the one thing she excelled in, and normally she would be a nervous wreck worrying that she might not win this year. That she’d lost her touch.
But Hank Monroe had taken her mind off the fair this year.
Which, she reminded herself sternly, wasn’t good. Baking lasted. Men didn’t. “Stick to what you’re good at,” her mother had always said. “It’s little enough.”
Arlene felt her smile slip. She was making too much of one date with the man. Getting her hopes up was always a mistake.
She’d learned that the hard way, she thought, remembering high school dates that never showed while she waited by the window and her mother berated her for opening herself up to that kind of humiliation.
By the time Arlene reached the kitchen, she was no longer smiling. She yelled down the hall for Bo to turn down the music. He didn’t. She started to tell Charlotte to go down the hall and tell him when she noticed her daughter wasn’t lying on the couch, where she usually was this time of the morning. Nor was the television on or the kitchen counter a mess from where Charlotte had made herself a snack before breakfast.
More puzzled than worried, Arlene walked down the hall to her daughter’s bedroom and pushed open the door. The bed was just as it had been when Arlene made it the previous morning.
Charlotte hadn’t come home last night.
Stepping across the hall, she opened her son’s bedroom door. The room was bedlam—just the way he apparently liked it. He’d barred her from cleaning it, which she should have been grateful for. Instead the room was an embarrassment, a reflection on her.
“What if someone comes by and sees this mess?” she’d demanded time after time.
“No one comes by,” he’d said.
“Well, if anyone did, they’d think I was a terrible mother.”
Bo had laughed at that.
“Have you seen your sister?” she mouthed now over the horrible music blasting from his stereo.
He was sprawled on his bed, frowning at her and motioning for her to go away and close the door.
She reached over and grabbed the cord on the stereo and pulled hard. The music stopped, filling the room with an abrupt deafening silence.
“What?” he demanded.
“Your sister. She didn’t come home last night.”
“So?”
“She’s eight months pregnant.”
“I noticed. But I’m not my sister’s keeper.” He reached to plug the stereo back in, but she still held the cord and jerked it back out of his grasp.
“I want you to clean your room.”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“I’m serious, Bo.”
He mugged a face at her.
“I also want you to get a job.”
He let out a surprised laugh. “I have a job. I help you with your Internet dating service.”
“No, you don’t.” She tossed him the end of the cord and closed the door behind her, telling herself she shouldn’t be worried about Charlotte.
Actually, this was just like her daughter. Charlotte had been cranky yesterday and late for her doctor’s appointment. Arlene had tried to talk to her again about putting the baby up for adoption. Charlotte hadn’t come home just to punish her.
Arlene told herself she wasn’t going to rise to Charlotte’s bait. Not this time. But she worried about the baby. That poor, innocent baby was going to need a mother—and soon.
The phone rang. “Hello.” She just assumed it would be Charlotte making ultimatums before she came home.
“Arlene?”
Just the sound of Hank Monroe’s deep voice buoyed her spirits instantly. “Hank,” she said a little breathlessly.
“Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” she said too cheerfully, hoping he didn’t hear the slight catch in her throat.
“Arlene, you can be honest with me. What’s wrong?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was going to find out sooner or later anyway. Wouldn’t it be better if it came from her? “It’s my daughter. My youngest daughter. She’s pregnant. Not married. And she didn’t come home last night.”
“Maybe she’s with her boyfriend.”
“I don’t think there is a boyfriend. At least not one who’s free.”
“I see,” he said. “How about her friends? Have you tried them?”
“She doesn’t have a lot in common with her old friends anymore.” Arlene felt her throat close and fought back the tears. Most of the time she could stand what her life had become. But revealing the truth to Hank made it more real, more sad and tragic.
“I was just getting ready to call the doctor’s office and see if anything unusual happened during her visit yesterday.”
“All right. Let me know what you find out.”
She promised she would and called the doctor’s office, only to get a recording. It was too early. She’d have to wait. And the one thing she really wasn’t good at was waiting. Grabbing her purse, she headed for the door.
THE MOMENT SHE walked into the sheriff’s office Arlene knew it was a mistake.
“Arlene,” Sheriff Carter Jackson said as he got to his feet. He didn’t look happy to see her. But then, who could blame him given the other times she’d come in raging in defense of her children over whatever trouble they’d gotten into?
“It’s Charlotte,” she said, hating that her voice broke. She always tried so hard to be strong, believing a woman alone had to be strong or the world would crush her in an instant. “She’s missing.”
“Missing,” he repeated, then motioned to the chair opposite his desk as he dropped back into his. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Arlene took the chair but teetered on the edge, too nervous to relax. She hated being forced to come here.
“Yesterday afternoon, when she left for her doctor’s appointment. She didn’t come home last night and she never made her doctor’s appointment. I just stopped by the doctor’s house. No one has seen her.”
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his jaw as he studied her. “Is it possible she’s run away?”
“No. I mean, I can’t imagine. She’s eight months pregnant.”
He nodded. “Maybe she left with
