Healing Hearts
Page 23
“Where?”
“There on—” But the boy was gone. Probably tore back to tell his mom about the abduction of his brother. Seth edged his truck to the curb and threw it into Park, before he reached into the back of the crew cab for the only piece of extra clothing he had.
“Look at this.” He held it up for the boy. “My team jersey. Brand-new.”
The boy’s brown eyes locked on to the bright blue-and-white jersey, emblazoned with the Lakers name, the bottom stroke of the L in a sweeping Nike-like check. “Put it on,” Seth said. “You can’t be naked in my truck.”
“Is that the way it works?”
“Yep.”
The boy took the jersey and examined the back of it. “Fifty-three. Why fifty-three?”
Not getting into that. “It’s my age,” Seth said, seventeen years off the mark.
That seemed reasonable to the boy, who nodded and wiggled into the jersey, tucking it under his butt. “To the lake!”
Seth saw an opening. “Good idea. We can get your brother and you two can play together.”
“Okay! But we have to include my sisters, too. And Mom. We can’t go to the playground without her. That’s the rule.”
Fine by him. The boy glanced from one side of the street to the other. “Wait! Where are they?”
Probably calling the police. “I know where they are.”
Seth pressed the child lock button—a feature he’d never used before—then lost no time turning the corners to pull up behind a U-Haul trailer. On the paved driveway were clustered the kids, and the mom on the phone. He could only hope she was talking to the dad who was looking for the boy.
The second Seth hit the release on the lock, the boy hopped out, and for a wild moment Seth considered driving off. He’d brought back her kid, nothing wrong had happened, case closed.
But if the mom had involved the police, Seth was known to them and doing a kind of drop-and-run wouldn’t look good.
This was his one chance to clear himself. He picked up the old bat the boy had abandoned and prepared himself for whatever might come out of left field.
Copyright © 2018 by S. M. Stelmack
ISBN-13: 9781488084942
Healing Hearts
Copyright © 2018 by Cynthia Powell
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