that your mom?” Kayla asked in an overly loud whisper.
“Yeah.”
“Why’s she driving your Jeep?”
Dawn shrugged. “Left her car keys someplace today and had to catch a ride home with, uh…a friend, I guess.”
“Good thing we left the party early.”
“Not early enough.” Dawn rubbed her arms, the possibility of getting caught adding to the chill of the crisp October night air. Wondering where her mom had been in the wee hours of the morning gave her an even deeper chill. She’d overheard part of a phone call earlier tonight, before her mom had left for her first late-night meeting or whatever. Dawn had picked up the upstairs extension and heard her mother say, “You won’t quit until you destroy me utterly, will you, Harry?” and a man reply, “Not utterly, Jewel. I don’t want to kill the golden goose, you know.” Her mother’s reply to that had been, “Fine, eleven, then.” And then she’d hung up the phone.
Dawn knew her mother had secrets. She’d always had secrets, things that Dawn knew were best not asked about. She didn’t ask about her father, for instance. Julie would only say they’d both been teens, and that he’d been killed in a car accident before Julie had even realized she was pregnant. His family were devoutly religious, and telling them of Dawn’s existence would only have added to their pain. To push for more information only wound up with one or both of them getting angry, the same result that came of asking too many questions about Julie’s side of the family.
Dawn often thought she was probably adopted. It would explain her mom’s secrets, and it would explain how Julie could be so dark that she must have Latin blood, while Dawn herself was as pale as a daisy. She was going to ask about it someday, but privately she thought it wasn’t half as important as Julie seemed to think it was. It wouldn’t change anything.
Dawn loved her mother, secrets and all. But this was the first time she’d had this sickening feeling that one of her mom’s secrets might be dangerous, or that she might be in trouble because of them.
“Where do you suppose she went?” Kayla asked softly.
Dawn shook herself out of her thoughts, focused on the present situation and shrugged. “There was probably breaking news somewhere,” she lied. She knew better, though. Her mom didn’t go out to cover breaking news in jeans and a sweatshirt. It was a running joke how fast she could make herself ready to go on the air. Five minutes with a makeup mirror and a compact would be plenty, in a pinch.
“You’d better get back in there, Dawnie, before she realizes you’re gone.”
Dawn saw her bedroom light come on and swallowed hard. “Too late,” she said, her heart falling to somewhere in the region of her stomach. “You might as well go home. There’s no sense in both of us getting caught. Your dad would kill you.”
Kayla nodded. “My dad’s a cop, and he’s not as good a snoop as your mother is.” She sighed. “Call me in the morning,” she said, then she ran off into the darkness.
Dawn squared her shoulders and walked toward the house. She thought about going around to the back and climbing in through her bedroom window but decided against it. It would only make her mother angrier. Instead she went to the front door and used her spare key to let herself in.
Before she’d even closed and locked the door behind her, her mother’s steps came rapidly down the stairs. “Dawnie?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Mom.”
Julie appeared in the foyer, then lunged at Dawn and wrapped her in a fierce bear hug that squeezed the breath from her lungs. “My God, I was so worried,” she said, her voice quivering with relief and love.
Then, just as suddenly, she released Dawn from the mamma-bear-hug and stepped back to stare at her. The motherly relief in her eyes faded fast, and her voice took on a firmer, sharper tone. “Just where have you been, young lady?”
Dawn took a breath, lifted her chin. Her mother detested lies above all things, which was kind of ironic, considering, Dawn thought a little rebelliously. Still, she knew it would be best to just get the truth out and face the music. “Okay,” she said. “I snuck out. I’m sorry. It was wrong, and it’ll never happen again.”
“Snuck out where? And with whom?”
Heaven help the sixteen-year-old with a reporter for a mom, she thought. Julie Jones didn’t know how to accept anything less than who, what, where, when, why and how from anyone. Especially her own kid.
“Come on, Mom, it was a mistake. I’m sixteen. I’m not a little kid anymore, and I said I was sorry.”
“Dawn.” There was that warning tone in her voice, the one Dawn knew not to mess with.
“All right,” she said with a heavy sigh. “If you must know every detail, there was a party on the lakeshore, down by the landing. A bunch of kids, a little bonfire, a boom box and a pile of CDs. I left after you went to bed and walked down there with a friend. A female friend, but I’m not going to tell you which one, because if I do, you’ll call her mom and get her into trouble, too. Consider it protecting a source.”
Her mother lifted her perfectly shaped eyebrows and gave two slow blinks of her pretty brown eyes that told Dawn she was treading on thin ice. “Was there alcohol at this party?”
“Not at first. About an hour ago a carload of kids from F. M. high showed up with a couple of cases. Things started getting a little crazy, so my friend and I decided to leave.”
“It was Kayla Matthews, wasn’t it?”
Dawn didn’t answer. “I didn’t drink, Mom. Smell.” She blew toward her mother’s face.
Her mother actually took her up on the offer and sniffed her breath, then seemed only slightly relieved. “What else? Were there drugs?”
Dawn licked her lips, lowered her eyes. “I thought I caught a whiff of weed just before we took off, but I didn’t see it.”
“I see.”
“Mom, it was just harmless fun. I didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, aside from the sneaking out without asking.” She lifted her head, thinking fast. “Besides, you snuck out tonight, too. In my Jeep.”
Her mother’s eyes widened just enough to tell Dawn she wasn’t supposed to know about her little midnight run. “Dawnie, you were on foot, in the dark, without me even knowing you’d left. Suppose, on your way down to that party, you and Kayla had encountered a predator?”
“I never said Kayla was with me!” Her mom didn’t even pause.
“Suppose some fiftysomething pervert with a taste for teenage girls had happened by? Would there have been any harm then? My God, I wouldn’t even have known you were missing until morning!”
“Oh, come on, you knew I was missing the second you came home from wherever you were tonight. You don’t miss a thing. Besides, I wasn’t alone, and nothing happened.”
“Don’t you even watch the news I have to read every night, Dawnie? Don’t you realize what kind of risk you were taking?” Sighing, shaking her head, she turned and walked
