Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I moved to the side and gestured for Winnie to go in. “In case she wakes up.”
Winnie snorted. “Her brother likes to come in her room at night. I highly doubt that she’s going to do that.”
Me, either, but it was always safer to be cautious.
I’d learned that after twenty plus years of being on a police force, and eight years of being in the Army.
Winnie pushed open the door and gasped.
“She’s not here.”
I followed her and felt my stomach drop.
“I’ll put a BOLO on her,” I muttered, taking one last long glance around the room before marching down the hall toward the bedroom and my phone.
“Did you know that there are thirty-two ways to fold a piece of paper and make it look like a dolphin?”
For the first time ever, I didn’t stop to acknowledge Cody.
***
Two hours later, I sat on the arm of the couch and waited for Conleigh to finish sneaking her way in through the kitchen window.
Winnie was in the kitchen chair but scooted up against the wall of the kitchen right underneath the light switch. Her fingers were hovering over the switch, and she was glaring at Conleigh.
At least, that was what I assumed she was doing.
I wasn’t glaring.
I was scared.
I was scared for Conleigh. I was worried that she was in over her head, and I was disappointed.
Disappointed that she’d done this when she knew it’d freak her mother out.
And, if I was being honest, I was hurt.
I was hurt that she was doing this when I’d gone out of my way to make sure she was safe. To make sure that she wasn’t in trouble and had a job.
It was like she was spitting on my generosity.
Conleigh’s flip-flops hit the floor, and Winnie finally hit the lights.
Conleigh gasped and turned, seeing first her mother, and then me farther beyond.
“Mom…”
“You’re grounded.”
Conleigh opened her mouth and said, “That’s not fair!”
“You have a lot to learn.” Winnie stood up, her feet a little sluggish, showing her growing tiredness. “And one of those lessons is this: you’re grounded until I see fit to unground you. That means school, home, and work, if you have it, and then you come straight home. I’ll be revising your admin capability on the alarm, and from what I heard when I signed up, I can give you a password input that’ll tell me when you leave and when you arrive. So that means no more sneaking out in the middle of the night.”
Conleigh looked flabbergasted.
I stayed where I was, not wanting to get into the middle of it.
I loved these two girls in front of me, but Winnie was her mother. I was just the boyfriend of her mother, not anything to Conleigh yet.
At least, I thought.
Then Winnie pointed at me.
“He had officers out looking for you. He used police resources. He WENT OUT HIMSELF. He was gone all night long, and I woke him up an hour into him sleeping to show him the crap I found on your computer—a computer that you will no longer have, by the way. He read it all right alongside me, and then immediately got into his car and started looking for you once we realized you were gone. He’s more than gone out of his way to help you, and you’ve repaid his generosity by doing this?”
Conleigh looked at me like her favorite thing in the world had been stolen away from her, right out of her hands.
And I couldn’t figure out if it was because Winnie had taken her computer away or had grounded her.
Then Conleigh surprised me.
“I’m sorry,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I never meant to scare you.”
I felt like the wind was knocked out of me.
“You should be. Because you just made one of the biggest mistakes of your life. Do you even know who this man is that you’ve snuck out to see?”
“His name is Andy.”
“Andy Anderson doesn’t exist,” I said, breaking the silence. “I searched for him through the police database. No one named Andy Anderson, or anyone with the last name Anderson, graduated from the high school last year under that name. Or any other year, in fact. This man you’re dating isn’t who he says he is.”
“You’re…you’re kidding.” She swallowed
I shook my head.
“You could’ve been raped,” Winnie said. “You could’ve been raped, then killed, and I never would’ve known you were gone until tomorrow morning when I tried to wake you up for school.”
Conleigh’s tears slipped free. “But Mom, I’m okay.”
“Sure, right now,” Winnie said, swiping away her own angry tears. “But who’s to say that wouldn’t have been a different story tomorrow? What if we hadn’t found out today? This could’ve gone really badly, Conleigh. I can’t even begin to count the ways.”
“You don’t know Andy.”
“No,” I agreed. “You’re right. We don’t, and that’s the problem here. This boy, whoever he is, isn’t who he says he is. Right now, we don’t know what he looks like. His real name, or whether he’s even nineteen like he says he is. Is he even from here?”