Reason To Believe Read Free

set her straight."
    He saw her stare and raised her one cocked eyebrow. "I'd only be guessing."
    "Yes, well..."
    She folded, sinking slowly into an overstuffed brocade chair. Her fluttery gesture invited him to occupy the matching one, so he took a tentative seat on the chair's front edge. They'd called them the mama and papa chairs. He wondered when she'd had them reupholstered.
    "She's so much like you, it's scary, Ben. She's reckless. She takes awful chances just to prove..." The small, pale hand made another powerless gesture. "Whatever it is she's trying to prove. Independence, maybe."
    There was something a little scary about Clara's apparent undoing, even if it was only temporary. She was not easily undone.
    "Maybe she's not trying to prove anything. Maybe she's not thinking all that straight. Did you check with security at the malls?"
    "No. I checked all the fast-food places and searched the stores she goes to. I looked all over."
    "All over?" She probably believed her own bullshit, too, but the fact was, he'd never known Clara to look carefully for anything. He gave a knowing smile. "What you did was, you marched up one side and down the other, blinders cuttin' off your view and smoke rollin' out your ears so you couldn't hear a damn freight train howling at your heels."
    "That's not true at all, but I'll tell you what is true." She wagged a finger at him, and he silently congratulated himself for getting her back up so quickly, with added starch. "You have no idea what it's like to worry about someone else's safety and well-being, to be angry because they don't have sense enough to call home, and then to feel scared because—" Her finger came down, and her gaze drifted to the clock on the mantel. "Because there's always the remote chance that something terrible might have happened."
    "If it's so damned remote, why is it always the first thing that comes into your head? Can't you just..."
    She slashed at his throat with her eyes.
    He surrendered with a sigh. "Jesus, here we go." He closed his eyes briefly, regrouping. "Look, I'm sorry. I don't want to argue."
    "Then let's just stick to the problem at hand, which is finding our daughter."
    "I'll make the rounds again while you stay by the phone. Maybe she saw you coming, and she just ducked out of sight."
    "And I suppose if she sees you, she'll come running."
    "She's just a kid, Clara. Who knows what kind of a game she's playing?"
    Her smile was slight and smug. "Her father wouldn't, that's for sure."
    "Looks like she's got her mother buffaloed, too."
    "Like father, like daughter."
    "You wanna back off, just a little?" Her eyes said no. He braced his hands on his knees and pushed to his feet. "Forget it. I'm outta here. I'll call you if I find her. If I don't..."
    "Call me anyway."
    The soft plea drew his head around. Her eyes pleaded, too, and he nodded.
    "If I have to go to the police..."
    He was sure she'd never so much as pocketed a pen at a cash register. The policeman is your friend, she used to tell Annie. But now she seemed to have some misgivings about that. That, too, he could see in her eyes. "If it comes to that, I'll do it," he said.
    "She's already on probation," she said sadly, then added, "Sort of."
    "Sort of?"
    She shrugged. She looked devastated, on the verge of tears. It wasn't the time to ask for more details. "You just stay by the phone."
     
    He stopped at each of the places Clara had already covered, made himself clearly visible for a time, then moved on. He knew his best hope was not finding but being found, assuming Annie really did want to see him. That was the case he chose to presume, even though he was probably stretching it to suit his own needs.
    He figured Annie was probably having a good time somewhere, and since she was on her own turf, she wasn't going to turn up until she was ready. He knew the game well. He'd played it a lot himself. The futility of the search frustrated him, but he didn't know what else to do. He was a relative