Laura Cardinal - 01 - Darkness on the Edge of Town

After the beep, Beth’s voice— strained and anxious—came on. “I don’t know where Summer is—“

He grabbed up the phone.

“Ohmygod, Buddy, she lied to me! I can’t believe it …”

The moment he heard her voice, he knew what had happened.

She was babbling. “I dropped her off at McDonalds and that was the last—“

“Beth, stop it. You need to calm down. Tell me exactly what happened. Don’t leave anything out.”

She told him. About the friends at McDonalds. About Summer’s promise that Mrs. Lansing would drive her home at nine. He glanced at the clock. It was a little after ten now.

Summer had been gone three hours.

When she was through talking, he said, “Listen carefully. I want you to call TPD right now. Have them send someone out to the house. Ask for either White or Cheek. I’m on my way.”

“She could just be meeting a boy. Don’t you think we should look—“

“Call them. Do it now. I’ll see you in an hour and a half.”

“You don’t think—“

“We don’t have time to think. Call them.”

When he hung up the phone, he sat down and closed his eyes.

This would be the end of his career. He had to face that. But his career was, at this moment, as unmourned as the uneaten pizza in the cardboard box. It meant nothing.

One thing for sure: He wouldn’t want to live if he never saw his little girl again.

He swallowed his pride and made the two calls: one to the Tucson Police Department, the other to the Department of Public Safety. He managed to convince the people who mattered that they needed to recall Laura Cardinal from Florida—now.

By the time she arrived, he would have psyched himself up sufficiently to tell her the truth.

43

She was a wily one—a cop’s daughter—but just like the others, she’d ended up doing what he wanted. That was the secret about girls. They aimed to please. Girls could be easily pressured, talked into things—they didn’t trust their own instincts. They shut that part of themselves down because they didn’t want to appear to be uncool, or rejecting, or out of the loop. So they were malleable.

Even now, he could tell she didn’t believe it. She was still trying to apply the ways of the world she knew to this new circumstance. She’d been raised to be polite. She’d been raised to be a good girl. His heart ached for her. Politeness could be a dangerous thing in this day and age.

And yet it was what had attracted him to her. That aura of innocence. Oh, she pretended to be wise in the ways of the world, but she wasn’t. She was like a kitten with its hair standing up, making itself seem bigger than it was.

That quality—that politeness, that kindness—that was what he had loved in Misty. Sadly, Misty had grown out of it. She’d had disappointments, she’d fallen into bad ways, she did drugs, but he preferred to remember her the way she was when they were in love.

He watched Summer’s face. She was staring around, her bewilderment turning to panic.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

He kept his voice steady and low. As you would talking to a frightened animal—and really, that was what she had been reduced to. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I think I’d better go home.”

“In a minute. Just let me explain to you—“

“Where’s James?”

This was always the part he didn’t like. He hated that moment when he had to tell them the truth. Still, he had learned that it was better to get it over with rather than to scare the girl even more. “James is not coming.”

“Where is he?” She had that look in her eye now, a dawning. He reached behind him, made sure the plastic handcuffs were there, stuck down the back of his jeans. He didn’t want to use them, but he would if she didn’t see reason.

“I want to explain this to you so you understand that I have only your best interests at heart. I’m James. I’m the person you wrote to, I’m the person you fell in love with.”

Her mouth dropped open. She started for the door. “Let me out of here!”

He moved quickly and barred the doorway. She couldn’t stop herself and stumbled into him, her face almost even with his, her tiny breasts in that peasant top brushing against his chest.

That did it. He wanted her now. Right now. Wanted her badly.

He closed his eyes, sidling away from the proximity of her breasts. He couldn’t let her touch him again. If she did, that would be it. That would be it because he had such a tenuous grip now on himself now—

He slid away further. Aware that he was hard as a rock.

No, he told himself. He knew it wouldn’t work that way. It just wouldn’t. He’d learned from experience. Girls needed to be wooed. His mother had told him that.