The Prodigal's Return

Still, he took a deep breath, enjoying the blend of citrus and rose and something much more exotic that filled the squad car.

“This is the second time today I’ve had a lady in the front seat of the car. A new record,” he said, trying to make small talk.

“Better than the back seat, like a suspect, anyway.” When she smiled, she looked younger and less elegant.

“True. Although if you hadn’t had that checkbook, maybe you’d be riding in the back seat by now.”

“From what little I’ve seen of you so far, Acting Sheriff Jordan, I imagine I would. You’d be the last one to cut me any slack because of who I am.”

“Would you expect me to?”

“No.” Her voice still held a note of laughter. “Nobody else in town ever has. Dad stopped paying any of us allowance after we turned sixteen, and just paid our traffic tickets, instead. He said it wasn’t any more expensive. At least, until Carrie came along.”

“You, I expect, were the calm one.” Where had that come from? And why did he want to know so badly?

“To a point. I never hit that teenage rebellion stage. At least, not until I came home from my first semester at junior college and announced I wanted to marry one of the professors.”

“I cannot even imagine what Hank said about that.”

“And you don’t want to. It was probably two years after the wedding before my dad and Sam had a civil conversation. Of course, by then we had moved out to California and the distance alone was driving Dad crazy.”

“It’s hard to be apart from your family.”

She turned to look at him, her expression growing thoughtful. “You sound like you know something about that.”

“I do. I’ve got a thirteen-year-old daughter back in St. Louis. She lives with her grandmother, and I only see her about twice a month.”

Her expression held sympathy, but not pity. Tripp’s opinion of this woman was improving the more time they spent together.

“That’s not very often. Especially at that age. I’m sorry.”

“It’s the way life works— And we’re here.” Tripp tried not to sound sharp. But the last thing he wanted right now was sympathy from Hank’s daughter.

“Well, okay. Thanks.”

She didn’t seem to know what else to say. That was a switch. Laurel Harrison didn’t look like the type to be short on words too often.

She started to slide out the passenger side, then turned. “Do you need to come in and tell Max to give me the car?”

“No. Just show him that receipt Verna made up. He said that was good enough for him. Of course, that was when he thought Sam would be carrying it himself. But I think he’ll recognize you.”

“He’d better. His younger brother took me to the junior prom.”

“Then I suppose you can work things out by yourself. And keep that car legally parked now, you hear?”

“Don’t worry. I can’t afford another ticket. Or another tow job. I’m supposed to be keeping Mr. Sam out of trouble, not getting myself in trouble.”

She closed the car door and walked toward the gas station with as much dignity as if she were walking down a fashion runway. Tripp had to admit, he was enjoying the view of her retreat.

As she disappeared, Tripp tried to figure out what it was that intrigued him so. Maybe it was the fact she was so different from most of the women he knew. Everything about her was quiet, understated, but terribly expensive.

He pulled away from the Gas ’n’ Go, still musing on their differences. Laurel’s family could keep a Cadillac for decades, while he couldn’t hold on to anything for long. Even the important stuff, like his wife, his daughter and his home, had slipped away from him. Of course, not all of that was his fault alone. It took two to make or break a marriage, and Rose Simms Jordan had done her share of both. How had he ever expected that sweet girl, born worrier that she was, to handle being married to a cop?

She’d been a basket case from day one, panicky if he was ten minutes late, calling the station house a dozen times a shift. Once Ashleigh was born, the situation got even worse. Tripp was almost grateful when the day came that Rose claimed she couldn’t handle another day worrying about him, and went back to her mother. Being the practical sort, Pearl Simms took her back.

Of course, he’d always expected that Rose would grow up and come to her senses, and that they’d get back together. Marriage was a forever thing, wasn’t it? He’d always thought so before his fell apart. Instead, she seemed quite content to live with her mother and daughter in a safe, quiet household where she didn’t fret every moment about Tripp Jordan and the possibility of his getting shot, stabbed or mangled.

Ashleigh grew from a preschooler to a young lady, while her parents became more and more distant. Even after that divorce Rose had insisted on, when his daughter was nine, they were still friendly for Ashleigh’s sake. Their daughter never saw them squabble, and Tripp could say that he’d never said a bad word about Rose in front of the child. If Rose had ever put him down in front of Ash, it had never gotten back to him. Things probably would have drifted along like that for another decade, if it weren’t for Rose’s health.

Why had she spent all her time worrying about everybody else, and not enough about herself? Tripp still asked himself that question on a regular basis. If they had still been living together, would he have picked up on the fact that she was having more frequent and increasingly severe headaches? Probably not. She had always been good at hiding her own discomfort and focusing on him.

There wasn’t even any record of her having been to a doctor before the morning she collapsed at work. And both Rose’s mother and Ashleigh agreed that Rose had never complained. The doctors called it a “cerebral accident.” Whatever it was, it destroyed the person that Tripp remembered as Rose. Someone else lingered, unresponsive for a week. There was a lot of talk about brain death and lack of quality of life, and Tripp was very thankful at that moment that he was not the one legally responsible for making the decision that Pearl ended up making.

Maybe after that he should have insisted Ashleigh come live with him. But he couldn’t tear the child away from the only stability she knew, even if it no longer included her mother. Rose’s mom was already helping raise his daughter. As much as he wanted Ashleigh with him, her sense of security was more important.

He knew firsthand what an unstable home life did to a kid. Besides, he didn’t know anything about raising a girl. Especially not now, in the thorny teenage years. Just keeping her from throwing a major sulk or a full-blown teary scene in their limited time together was nearly impossible. What would he do with her twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? They’d both be wrecks.

It wasn’t nearly as easy now that he was in Friedens and she was in St. Louis. It took more of an effort to connect with his daughter each time they got together. Still, they did connect, even though it wasn’t always easy. And he’d take a bullet to the heart before he’d give up his bond with Ash.

Tripp was almost to the office when he noticed something unusual. At least, it was unusual for Friedens. There was a kid on a skateboard messing around on the stairs of the public library.

Something about the rangy, skinny kid struck a chord in Tripp. He’d been that kind of kid, daring the world to knock the chip off his shoulder. Those shoulders were bowed in for protection, and the kid wasn’t used to his growing body just yet. What was he—maybe fourteen or fifteen? It wasn’t an age Tripp would wish on anybody, that was certain.

There weren’t any No Skateboarding signs posted in Friedens, so he couldn’t just stop the car and tell the kid he was breaking the law. The young man was no novice at what he was doing; that was evident in the way he sized up the metal rail on the staircase for a trick. If he knew how to slide down a metal stair rail on that thing, he also knew enough to argue that if there wasn’t a sign posted, he wasn’t doing anything illegal.

Tripp didn’t have it in for the kid. He just wanted to talk to him, find out where had he come from, and what he was doing in Friedens. It wasn’t exactly a hangout for city kids in search of entertainment.

Tripp knew he was attracting attention by traveling this slowly down the street. Everybody for three blocks would slow down with him, leery of doing something to get a ticket from the acting sheriff. So he sped up a little and cruised on past. He’d go park the car and come back on foot. All the better to talk to the unknown young man, anyway. No sense in giving the kid a reason to dislike him right off the bat. And as Tripp remembered from the city well enough, skateboarders didn’t need another reason to dislike or distrust an officer of the law.

Laurel felt like a guilty teenager sneaking in after curfew. She pulled Lurlene into the garage and looked for any evidence that might tell Sam about the car’s little adventure. She didn’t see anything. She retrieved her packages from the trunk and crossed the distance from the detached garage to the old Victorian house.

“I’m home. Anybody here?” The house felt empty. There was no music playing. Mr. Sam would have had big band or jazz playing on the console stereo that was almost as big as Lurlene. Jeremy would have found an alternative rock station for his radio, or put on a CD. No, there was no sound in here aside from the hum of the air conditioner.

Laurel peeked in each room on the first floor of the house as she passed by. Nobody in the parlor, which she expected. The dining room sat in empty majesty, heavy mahogany furniture as ostentatious as a dowager in a hat. Only when she got to the kitchen in the back were there any signs of life.

Even then it was just Mr. Sam’s old cat Buster, curled up on the middle of the kitchen table. That alerted her as nothing else did that no one was home. Mr. Sam loved that cat, but not enough to tolerate his presence on the kitchen table. She looked again, and saw a sheet of yellow legal pad under the cat’s wide rump. He made a grumble of discontent when she eased the paper out from under him to read what was written there.

“Out of milk. Gone to get some. Back by three.” It wasn’t signed, but with handwriting that bad, Mr. Sam didn’t need to sign his notes.

Laurel looked at her watch. It was past four now. Where were the guys? Pulling the car keys out of her purse, she headed for the front door again. Visions of Mr. Sam falling ill on the way home from the store crowded into her worried mind, tumbling on top of images of Jeremy getting in trouble or hurt in town somewhere.

“Lord, protect them both,” she said out loud. “At least, until I can find them and fuss at them if they’re all right.”

She knew it wasn’t the world’s sanest prayer. But it was one that she knew mothers had been saying for hundreds of years.

She was going to have to call Gina when she got home, or e-mail her, to share this latest news with a sympathetic soul. Laurel headed for the car so she could find Jeremy and his grandfather before her imagination ran away with her.

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