by Rula Sinara
“What did Angela do this time?” he asked.
“She shattered a window on one of the town houses.”
“How? Some kind of crazy accident?” He could hope.
“Sorry, Caleb,” Alex said. “She used a brick to break it.”
All the breath left him for a moment.
He looked at Grace, still on her cell, and simultaneously, they said, “I’ll be right there.”
CHAPTER TEN
THEY DROVE TO the police station in silence, Caleb feeling like a bomb ready to explode. His chest was so tight he could hardly breathe.
Grace must have gotten the same information he had, so thankfully he didn’t have to explain anything to her. It was Angela who would have to do the explaining to them both. Again. If she would.
She’d thrown a brick through a window? This was far more serious than painting a mural on the community center wall. She’d destroyed property! What had she been thinking? And what had Mom been doing? Who knew? As long as there was an adult on the premises, Angela should have been okay. How could either he or Angela’s grandmother suspect that a girl who was well behaved in the past would suddenly become an irresponsible vandal?
It was a little after eleven now. He’d planned to pick up his daughter by eleven thirty. Maybe he should have gone right home after the social, shouldn’t have wanted to spend more time with Grace. Just having a few minutes alone had been incentive enough for his daughter to have gone looking for trouble! Well, she’d certainly found it this time, he thought, as he parked in front of the police station. Both from the police and from him.
Before he could get out, Grace reached over and put her hand on his. “I can only imagine how upset you are, but it’s going to be all right.”
“All right? How?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll figure it out.”
We. Grace was including herself. She wanted to help him help his daughter. Not knowing what to say, Caleb simply nodded his thanks and opened his door. Grace didn’t wait for him to go around to her side. She got out and, by the time he stepped up to the curb, joined him. As they walked to the station door, she slipped her hand in his and gave him an encouraging squeeze. His throat went as tight as his chest, and he couldn’t say a word. He simply squeezed back and glanced her way and thought he’d never seen any woman look more beautiful to him than Grace Huber did at that moment.
Police Chief Alex Novak was waiting for them in the reception area. He indicated they should follow him into his office, where he circled the desk. “Have a seat.” He nodded at the two chairs opposite him.
Sitting, Caleb said, “Alex, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this.”
“You’re not the one who needs to be sorry.”
“Whose window did Angela break?” Caleb asked. He would seek out that person in the morning and apologize and tell him or her that he would take care of having the window replaced immediately.
“Actually,” Alex began, “the window was in one of the empty Green Meadows town houses that hasn’t been sold yet, which makes you the property owner,” he told Grace. “A neighbor was walking his dog nearby, and he heard the crash. He had a flashlight on him and pinned Angela with the beam as she was trying to sneak away. He somehow made her wait there while he called 911 and got a squad on the way.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to say Angela committed a Class A misdemeanor by breaking that window.” He looked to Grace. “That was actually her second such misdemeanor involving Green Meadows property. The neighbor recognized her as the one who painted a mural on the community center wall. I heard about that after the fact, but I was informed that you refused to bring action against her.”
“I didn’t think what Angela did warranted having her arrested then,” Grace said. “And I don’t now. She’s at that volatile age where her emotions rule her. She’s not a bad kid. She needs understanding, not punishment for something she doesn’t know how to deal with right now.”
Her voice trembled just enough that Caleb recognized that she was once more identifying with his daughter. This time he sought her hand and surrounded it with his. She gave him a quick glance. Her smile appeared strained.
Alex tapped a pen against his desktop. “So as the property owner, you won’t bring charges against her?” he asked Grace.
“No, I won’t.”
“Your father may have something to say about that,” Alex countered.
“I’ll talk to Dad about it. He’ll agree with me.”
But she didn’t sound all that certain that he would. Even so, Caleb murmured, “Thank you,” and felt the pressure in his chest relax just a little.
“This may be a mistake,” Alex said. “Angela is going down a slippery path. She needs to learn she can’t just do whatever she wants because she’s upset about something.”
“I would rather we find a different way to deal with her outbursts,” Grace insisted. “Perhaps having her do some kind of community service...”
Alex shook his head. “That’s impossible to enforce without the court being involved.”
“I’ll enforce it,” Caleb said. “If I have to, I’ll stand over her and watch her while she works.”
“Works at what?” Alex asked. “What kind of community service do you have in mind? And how will it relate to the crime?”
Caleb looked to Grace. From her expression, she didn’t have any more idea of what kind of community service would do the trick than he did.
He said, “How about if you give us a couple of days to figure it out. We’ll get back to you when we do.”
“All right.” Alex stood. “I’ll get Angela out of lockup and meet you up front.”
Caleb got to his feet. He felt a little shaky until he met Grace’s encouraging gaze. She nodded and they walked to the entryway.
“I probably should just walk home,” Grace said. “That would give you some much-needed privacy to talk to your daughter about this.”
“No. You are not walking anywhere.”
“But Angela won’t like—”
“I don’t care.” He insisted, “I’m taking you home. Angela needs to learn to think about other people. And to take responsibility for her own actions.”
At which point he saw Alex with his hand around Angela’s upper arm as he led her to them. She kept her head down, and he could see her jaw was tight as if she was gritting her teeth. So she wouldn’t cry? Caleb wanted both to shout at her and to take her in his arms and plead with her to be his sweet Angel again. Instead, he met her closed expression with one of disapproval when she finally looked up at him.
“Thank you, Alex.” Caleb fought his twin desires as he stared Angela down, growling, “Let’s go.”
Not saying a word, she gave Grace a sour expression, then flounced out of the station to the truck. Opening the door, she nodded at Grace. “Where is she going to sit?”
“Not in the back of the truck, where I should put you,” Caleb said. “You get to sit in the middle between us.”
Which he knew she would hate. Angela clenched her jaw and got in, but he couldn’t miss the hot anger in her eyes as she slid across the seat. No way did she want to be next to Grace. Well, that was just too bad.
He helped Grace get in with a murmured, “Sorry about this,” before going around to the driver’s side. He’d barely secured his seat belt before demanding, “What on earth is going on with you, Angela?” He started the engine. “I’ve done my best to raise you to be a decent human being. Do you really think it’s all right to do whatever you want to whomever you want?”
“She deserved it!”
“Grace deserved to have you destroy her property because we went to a fund-raiser together?”
“Not her.”
Not Grace? “Then who are you talking about?”
“My
mother. She’s living in that town house.”
Grace started. “Wait. That town house is empty. It hasn’t been sold. You mean...she just moved herself in? How do you know that?”
“I’ve known for days because I followed her.”
Caleb clenched his jaw. “When?”
“The night you went to bed early. I wasn’t sleepy and I’d seen her on the property before, so I went looking for her. I spotted her coming home from the rez and followed her through the woods.”
At night when he hadn’t even known his daughter had left the house? “I’m going to want full details later.”
It came to Caleb that while Angela wanted Lily in her life, she was still angry that her mother had abandoned her.
“Huh,” Grace said, almost to herself. “I have a feeling I know why residents have been imagining they’ve been seeing a ghost at night.”
“Lily trying to stay hidden in the woods while sneaking back to the town house,” Caleb said.
Grace asked Angela, “Did you tell the police who was staying there?”
“No, and I’m not going to. It’s none of the police’s business.”
Though it was Grace’s business, so Caleb said, “Do you want to press charges against Lily?”
“She’s an adult and should know better,” Grace answered. “If there’s proof.”
“I’m not saying anything!” Angela cried. “Nothing seemed to be damaged.”
“How do you know?” Caleb asked. “You didn’t go in the town house, did you?”
Angela just sat there, stewing in silence. Caleb wondered if he should blame himself for the mess.
How to handle things, though? He didn’t even want to be friends with Lily. It hit him that community service might be a type of punishment with merit, but it wasn’t enough to quiet Angela’s emotional turmoil about her mother. Only one thing could do that. He hoped.
For his daughter’s sake, he would do something he never envisioned doing. He would reach out to Lily Trejo and try to make peace with her. He would try to negotiate a truce between mother and daughter so they could form some kind of relationship that would satisfy Angela.
His daughter’s happiness was the most important thing in the world to him. He would do anything for her, even this.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, wearing an apologetic smile, Carol stopped Grace at the reception desk when she walked into the office. “Mr. Huber asked to see you the moment you came in the door.”
So Dad had already heard about the broken window. From whom? He wasn’t even in town the night before. He’d been in Milwaukee overseeing the shopping center.
“Okay, thanks, Carol.”
Grace knocked at his door once, then opened it. Wearing a particularly grumpy expression, her father waved her in.
She said, “I have a lot to do this morning—”
“It can wait. First, you have some explaining to do.”
She wore her most innocent expression. “About?”
“You know very well what this is about, Grace Huber. That wild teenager has been at it again, this time breaking a window in one of our town houses. And you told the police chief you wouldn’t bring charges against her.”
“Angela is going through a tough time, and—”
“And you’re dating her father.”
News traveled fast in a small town, but where had Dad heard it?
“Yes, I am dating Caleb Blackthorne,” she said, “but I would be concerned about Angela even if I wasn’t.”
“Because she’s a little criminal?”
“Because she’s going through an emotionally difficult time in her life. Dealing with her as a person and having her do some kind of community service at Green Meadows will be more effective than making her go through the system.”
“Community service? You want to give the little troublemaker another pass?”
“I want to show her that people care about her.”
“Just because she’s not getting that from her father doesn’t mean—”
“How could you say that? Caleb is a wonderful father to Angela. His situation reminds me of us when I was that age. Angela has been acting out for several weeks now, and poor Caleb has been going out of his mind trying to figure out what exactly happened—” though he obviously knew now “—and how to get her back on the straight and narrow.”
Dad’s brow furrowed. “How did she get off the right path?”
She told him about Angela’s mother abandoning her. And about her returning. “Last night we learned that Angela threw that brick at the town house window because her mother has been staying there at night.”
“Now we have a squatter? They both should be arrested!”
“They both need help,” she countered. “The mother has no resources. She’s probably desperate. And, we can’t arrest a squatter without real proof anyhow. The police went inside the town house and found nothing but a bottle of water and a blanket. No damage. I didn’t make an official complaint.”
“What do you think you are, a social worker?”
“Actually, Caleb’s mother is a social worker, and he’s hoping Maddie can help her. As for me, I’m just paying it forward, Dad.”
“You didn’t destroy property.”
“No, I just stole it,” she reminded him. “And you made me go back to the store and return the bracelet and the sweater and apologize.”
“Has the Blackthorne girl apologized?”
“Not yet.” But she wasn’t through with the past yet. “And then there was that rave that guy took me to. You came and found me and got me out without my being arrested.”
“This is different,” her father argued. “You were being self-destructive. She’s destroying other people’s property. Our property! You must press charges this time!”
Grace hated it when her father tried to force her to his will, which had been happening more and more lately. Probably because he sensed her yearning to break from the family company.
She jumped to her feet. “I’m not pressing charges against Angela Blackthorne! Nor against her mother.” In fact, if she did, Angela would never forgive her and she and Caleb wouldn’t stand a chance at being a couple.
“Fine, there’s nothing stopping me from pressing charges, both against the girl and her mother!”
It was one of those rare moments when she was so angry she actually saw red. “You do that, Dad, and I’m done!”
“Done with what?”
“With Walworth Builders!”
And with that threat, she stormed out of the room. Trembling inside, she hoped Carol didn’t notice as she whipped by the receptionist’s desk to go into her own office, where she had a good cry. How could she have lost her temper like that? Her father had done everything for her. Why hadn’t she figured out some way to talk him down?
Her threatening to quit Walworth Builders had probably stabbed him in the heart.
She already regretted her words.
Even if she’d spoken the truth about the one thing she truly wanted to do.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“ARE YOU CALM?” Mom asked Caleb the next morning.
“I’m okay.”
He was ready to face the inevitable. Had been for a while. The night before he and Maddie had decided that a meeting between mother and daughter simply had to take place. As he expected, the cops hadn’t caught Lily after the broken window incident, though they’d seen someone running away from the town house. If Mom hadn’t had friends on the rez, the woman might have returned there undetected. As it was, Mom had cornered Lily before she’d had the chance to make another move.
And now Lily was waiting to talk to them all in Maddie’s living room.
While Angela sat, morose, at the kitchen tab
le.
“Well, we can’t deal with this too soon, considering we aren’t able to trust you, Angela,” said Maddie, disappointment in her voice.
His daughter remained seated, scowling, but she croaked, “I’m sorry, Gran.” At least she apologized to someone.
“Come on, Angel,” he said, motioning toward the living room.
“Don’t call me that.”
Angela flounced past him.
All seated, they made an uncomfortable-looking group. Maddie had traded her usual easy smile for a stern expression, Lily was pale and downcast, while Angela pouted as she stole glances at the woman seated on the couch.
Finally Lily raised her eyes to her daughter. “I’m sorry we had to meet this way, honey.”
Angela merely grunted. “How did you want to meet?”
“I thought I would be in a better position.” Lily smiled tremulously. “As it is, I haven’t been able to find a job. Or a permanent bed to sleep in...yet.”
Right. Caleb remembered how Lily had tried to hit him up for cash. She’d said specifically she wasn’t looking for a job.
His expression must have communicated itself to his mother, who reached across her chair arm to touch his shoulder. “Just let them talk, Caleb.”
Angela and Lily both gave him angry stares.
Then the girl turned back to her mother. “I know Dad told you to stay away from me.”
“I’m afraid he wants me to have nothing to do with you.” Lily sighed. “But I’m your mother.”
“My mother? What mother goes off and leaves her child for fifteen years?” Angela asked, a tremor in her voice.
“There were so many problems. We were so young. We’d had a terrible fight.”
“We did not have a fight,” Caleb insisted. “You just took off.”
Lily dismissed him with a shake of her head. “We had so many fights you probably don’t even remember.”
Angela blurted, “I don’t care about the fights. Why would you leave your own baby? That was a horrible thing for a mother to do!”
Tears welled in Lily’s eyes, reminding Caleb once again that the woman was not without feeling.