though he’d been a parent far longer than this mere half hour.
“Call the police,” he barked out.
“Marcie already is. And calling some neighbors and friends, too, to start a search.”
He nodded. “Fine, but it’ll take too long for them to get here. We can’t wait that long.”
“I know.” Juliet swallowed. “I think she climbed out her window.”
She pointed to the side of the cottage blocked from view by a little patch of trees.
He nodded and pushed aside any feelings he might at one time have had for her. “I’ll take the beach. This direction.” He pointed up the beach, where the child would have come out through the trees. “You and Marcie take the street. You go one way and tell her to take the other.”
Looking like a lost little girl instead of the powerful defense attorney he knew her to be, Juliet nodded. “I’ll take my cell phone. Marcie’ll have hers, too.”
“Mine’s back in my car,” Blake said. But he wasn’t losing a second to go back for it. “Honk a car horn three times if someone finds her and I’ll know to come back. Depending on how long I’m gone, you might have to drive up the road a bit for me to hear.”
She glanced at him once more, and nodded. Blake refused to take the comfort she was offering. Or to give her what she needed, either.
He just didn’t have it.
“Can Freedom stay inside?”
“Of course.”
“Go, boy,” Blake said, grabbing the dog’s collar and handing him over to Juliet.
They hadn’t even turned around before he was hiking up the beach.
SHE JUST WANTED to spit. And…and…anything else that would hurt her mother’s feelings. Tromping along in the sand, making huge big footprints because she was so mad and stepping so hard, she stared at the ground. She wouldn’t look at the water at all.
Mom always told her to look at the water. And to know that there was no end to what she could do with her life. And no end to hope. Or to love, either.
Mom was a stupid liar.
She almost stepped on a pretty, perfect shell. It was pink and all shiny with different colors in the sun. Mom’s favorite kind. They always picked up and saved those ones. Mary Jane thought about stomping on it, but she didn’t want some kid in bare feet to come later and step on it and get cut. She hated that.
Instead, she picked it up and threw it as hard as she could, far out into the water where Mom could never ever find it, even if she wanted it badly enough.
And then she trudged on, way farther than she was allowed to go—and after a while, farther than she’d ever been, even with Mom and Aunt Marcie.
So what? They said it wasn’t safe for her here alone, but who cared? They were both liars.
She turned some corners and walked really fast. She sweated a lot, too.
If she got too hot, she’d go in the water. Mom didn’t want her to do that, either. She was just going to do everything Mom didn’t want her to do. Mom deserved it.
Sometime after she’d passed some people on a blanket—a man, a woman and some boy—Mary Jane thought about how tired her legs were. She’d forgotten how tired the sand could make her feet when she walked in it a long time.
So she moved closer to the water, letting the waves come up over her new white tennis shoes.
She loved them most when they were brand-new white. Mom did, too. And she’d be really sorry when she saw them all dirty.
Not that she was going to see them. Mary Jane wasn’t ever going home again. Who could live with people who lied to you?
She heard a dog bark and jumped back, kind of scared. Mom said stray dogs were dangerous sometimes and they could bite and give you rabies, which could make you have some pretty bad shots or die. She’d never been alone around a stray dog.
But when she looked around, there wasn’t one too close. She was kind of thirsty, though. And the ocean water was bad for drinking because of salt making you even thirstier. She shoulda brought her thermos from school. And a sandwich, too. Because it was going to be dinnertime and she hadn’t figured out where she was going to live yet.
Still, she was away from the liars. And that was all that mattered.
A man was by himself, up ahead by the water. Mary Jane slowed down. She wasn’t scared or anything, but everyone knew men were sometimes bad and she didn’t want to have to run away fast. She just wanted to be left alone. And quit being lied to.
Just then she heard the dog bark again. It ran to the man. And then a lady was there, too, and Mary Jane said hi as she walked past. They said hi and smiled. She probably could ask them for water if she had to. And if they fed a dog, they might feed her. A lot of adults thought dogs and kids were a lot alike. And besides, she wasn’t a picky eater and didn’t eat much either.
So she’d be okay.
But she was tired. And she needed to find out where she was going to live before it got dark and she had to go to bed.
Mary Jane ran into a wave, laughing as the water came up to get her shorts wet. And then she did it again.
Pretty soon she was all wet. It wasn’t really funny when you were all alone and no one could see.
She wasn’t going to be scared of the dark. She just wanted to get her bed made before she couldn’t see what she was doing. Lumps in beds made her kind of grumpy.
Mom had teased her about that one time when they’d camped out in a sleeping bag on the beach. Mary Jane kept punching at the lumps in the sand and finally Mom got a sand shovel from the house and dug Mary Jane a perfect oval to sleep in.
She could dig her own oval, though. She knew how. She’d use her new white tennis shoe and get it even dirtier.
When she stubbed her toe and fell down, Mary Jane didn’t really care. Her knee was scraped, but only babies cried over stuff like that. And she wasn’t a baby. She was big and strong and didn’t need any father.
Slopping along at the water’s edge, she thought about Blake Ramsden’s dog. He’d licked her. And his tongue was rough and kind of tickled. And was gross wet.
She’d always wanted a dog but Mom said they couldn’t have one because they weren’t home enough and who would feed it and train it to go potty outside and clean up on the beach when it made a mess.
Mary Jane said she would, but Mom still said no.
But so what? Mom was a liar.
And then she thought of Blake Ramsden. He’d smiled at her before she knew who he was. She’d liked him then. She’d felt all warm inside when he’d smiled, like she could have run to him if the house was on fire and he’d climb a ladder and save her mom and her dog.
Even
