often?” Rachel asked, happy to have something to concentrate on rather than the trickle of sweat sliding down his temple. Dirt smeared his cheek and blood beaded from a small cut on his neck.

She noticed all of it in a millisecond, in the time it took her to blink. She remembered how attuned she used to be to him, how she could guess his mood by the way he wore his hat, or the way he said hello on the phone. They’d just look at each other across their second-hour British Lit classroom and she’d know they’d be skipping school the rest of the day.

“Yeah, Amanda does help, actually.” He popped open the top of the can and guzzled the drink. He was in sock feet, and the uncomfortable intimacy of seeing the small hole near his big toe created a snakey warmth in her chest that she tried to ignore. “A few times a week.”

“When she isn’t helping you, does she come home right after school?”

“She has tutoring after school two or three times a week. Isn’t that in your notes?”

“I am making new notes.”

“Must be why your agency is so effective.” His sarcasm was lethal. But she continued writing, pretending to be oblivious to Mac’s stares and the tension that radiated off him.

“I can’t believe you’re a social worker,” Mac said as he hitched himself up onto his counter.

“No?”

“Do you have kids?”

“Nope.”

“Are you married?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“I’m here to help you, Mac. Not talk about my love life.”

“It doesn’t sound like you have one.” He smiled as if it were a joke, but the bottom of her stomach fell to her feet. “At least we still have that in common, we’re still unlucky in love.”

He toasted her with his can.

“Would you classify your marriage as unlucky?” she asked, and the smile seeped from his face.

“We were making it work,” he murmured, and studied the rim of the can.

Rachel bent back to her file. She already had it memorized, but she was shaken by the implications of Mac’s obvious lie. The fact that he had married didn’t bother her, but that he was unhappy in that marriage made her ache for him.

“Is that ours?” Mac asked. “That file, is it ours?”

Rachel nodded.

“What’s it say?” Mac asked.

“Most of it you already know, the rest of it I can’t tell you.”

A smile appeared and vanished on his lean, tan face, so fast she thought she imagined it. “Or you’d have to kill me?”

“It says Gatan didn’t press charges,” she continued. “He agreed with the girls’ claim that the fire was an accident. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Weird?”

“Well, the fire did a lot of damage. Why didn’t he press charges?”

“Bill Martinez was our lawyer, you’ll have to ask him. It’s a small town. You press charges against two little girls for an accident and things can get ugly.” Mac shifted and pulled a worn brown leather wallet out of his back pocket. “Here’s Bill’s card. I know he talked briefly to Frank, and according to Bill, it didn’t go well. I know he’d love to talk to you.”

“Great.” Mac leaned forward and Rachel took the card and tucked it into the special pocket in her folder. She took a deep breath; her next question was a professional one, any social worker assigned to this case would ask just to fill out the record.

But with their history the question seemed far too personal.

“It says your wife is deceased,” she said into the heavy air in the room.

Mac jumped off the counter and turned away from her, busying himself with some nonsense on the counter, but didn’t say anything.

“When did she die?”

“A year ago.” He cleared his throat and Rachel’s eyes, against her will, measured his back, the curl of his hair, his shirt collar. The handsome boy she had made love to the night of graduation had turned into a riveting, masculine and edgy man.

Hey, remember professionalism? You were a kid. Everything seems too important when you’re a kid.

“It was a car accident.”

Rachel took a deep breath to ease the sharp pain of sympathy in her chest. Mac turned again, his face dark and intent. “Amanda was in the car.”

Rachel’s eyes went wide in shock. Damn Frank. These details should have been in the report. This was important information and she looked and felt like a fool for being in the dark about it.

“What happened?”

Mac shrugged and idly wiped at the counter with a sponge, but she could see the rock-hard muscle in his jaw. “She just lost control of the car. Amanda was asleep in the back. She says she doesn’t remember anything.” He sighed and looked at Rachel for a long, long time. And Rachel knew what that look was, could feel it in the pit of her stomach and the marrow of her bones. The look was about trust. And after a moment, Mac glanced away. Silent.

She didn’t measure up and his judgment slid through her like a knife. It would take time, she knew that. It would take time with any social worker, but after what she had done to him, the way she had treated him, she imagined it would take even longer.

“What was your wife’s—”

“I’m ready.” Both Mac and Rachel turned at the sound of Amanda’s voice. The girl stood on the landing like a bird ready to take flight. Her hands were fisted at her sides and her mouth was pressed into a thin angry line, but her eyes darted between Mac and Rachel.

“It’s nice to see you again, Amanda,” Rachel said. She had to have control of this situation. If Amanda caught on to her father’s distrust of Rachel, nothing would ever be accomplished.

Amanda warily approached, and Mac leaned over and whispered, “Remember what we talked about.”

Rachel could guess what they’d discussed.

Amanda pulled out a chair at the island and Mac continued his pointless wiping of the already clean counter.

“How was school today?” Rachel asked, trying to get Amanda’s attention away from her father.

“Stupid.”

Mac cleared his throat.

“Fine.” She rolled her eyes.

“Do you like school?

Amanda shrugged, and Mac shut a cupboard door with a little more noise than necessary.

“It’s fine,” she said on a long-suffering sigh.

“Amanda.” Mac faced his daughter with a cold, all-business look in his eye.

Rachel stood and grabbed her light jacket from the back of her chair. “Amanda, let’s go for a walk.” She’d jumped in before Mac could say anything else. The two of them stared at her with their identical ice-blue eyes and Rachel smiled. “I need some fresh air.”

Amanda gave her dad a look that was guaranteed to make him say no—a help-me-Daddy-I’m-scared look that Rachel had seen manufactured on kids’ faces for years. Kids were better manipulators than parents ever dreamed.

“You’ll be fine,” Mac whispered, surprising Rachel a little. “Take a jacket.”

Amanda’s chair grated across the floor as she pushed away from the island. She stomped over to the closet and grabbed a blue windbreaker.

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