Ah, the phone calls to the chief had not pleased him. “I did not harass you.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her.
“Well, okay. Maybe I did. But just a little to get your attention.”
“You got it.”
“Was that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Time will tell.”
Was that a smile she saw? Or a grimace? He was the hardest man in the world to read.
The cruiser pulled to a stop in front of an older frame house in a rundown area of the city. Paint had peeled until the place was more gray than white, and the yard was overgrown. A rusted lawnmower with grass shooting up over the motor looked as though it hadn’t been used all summer.
Mia knew the house. She’d been here more than once at the request of the school system, but never could find out anything that justified removing the boy from the home.
“I thought Mitch opted for Juvenile Hall?” she asked.
Collin shut off the engine and opened the car door. “He changed his mind.”
A dark-haired woman who was far too thin came out into the yard and stood with her arms folded around her waist.
“Where’s my ten bucks?” she asked as soon as Mitch was out of the car.
To Mia’s surprise, Mitch reached in his jeans and withdrew a crumpled bill. She looked at Sergeant Grace, suspicious, but the man’s poker face gave away nothing. The idea that the tough cop might have bailed the boy out with his mother touched her. Maybe he wasn’t so heartless after all.
She listened without comment as Collin apprised Mitchell’s mother about the situation. Mrs. Perez didn’t seem too pleased with her son, as expected, but her fidgety behavior raised Mia’s suspicions. She didn’t invite them into the house and seemed anxious to have them gone.
“What’s going to happen to him?” she asked. “I don’t have no money for lawyers and courts.”
“He broke the law, Mrs. Perez. Miss Carano will talk to the DA for him, but at the least he’ll do some community service to pay for the things he took from the store.”
“He stole from me, too.”
Collin’s nostrils flared. “You want to press charges?”
Said aloud, the idea seemed harsh even to the fidgety mother. “I don’t want him stealing from me anymore. That’s all. He’ll end up in jail like his old man.”
Conversation halted as an old car, the chassis nearly dragging on the street, mufflers missing or altered, rumbled slowly past. Loud hip-hop music pulsed from the interior, overriding every other sound.
Collin turned and stared hard-eyed at the vehicle, garnering a rude gesture in return. Mia had a feeling the car’s inhabitants hadn’t seen the last of Sergeant Grace.
When the racket subsided, Mia picked up the conversation. “Have you considered counseling?”
Monica Perez rolled her eyes. “Mitchell don’t need no shrink. He needs a new set of friends. Them Walters boys down the street get into everything. You oughta go arrest them.”
“I could help him meet some new friends if you’d like,” Mia said and received a sideways glance from Collin for her efforts.
“Fine with me.”
“My church has a basketball league for kids. He could sign up to play.”
“I wouldn’t mind that, but I ain’t got a car. Is it far from here?”
“I’ll pick him up. Saturday morning at nine, if he wants to go.” She looked at Mitch, stuck like a wood tick to Collin’s side. “Mitch?”
“Sure. I guess so.”
Collin dropped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Miss Carano’s going out on a limb for you.”
Mitch gazed up at the tall cop, his expression a mix of frightened child and troubled youth. “I know.”
Mia glimpsed his bewilderment, his failure to understand his own behavior. And as always, something about this kid got to her. A good person was inside there. With God’s help, she’d find a way to bring him out.
“Someone will give you a call next week and let you know the DA’s decision,” Collin was telling Mrs. Perez.
And then with a curt nod, he turned and started back toward the police car. Mia, who preferred long goodbyes with lots of conversation and closure, felt off balance.
Mitch didn’t seem to be finished either because he darted after the departing figure.
“Sergeant Grace.”
Collin stopped, one hand on the car door.
Suddenly, every vestige of the tough street kid was gone. Mitch looked like what he was, a little boy with nothing and no one to cling to. “You’ll take care of Panda?”
“I will.”
“Can I come see her sometime?”
The hardened cop studied the small, intense face, his own face intense as if the answer would cost him too much. “She’d be sad if you didn’t.”
Mia said a quick goodbye to Mrs. Perez and hurried across the overgrown lawn. Now was her chance. Now that Collin had softened just the tiniest bit.
“I could bring Mitch out to your place. Anytime that’s convenient for you.”
Collin looked from Mitchell to Mia and back again. Mia was certain she must be imagining things because the strong, hardened cop looked more helpless than the boy. Helpless…and scared.
* * *
Mia shoved away from the mile-high stack of file folders on her desk and scrounged in the bottom desk drawer for her stash of miniature Snickers. A day like today required chocolate and plenty of it. She took two.
Her case load grew exponentially every day to the point that she was overwhelmed at times. Looking out for the interests of kids was her calling, but on days like today, the calling was a tough one.
She’d made a school visit and six home visits. At the last one, she’d done what every social worker dreads. She’d pulled the two neglected babies and taken them to a foster home. Even now, though she knew she’d made the right choice, she could hear the youngest one crying for his mama. Poor little guy was too young to comprehend that he lived in a crack house.
She nipped the corner of Snickers number one and turned to the computer on her desk. All the reports from today had to be typed up and stored in the master files before she could go home.
“See ya tomorrow, Mia,” one of the other workers called as she passed by the open office door.
Mia waved without lifting her eyes from the computer screen. “Have a good evening, Allie.”
She reached for another bite of candy. Over the tick-tick-tick of the keyboard, she heard another voice. This one wasn’t her coworker.
“Mind if I interrupt for a minute?”
Her head snapped up.
“Collin?” she blurted before remembering he’d never given her permission to call him by his first name. But she had to face the fact. She thought about him, even prayed for him, by his first name.
During the three days since he’d helped her find Mitchell, she’d prayed about him and thought about him a lot. The fact that she didn’t know him that well didn’t get him out of her mind. She was intrigued. And attracted. More than once, she’d wondered if he was a Christian, but she was afraid she might already know the answer.
Now he stood before her in his blue uniform, patches on each sleeve, shiny metal pins on each collar point and above his name tag. He looked as crisp and clean as new money.
Great. And she looked like a worn-out, overworked social worker whose white blouse was wrinkled and pulling loose from her red skirt. She hoped like crazy there was no chocolate on her teeth.
“Can we talk?”
Collin Grace wanted to talk? Now there was a novel concept.
“Do you know how?” She softened the teasing jab with a smile.
Those brown eyes twinkled but he didn’t return the smile. “I want to make a deal with you.”
He scraped a client chair away from her desk a little. He might want to talk, but he was still keeping his distance.
Mia rolled back in her own chair to study his solemn face. Whatever was on his mind was serious business. “A deal?”
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“In exchange for your help, I’ll mentor the kid.”
The wonderful thrill of victory shot much-needed energy into her bloodstream. After the day she’d had, this was great news.
“Mitchell Perez? Collin, that’s marvelous. He told me on the phone last night that you stopped by after school yesterday. That was so nice of you, and it really made his day. He tried to act all tough about your visit, but he was thrilled. I could tell. And when I told him the DA agreed to community service, he asked if he could work for you. But I had no idea how to answer that without talking to you first and I’ve just been so busy today….”
Collin lifted one hand to slow her down. “The deal first.”
Once she got on a roll, stopping was difficult. But that halted her in her tracks. “Am I going to like this deal?”
“This is confidential. Okay?”
Now her interest was piqued. Very. “Most of my work is confidential. Believe it or not, I can keep my mouth shut when necessary.”
He made a huffing noise that sounded remarkably close to a laugh. She got up and moved around the desk past him to close the door even though the office was probably empty by now.
When she sat down again, she had to ask, “Do I have chocolate on my teeth?”
This time he did laugh.
“No. You look great.”
“Such a smooth liar,” she said, and then reached in the file drawer and took out another candy bar. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re the health-food cop. Poor guy. You don’t know what you’re missing.” She unwrapped a Snickers, nibbled the end and shifted into social-worker mode.
“You said you needed my help. What can I do for you, Officer?”
“Collin’s okay.”
Another thrill, this one as sweet as the caramel, and completely uncalled for, raced through her. Before she could wipe the smile off her face, he did it for her.
“I want you to help me find my brothers.”
She blinked, uncomprehending. “Your brothers?”
“Yeah.” Collin leaned forward, muscled forearms on his thighs as he clasped his hands in front of him. Steel intensity radiated from him as though the coming confidence was very difficult for him to share. “My little brothers, Drew and Ian, though neither of them are little now.”
She got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “When did you last see them?”
His answer hurt her heart. “More than twenty years ago.”
“Tell me,” she said simply, knowing for once when to keep quiet and let the other person do the talking. Whatever he had to share, in confidence, about his brothers was important to him.
Over the next fifteen minutes, during which Mia went through three more Snickers bars, Collin told a story all too familiar to a seasoned social worker. Oh, he spoke in vague, simplistic terms about his childhood, but Mia had worked in social services long enough to fill in the blanks. Collin and his brothers had been separated by the social system because of major issues in his family.
“What happened after that day in the principal’s office? Where did you go? Foster care?” she asked, hearing the compassion in her voice and wondering if he would resent it. But she had brothers she adored, too. She knew how devastated she would be if she couldn’t find one of them.
“Foster care never worked out for me. I went into a group home,” he said simply, and she heard the hurt through the cold retelling. “Ian was so little, not even five. Foster care, maybe even adoption, would be my best guess for him. He was small and sweet and cute. He could have made the adjustment, I think.” His nostrils flared. “I hope.”
“And your middle brother? Drew? What do you think happened to him?”
He shook his head. The skin over his high, handsome cheekbones drew tight, casting deep hollows in his face. Clearly, talking about the loss of his brothers distressed him. “Drew was a fighter. He would have had a harder time than I did. I remember the social worker that day saying he was headed to a special place or something like that.”
“A therapeutic home?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.” He pinched at his upper lip, frustrated. “See? That’s the problem. I was a kid, too. My memories are more feelings than facts.”
And those feelings still cut into him with the power of a chainsaw.
“Did you ever see or hear anything at all about them? Anything that could help us find them?” She didn’t know why she’d said us. She hadn’t agreed to do anything yet.
“The summer after we were separated, we both ended up at one of those summer-camp things they do for kids in the system. We immediately started making plans to run away together. But, like I said, Drew was a fighter. He got kicked out the second day. I didn’t even know about the trouble until he was gone.”
“And no one told you anything about him?”
“No more than I’ve told you. Twenty years of searching, of sticking my name in files and on search boards and registries hasn’t found them.” The skin on his knuckles alternated white and brown as he flexed and unflexed his clenched fists. “I’ve had leads, good ones, but they were always dead ends.”
And it’s killing you. All the things she’d wondered about him now made sense. His chilly reserve. The way he seemed isolated, a man alone.
Collin Grace had been alone most of his life. He’d been a child alone. Now he was a man alone.
To a woman surrounded by the warmth and noise and love of a big family, Collin’s situation was not only sad, it was tragic.
“Somewhere out there I have two brothers. I want them back.” And then as if the words came out without his permission, he murmured gruffly, “I need to know they’re okay.”
Of course he needed that. Mia’s training clicked through her head. As the oldest of the three boys, he’d been responsible for the others. Or at least, he’d thought he was. Having them taken away without a word left him believing he’d failed them.
Now she understood why he’d been so reluctant to take Mitchell under his wing. He was afraid of failing him, too.
The sudden insight almost brought tears to her eyes.
Mia tilted back her chair and drew in a breath, studying the poster on the far wall. The slogan, Social Work Is Love Made Visible, reminded her why she did what she did. The love of Christ in her, and through her, ministered to people like Collin, to kids like Mitchell. If she could help, she would.
“Twenty years is forever in the social services system. Do you really think I can find them if you haven’t had any success?”
“You know the system better than I do. You have access to records that I don’t even know exist. Records that I’m not allowed to see.”
Warning hackles rose on Mia’s back. She tried not to let them show. “You aren’t asking me to go into sealed records without permission, are you?”
“Would you?” Dark eyes studied her. He wasn’t pressing, just asking.
“No.” She’d done that once for her oldest brother, Gabe. The favor had cost her a job she loved and a certain amount of credibility with her peers. The bad decision had also cost her a great deal emotionally and spiritually. God had forgiven her, but she’d always felt as if she’d let Him down. “I will never compromise my professional or my Christian ethics.”
Again.
“Okay, then. Do what you can. You still have access to a lot of records, even the unsealed ones. I’ve looked everywhere I know, but that’s the problem. I don’t know how to navigate the system the way you would. I can’t seem to find much when it comes to child welfare records of twenty years ago.”
“Records from back then aren’t computerized.”
“I finally figured that one out. But where are they?”
“If they exist, they’re still in file cabinets somewhere or they could be piled in boxes in a storage warehouse.”
“Like police records.”
“Exactly.” She crumpled the half-dozen Snickers wrappers into a wad, dismayed
to have consumed so many.
“Are you willing to try?”
“Are you willing to be Mitchell’s CAP? That’s what we call adults who volunteer through our Child Advocate Partners Program.” She would help Collin in his search no matter what, but Mitch might as well get a good mentor out of the deal.
“What do I have to do?”
“Some initial paperwork. Being a police officer simplifies the procedure since you already have clearances.”
“How much is the welfare office involved?”
“You don’t like us much, do you?”
He made a face that said he had good reason.
“Things are different now, Collin. We understand things about children today that we didn’t know then.”
He didn’t buy a word of it. “Yeah. Well.”
“If I help you and you become Mitch’s CAP, you’re going to be stuck with me probably more than you want to be.”
“As long as it’s you. And only you.”
Now why did that make her feel so good? “But you think I talk too much.”
The corner of his mouth hiked up. “You do.”
“But you’re willing to sacrifice?”
“Finding my brothers is worth anything.”
Ouch. “Sorry. I was teasing, but maybe I shouldn’t have. Finding your brothers is serious business.”
“No apology necessary.” He rose with athletic ease, bringing with him the vague scent of woodsy cologne and starched uniform. “I was teasing, too.”
He was? Nice to know he could. “I’ll need all the information you can give me about your brothers. Ages, names, dates you can remember, people you remember, places. Any little detail.”
From his shirt pocket, he withdrew a small spiral notebook, the kind all cops seemed to carry. “The basics are in here. But I have more information on my computer.”
“What kind of information?”
“The research I’ve done. Names and places I’ve already eliminated. Group homes, foster parents. I know a lot of places my brothers never were. I just can’t find where they are.”
He made the admission easily, but Mia read the hopelessness behind such a long and fruitless search. Twenty years was a long time to keep at it. But Collin Grace didn’t seem the kind that would ever give up.
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