she longed for the town she’d come to fifteen years before as a wide-eyed newlywed. It’d been a lot different.
Then again, so had she.
She’d had a simple life with no child to worry about and no career to juggle. It’d been her and Reed and a rosy future…or so she’d thought. Once she’d gotten her degree and started her career, things had changed drastically. Reed didn’t care that she’d worked for years for her Ph.D. He still wanted a wife who made him the focus of her life. She’d started her practice, a practice that took time and energy away from him, and he’d left her. The only good part of their union was Christopher, their fourteen-year-old son. She loved him so much it hurt. But she worried constantly about him and whether or not she was balancing her job and motherhood successfully.
The thought brought her full circle to her newest client. Ryan Lukas. When Lena had first called Maria and set up Ryan’s initial meeting, the other woman had told Maria how he’d changed since his wife’s death. Gregarious and friendly, he’d been one of the most popular members of the team before that. The first one to arrive, Lena had said, and the last one to leave, no matter how hard the call. Now he was a loner. He did his job then disappeared.
Even without the description of his changes—even without meeting him—Maria had expected Ryan Lukas would be a difficult client. Despite her earlier denial, she did have some feelings about his position on the team. Anyone who killed people for a living—even bad people—had to be a complicated individual with complex motivations and tangled emotions. The interior life of a countersniper had to be a labyrinth few could understand.
Even taking that into consideration, something about Lukas was still very different from what she’d anticipated. A lot of her male clients hid their real emotions behind the single feeling they felt safe with—anger—but he’d gone a step further. Unable to put her finger on the exact disparity at the moment, Maria knew it’d come to her. She had an innate intuition about people and their emotions. Even as a child, she’d been supersensitive to the imbroglios that had floated through her parents’ home. Lord knew there had been plenty of feelings in the mix. Good and bad.
In the meantime, she had to figure out how to help Ryan Lukas, and she wasn’t looking forward to the job. Uncooperative clients were always a challenge. She’d have to approach him just the right way or they’d never make any progress.
She considered the problem all the way home, but twenty minutes later thoughts of the troubled sniper fled when Maria turned into her driveway. Christopher had—once again—left his expensive bicycle, which his father had purchased, smack in the middle of the approach. She couldn’t even pull into the garage. How many times had she asked Christopher to put his bike away when he got home?
She parked the car in the street, then grabbed her briefcase and started up the sidewalk to the front door. Before the divorce, Christopher had been the perfect kid, but the minute Reed had left, Chris had turned into someone different. His grades had plummeted and the boys he wanted to hang around with weren’t helping matters at all. He was distant and uncommunicative. Maria understood his conflict; he felt abandoned and left behind, and he wanted acceptance somewhere—so he’d looked to those kids. All her efforts to help him, however, had only made matters worse. Trips to the zoo, quiet time just talking, rock concerts he’d selected—she’d done everything she could think of to reconnect with him and nothing had worked. She was running out of ideas—and patience.
She unlocked the door and started yelling, something she’d never done in the past. “Christopher! Are you in here? Come down right this minute….”
Nothing but silence greeted her, the house echoing in an empty way that told her he wasn’t just hiding. She threw her briefcase on the entry table and shook off her high heels as she went into the living room. His backpack was in the middle of the rug, his jacket on the couch, an open bag of chips on the floor by the recliner.
Just like his father, she thought wearily. Reed couldn’t have picked up after himself if his life had depended on it. When he’d come home two years ago and announced he was leaving, she’d almost been relieved…but Christopher had been shattered, and Maria knew then she’d never forgive Reed for the way he’d treated their son.
A father shouldn’t do that to his kid.
She snatched up the sack of chips and then the backpack, but the nylon bag weighed a ton. For one brief second, she juggled both, then lost her grip on the backpack, a confusion of books, papers and CD cases flying from the unzipped compartments, then plummeting to the floor.
Cursing softly, Maria set the bag of chips aside and began to pick up the mess. She retrieved a library book and a battered blue notepad then reached over to get a second book. As she did so, the notebook flipped, the pages fluttering open to dislodge a folded piece of paper. Her fingers stilled when she saw what it was.
Christopher’s progress report.
From two weeks before.
It was covered with the kind of pen and pencil drawings Christopher constantly produced—a fantasy birdlike figure—but her eyes looked past them and went directly to the grades. They were lower than they’d been the last time! And the comments she could hardly believe them.
“…didn’t turn in homework. Grade: 0…”
“…not paying attention in class. Grade: 74.”
“…sloppy work and bad attitude. Grade: 60.”
But that wasn’t even the worst part. When she read the signature at the bottom of the card, she gasped out loud. Dr. Maria Worley. Her name had been scribbled poorly—in fact, it was barely legible—but apparently that was all that was needed. Every one of his teachers had checked the boxes at the bottom of the report indicating they’d seen and accepted the fake signature.
Maria rocked back on her heels, a hodgepodge of anger, shock and disappointment wiping out any other emotions. He must have intercepted the mail and pulled out the report before she’d gotten home. What on earth did he think he was doing? Had her son really believed she’d never find this out?
As soon as she had the thought, her anger turned inward. Of course, he’d assumed he could do it and get away with it. She did everything she could to stay on top of Christopher’s life, but it’d been crazy at work lately, and she’d been too involved with her own problems. She should have known it was time for his progress report and been on the lookout for it. She should have been keeping better track of the time.
She considered calling Reed then dismissed the idea immediately. He wouldn’t help. He couldn’t even admit he was part of the problem. She stood up slowly and was replacing the rest of the items in the backpack when the front door flew open and slammed into the opposite wall. Christopher’s startled eyes met hers before they dropped to the bag she still held.
“What are you doing with my stuff?” he demanded rudely.
She resisted the urge to correct his tone and tried instead to focus on staying calm. “I’m picking it up—something you should have done when you got home instead of leaving it here.”
Kicking the front door shut, he walked into the entry with the kind of bravado only a guilty kid could affect. “I was in a hurry. The guys called right after I got home and I left. I’m sorry,” he added in an offhand manner.
“I’m sure you are.” She paused. “And you’re going to be even more sorry when I ask you about this.” She held out his report.
For
