Because Of A Girl. Janice Kay Johnson

       CHAPTER ONE

      “YOU ARE SERIOUSLY telling me you won’t even take a report?”

      The woman arguing with the desk sergeant caught Jack Moore’s attention. He’d come out from the back because someone claiming to be a witness to a carjacking was here to talk to him as detective on the case. The crime had been ugly, and he had stayed late at the station even if it was Friday night. As with a homicide, the more time passed, the less likely an arrest would ever be made.

      Surely this wasn’t his witness?

      She was so intensely focused on Sergeant Todd, she wasn’t noticing anyone else.

      Used to dealing with distraught people, his colleague said calmly, “Ma’am, you say you saw her this morning. She hasn’t even been gone overnight.”

      Whatever she was here for had nothing to do with Jack, then, at least until a missing persons report was filed. And the sergeant was right; most people who went missing turned up on their own. The police department couldn’t waste resources chasing people who had chosen to run away from their lives.

      Even so, curiosity made him pause, his hand still on the waist-high swinging door partway down the long counter, to find out why this particular woman was so hot and bothered.

      “Sabra is fifteen years old and six months pregnant. That means she’s exceptionally vulnerable.”

      Yeah, it did, Jack thought.

      “She’s an age that’s moody,” the sergeant pointed out. “Chances are good she’s at a friend’s house.” He shrugged. “Probably the boyfriend’s place.”

      “I have tried calling every friend I know of.” The woman’s voice held a faint tremor now. “Unfortunately, Sabra has been unwilling to tell anyone who the father of her baby is.”

      “Well, then,” the sergeant said, as if there was the answer.

      In a way, it was. The kid hadn’t even been gone twenty-four hours? Hard to get excited unless there was a solid reason to suspect an abduction. A fifteen-year-old girl who was pregnant? Volatile as gunpowder.

      Jack became uncomfortably aware that he was loitering not because the story was interesting, but because the woman was. She had glossy hair of a color that made him think of desert sandstone, confined in the fattest braid he’d ever seen. It lay over her shoulder and reached below her breasts. Big, greenish-hazel eyes shimmered with intensity. Medium height, she had enough curves to explain why he was still hanging around for no really good reason.

      He didn’t much like the batik skirt she had on. It was a dark sea green that shaded to almost cream around the hem, which was at midcalf. She wore clunky boots below it and on top what might be a man’s white shirt over some kind of camisole. He wasn’t a big fan of multiple piercings, either, and there were three earrings in the ear he could see.

      While he appraised her, she and Sergeant Todd had apparently concluded their standoff. She gave an angry huff, turned so fast the skirt swirled and strode out of the police station with long strides. The heels of her boots came down in a hard staccato that would have told anyone, absent the rest of the scene, that she was pissed.

      Both cops watched her yank open the door and stomp out. Then the sergeant glanced at Jack and grinned. “Not a happy lady.”

      “No shit. Is it her kid that’s pregnant?” Though she didn’t look old enough to have a teenager.

      Todd shook his head. “A friend of her daughter’s, from the sound of it. Man. If Kelly turned up pregnant at fifteen, I’d chain her to her bed.” He seemed to mull that over, for good reason since his daughter had just turned thirteen. “Maybe I should chain her now.”

      Laughing, Jack started in motion again. The low, swinging door closed behind him.

      “The lady you’re looking for is off in that corner.” The sergeant jerked his chin that direction.

      Lady? More like a teenager. Jack assessed the thin, anxious-looking girl who stared fixedly at the entrance. Because she wanted to run? Or because she was afraid of who might come through the doors?

      When he stopped in front of her, she jerked and swung a panicky look at him.

      He introduced himself. Then, although there was enough privacy for them to have talked out here, he suggested they go back to his desk.

      She jumped to her feet. “Thank you.”

      When he asked what worried her, she said, “If some friend of his sees me, I’m dead.” Once he had her seated in front of his desk, Jack bought her a cold can of Coke and made friendly conversation until she loosened up a little. At this time in the evening, they had the detective unit to themselves, although there were still occasional passers-by in the hall. He left the door open to avoid alarming her.

      Sometimes he could tell just from looking at someone that her life hadn’t been easy. Robin Buckley was classic: too skinny, with rounded shoulders and stooped posture. She gazed down at her hands on her lap more than she did at him. Nobody had ever taken her to an orthodontist. Even so, she might have been pretty if hopelessness wasn’t so apparent in her eyes.

      At last, she sneaked a desperate look at Jack and said, “This is all my fault. If I’d waited for him...”

      Waited? “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” he suggested. “You know who committed the robbery and carjacking.”

      She nodded, face pinched. “He’s my boyfriend. Was my boyfriend, I guess. I mean, I was living with him, but now I don’t know what I’ll do.” She took a deep breath. “His name is Dustin Tackett.”

      “You told the desk sergeant you saw the carjacking.”

      She pressed her lips together and nodded.

      “Tell me how that came about,” he asked gently. He’d chosen to half sit on the front of his desk, one foot braced on the floor, rather than plant himself behind it like a stern principal judging a wayward student. The technique seemed to relax people.

      The story came out in fits and starts. She’d driven the boyfriend to the convenience store and waited in the car while he went in. What he hadn’t told her was that he carried a gun under his denim shirt and planned a holdup. Through the glass front of the store, she saw him pointing the gun at a young clerk. Scared and shocked, she’d put the car into Reverse, rocketed out of the parking spot and accelerated away. He came racing out and chased her to the street before apparently deciding he wouldn’t catch her.

      “He was so mad,” she said softly.

      To her horror, he jumped into another car idling in front of the store.

      “I stopped because, well, I thought maybe it would be better if I didn’t leave.” She bowed her head, lank brown hair veiling her expression. The hopelessness he’d seen in her eyes leaked from her voice. “Because I didn’t know where to go.”

      Jack