Almost Perfect. Сьюзен Мэллери

would be gone for a couple weeks, e-mail her editor and agent to tell them the same. Logistics, she thought as she collected the notes she’d made on her current novel. She was good at logistics. The ability to plan and deal with problems was part of the reason she enjoyed writing her detective mystery series. She’d always been good at the work. It was the rest of life that caused her to stumble time after time.

      “Introspection later,” she murmured aloud. “Action now.”

      She powered off her laptop, then disconnected it from the docking station. After collecting her notes, a few pens, pads of paper and her address book, she went down the hall to her bedroom.

      A little over an hour later, she’d packed what she hoped was enough, loaded the car and gone over everything with Peggy. Her assistant would take care of the house and make sure the bills were paid.

      “Are you all right?” Peggy asked.

      “Sure. Great. Why?”

      Peggy, a forty-something former executive assistant, frowned. “Just checking. This is a lot to take in.” She hesitated. “You know if there’s no one else to take care of the girls…”

      Liz might suddenly be responsible for two nieces she’d never met. “I know. I’ll deal with that when I have more information.”

      “Mac and I went to Fool’s Gold on our honeymoon. Back when I thought marriage was a good thing. I didn’t know you were from there.”

      No one did, Liz thought grimly. She found life easier when she didn’t talk about her past. “I left right after high school and moved here. San Francisco is my home now.”

      Peggy smiled at her. “If you need anything, call me.”

      “I will.”

      Liz went downstairs to the single car garage and got into her Lexus. She’d packed four suitcases, a couple boxes with Tyler’s favorite movies, his Xbox and a handful of books. She went over the inventory because that was easier than thinking about what she was doing. Going back to the one place she never wanted to be. The town where she’d grown up.

      For a second she wondered if she really had to do this. Go rescue a couple kids she’d never met. Then she shook off the thought. Right now there wasn’t anyone else. She couldn’t leave the two girls on their own. She would deal with the problem, get it resolved and return to her life. Staying was not an option.

      Midday traffic was relatively light and she made it to Tyler’s school in about twenty minutes. He was talking to his friends, probably making plans for hanging out. When he saw her small SUV, he waved and hurried over.

      “Jason says his family’s for sure going to Disneyland in August and they’re gonna call and talk to you about me going with them,” he said as he climbed into the passenger seat.

      “Hello to you, too,” she greeted with a smile.

      He grinned. “Hi, Mom. How was your day?”

      “Interesting.”

      “Great. Now can we talk about Disneyland?”

      Her son was the brightest and best part of her life, she thought as she stared into his dark brown eyes. He had her smile, but everything else came from his father. As if her DNA hadn’t been strong enough to overpower his.

      Tyler was smart, funny, warm and caring. He had dozens of friends, an easygoing disposition and plans to be an architect when he grew up. She knew that everyone said the early teen years were the worst with boys. That by thirteen or fourteen, he would be making her life hell. But that was a problem for another time. Today, Tyler was her world.

      A world that had just been shifted off its axis and was tumbling freely through space.

      “Disneyland sounds like fun,” she agreed. “I’ll talk to Jason’s mom. If they want to take you and you want to go, then we’ll arrange it.”

      His grin widened. Then he glanced toward the back of the vehicle.

      “Whoa, are we going somewhere? Road trip?”

      She pulled into traffic, heading toward I-80. She would take it east, until she turned off to drive into Fool’s Gold.

      “Sort of,” she said and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.

      Over the years, she’d done her best not to lie to her son. Not about her past or his father. For the most part, she’d simply told him there were questions she wouldn’t answer. At four or five, he’d been easily distracted. At eight, he’d been determined to find out the truth. Now he asked less, probably because he knew he couldn’t wear her down. But she knew he wondered.

      “I got an e-mail today,” she announced. “You remember I told you that I have a brother?”

      “Uh-huh. Roy. We don’t ever see him.”

      “I know. He’s a lot older and he left when I was twelve. I woke up one morning and he was gone. I never saw him again.”

      She still remembered her mother’s sobs, made thicker and louder by the alcohol lingering in her system. From that moment on, her mother spent her life waiting for Roy to return. Nothing else had mattered, certainly not Liz.

      Liz had left town shortly after graduating high school. She’d phoned home once, a few weeks later, saying she thought she should check in and tell her mother where she was.

      “Don’t bother calling again,” had been the woman’s only response before hanging up the phone.

      “So Uncle Roy e-mailed you?”

      “Not exactly.” Liz didn’t know how much to reveal. Telling the truth was one thing, but sharing details was another. “He’s, um, in some trouble and I have to help. He has two girls. Your cousins. Melissa is fourteen and Abby is your age.”

      “I have cousins? You didn’t tell me about cousins.”

      “I didn’t know about them until today.”

      “But they’re family.”

      True enough, she thought. And the word family implied caring and connection. Maybe in most places, but not in the Sutton household. At least not until Liz had had Tyler. She’d done everything she could think of to break the cycle of neglect. She’d been determined to be a warm, loving mother, to offer her child a safe haven.

      “I didn’t know where Roy was,” she said. “He never got in touch with me after he left.” For six years, she’d waited, hoping he would come get her and take her away. Until he’d walked out, he’d always taken care of her. Been a buffer between her and her mother. Protected her from the worst of it.

      By the time she’d been old enough to go looking, she told herself she no longer cared.

      “Do they know we’re coming?” Tyler asked. “Do they know about me?”

      “Not yet, but they will. We’re going to stay with them for a couple of weeks.” She didn’t mention the fact that Roy was in prison. Time enough for that later. Nor did she discuss the possibility of the girls living with them permanently. Maybe other family could take care of them.

      “I grew up in a small town called Fool’s Gold,” she said. “It’s in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.”

      “Do they get snow?” he asked eagerly. Because at age eleven, seeing snow was about the best it could be.

      She laughed. “Probably not in June, but yes, they get snow. There’s lots to do there. Hiking, swimming. There’s a river and a lake.”

      “We could go camping.”

      She made a noncommittal noise in her throat, mostly because the thought of camping ranked right up there with being awake during open-heart surgery. Not even thinking about it was pleasant. But then she wasn’t an eleven-year-old boy. She hadn’t been fascinated by worms and dirt and play cars and plastic guns, either.