Undercover in Copper Lake. Marilyn Pappano

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СКАЧАТЬ him after so many years, shocked him. Her appearance really shocked him.

      Her hair had been bleached blond at some point in the recent past and hung, greasy and tangled, to her shoulders, the strands about equal parts blue-black and dingy yellowish-white. She was fourteen years older, a few inches taller and thin, emaciated, looking more like a scarecrow than the girl he remembered. She didn’t lift her feet when she walked, and she had a bad case of the shakes, like a kid on a major caffeine high—or a meth head on an involuntary withdrawal.

      People who knew him, other than maybe Craig and Ty, would scoff at the thought, but his heart broke just looking at her.

      Her gaze darted around the otherwise-empty room, skimming across him a couple of times before finally settling. “Look at this.” She turned to include the guard standing impassively at the door in her words. “My big brother, Sean, finally come home. You know, me and Declan’s kids had bets going for a while that you were dead somewhere. Guess I win.”

      Part of him wanted to step forward and wrap his arms around her and cuddle her the way he used to when bad dreams woke her in the night. The other part of him recoiled from the idea. “Hey, Maggie.”

      “What brings you back here?”

      “You.”

      “Took you long enough. I’ve been here more than three weeks.”

      “I just found out yesterday.”

      She shuffled to the nearest table and plopped down on one stool, making the entire thing tilt. “Well, if you hadn’t run off and pretended the rest of us didn’t exist, you would’ve known sooner.” Picking at a sore on her arm, she asked, “You gonna get me out of here?”

      “I—” Sean was at a loss for words. Craig hadn’t said anything about bailing her out, and he hadn’t given it a thought. If he did pay her bond, he could take her home, talk to her in private, have unlimited time to persuade her of the best action to take.

      Or maybe run away with her.

      Though if he took her home, Craig and his thugs would know where to find her. They could take care of her at their convenience, and him, too, and maybe Daisy and Dahlia. Surely she was safer in jail. Yeah, they could reach her there, but it would have to be harder inside than out.

      And if he took her home, he would have to duct tape her wrist to his. She’d been an expert at sneaking out when she was thirteen. Twenty-eight and in need of a high, she would disappear the first chance she got. He’d be on the hook for the money and for her escape.

      “I don’t have that kind of money,” he lied. “Sorry, Maggie.”

      Anger knotted her thin little face. “What the hell you been doing all these years?”

      “I work on cars.”

      “Of course.” She rolled her eyes. “You always did love them stupid cars more than any of us. So if you’re not gonna bail me out, what the hell are you doing here?”

      “I—I want to help you.” Help you get out of this life, help you stay alive, help you clean up... Though she didn’t look much interested in getting clean at the moment.

      For a time she stared at him, then a ghost of the grin he remembered so well touched her mouth. “If you want to help me, go to Marian at Triple A Bonds and buy her goodwill with ten thousand bucks. That’s ten percent of my bail. Otherwise, I’ll take care of myself, Johnny boy, like I’ve been doing ever since you took off.”

      Johnny. Only family had ever called him by the American version of his Irish name. Hearing it stung.

      As she stood, hitching up her too-big pants, and walked away, he blurted out, “Maggie, I saw Daisy this morning.”

      That stopped her a foot or so from the door. Slowly she turned, gave him a flat look, then said, “Yeah. Well. She’s five years old. If you hadn’t run off, you could’ve seen her a lot of times.” Dismissing him, she turned back to the guard. “Come on, bubba, get me outta here.”

      After the door closed behind him, Sean exhaled heavily. “That went well.”

      Oh, yeah, this trip to Hell was going to be all kinds of fun.

       Chapter 3

      Hanging by a Thread, Sophy’s quilt shop, opened at 10:00 a.m. six days a week. Business was good enough that she could hire Saturday help—Rachel, just graduated from high school last spring—but weekdays were generally hers alone.

      Hers and Daisy’s.

      Sophy turned the Closed sign to Open, switched on lights all around the shop, stowed her purse in the storeroom and booted up the computer before giving her attention to Daisy. If only she were the older of the two girls, the morning would have gone so much more easily. Daisy thought school was a grand adventure: other kids, toys, books, play, classroom pets. She wanted to go.

      Dahlia didn’t.

      She’d never been away from her sister. She was so much more suspicious of strangers and so much more aware of her family’s place. She didn’t trust anyone but her mother and Daisy—and Sophy wasn’t sure about Maggie. Her job had always been to look out for Daisy, to make sure she didn’t talk to anyone or say anything she shouldn’t. She was the protector, and how could she protect when she was locked up in a stupid school with stupid people?

      Daisy was walking in circles around the worktable Sophy had made available for her and Dahlia, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking every other step. Her ponytail had failed completely, the band hanging from a small clump of strands, ready to fall any moment. Pink from her strawberry milk rimmed her upper lip, while her lower lip was stuck out in major pout mode.

      “What do you want to do this morning?” Sophy asked with a cheer that was mostly phony.

      Daisy gave her a look that was mostly stony. “I want to go to school with Dahlia.”

      “Besides that?”

      “Nothing.” She gave her foot a little twist, intensifying the squeak against the wooden floor, then did it again.

      “Stop that, please.”

      Defiantly, she did it again.

      Jaw clenched, Sophy turned to her own work area. In addition to selling fabrics and quilting supplies, she offered her own quilts for sale, taught classes, made custom pieces and machine-quilted tops for customers interested only in the piecing aspect. She always had a dozen or more projects in the works, and as Daisy continued the noise-making, she pulled out a plastic tub that contained one.

      The piece was a twin-size quilt, creamy-hued pieces of fabric, plain or with tone-on-tone patterns so subtle she had to look twice at some to see them. It was a simple quilt, twelve-inch blocks with a scalloped edge. The beauty of this one was in the quilting, a meandering maze that led to a small outline-stitched heart. Though the long-arm quilting machine stood a few yards away, Sophy was finishing this one by hand because it was special.

      It was for Dahlia, and maybe it would be with her when she someday found her heart’s desire. Please, СКАЧАТЬ