A Full House. Nadia Nichols

street to avoid—an unshaved vagrant dressed in throw-away clothes and sporting long, unkempt hair. He had one hand braced against the wall, the other on his hip, and his body was curved in a lazy slouch as he listened, head down, while Sally talked. What on earth could Sally be discussing with a bum like that?

      Annie felt a surge of outrage as she marched up to the officer seated at the desk and pointed in disbelief. “Would you mind telling me why that degenerate is talking to my daughter?” she blurted angrily. “He shouldn’t even be in the same room with her! I see his kind in the ER all the time, shot up and cut up, costing the taxpayers big bucks for us to patch their holes so they can go back out on the streets and sell their drugs to young innocent kids like…like these.” Annie gestured to the young occupants, thinking to herself that her daughter was undoubtedly the only innocent among them.

      The uniformed officer sat quietly through her angry outburst, then raised one hand in a calming gesture. “That degenerate is Lieutenant Macpherson, the arresting officer.” The cop reached for some papers and pushed them across the desk toward her. “I assume you’re here to sign for your daughter’s release?”

      Annie flushed at his words. She could feel the band of pain tightening in her temples as she crossed the room and regarded both her daughter and the man she’d been talking to. “I understand you’re the…the officer who arrested my daughter,” she said to Lieutenant Macpherson who had straightened out of his slouch at her approach. Up close she could see his hair was a dark tawny color and his eyes were pale. Blue or gray, she couldn’t quite tell, but they were clear, keen, intelligent eyes.

      “That’s right,” he said. “I’d like to speak with you in private, if I may, before you take your daughter home.”

      “I’m sure there’s been some mistake,” Annie said. “Sally doesn’t belong in here.”

      “Oh, but she does,” Macpherson contradicted in a maddeningly mild voice. “She was in a vehicle full of kids smoking pot. I just happened to be working a stakeout when they stopped to ask me where they could buy some more.” He shrugged. “Guess I look like the type that would know. I brought them in. They’re a lot safer here than they were in that part of town.”

      Annie stared at him, her face burning and her heart beating loudly in her ears. She turned to Sally. “Is that true?”

      Sally kept her eyes fixed on the floor. “Yes,” she said in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

      Annie stared at the other kids. Five of them, all older than Sally. Two girls, three boys. One of the boys was perilously close to manhood, and when he glanced at Sally, Annie frowned. “Are you Tom?” she asked. At his sullen nod, her blood pressure climbed another notch. “Sally, you told me that Tom was your age and that he was on the honor role.” Aspirin. She needed a handful of aspirin…and a stiff drink.

      “Dr. Crawford,” Macpherson said, shoulders rounding as he shoved his hands into his jeans’ pockets. “It’s important that I speak with you privately.”

      Annie followed him reluctantly into the corridor, where he paused near the water fountain. He was tall, she noticed, having to look up to meet his eyes, and well built. “Once you sign for her release, you can take Sally home. She’ll need to be present at a court hearing, and the juvenile officer will explain that to you.” He hesitated for a moment. “We’d also like her to sign an agreement stating that she’ll have no further contact with Tom Ward. That boy’s only seventeen years old but his police record spans four years and includes shoplifting, vandalism and drug trafficking on school grounds.” Annie’s blood pressure soared to new heights at his words.

      “Because this is Sally’s first offense,” Macpherson continued, “we’re recommending that she attend a ten-hour program held at her school for two hours every Tuesday evening. It’s called Jump Start and its purpose is to deter young people from getting into any more trouble.”

      “I can assure you Sally will never step foot in a precinct house again,” Annie said grimly.

      Macpherson nodded. “Probably not. She seems like a good kid and she’s pretty shaken up right now, but this program will make her understand the repercussions of bad behavior.”

      “All right,” Annie agreed.

      “I talked to Sally for a little while because she obviously didn’t belong with the rest of those kids. Her biggest fear right now is that you’ll be so mad you won’t let her visit her father this summer.”

      “She told you that?”

      Macpherson nodded. Annie’s stomach churned and her head pounded. She drew a deep, even breath. “Well, she’s right,” she said.

      “I think that would be a mistake,” Macpherson said.

      “Really.” Annie had to resist the urge to slap his arrogant, unshaved face.

      “From what she told me, she misses him a great deal. Maybe I’m speaking out of place, but I have a daughter, too, Dr. Crawford. She lives with her mother in Los Angeles. I talk to her on the phone as often as I can, but it isn’t the same as being there.”

      “Then might I suggest you move to California, Lieutenant,” Annie said. “That’s what any caring father would do.” She turned her back on him and returned to the room where Sally waited with the other teenagers. “You,” she said coolly to her daughter after signing all the appropriate release forms, “are under house arrest.” She paused. “For the rest of your life.”

      They rode home in silence. There was nothing that Annie could say to bridge the awful void. Her thoughts were a chaos of conflicting emotions. Sally was unhurt. It could have turned out much worse. But how had she snuck out of the apartment past the night watchman? How could Ana Lise have let this happen?

      Four in the morning and Ana Lise was waiting for them. She had made coffee, and the smell of it bolstered Annie’s flagging spirits. Ana Lise made rich, marvelous coffee. She took the offered cup and motioned Sally into the living room. “Sit,” she said wearily. “We need to talk.” She sank onto the couch while Sally perched uneasily on the edge of a chair. “How did you get out of the apartment?”

      Sally’s eyes dropped. “I climbed into the dumbwaiter.”

      “You climbed into the dumbwaiter,” Annie repeated woodenly. “You had prearranged plans to meet Tom and his friends and go out joyriding on a Saturday night to smoke some dope and get high.”

      “Mom…”

      “Sally, you’re just thirteen years old.”

      “So what? I’m not a baby,” Sally said, becoming sullen.

      “Then why are you acting like one?” Annie rose from the couch and paced across the room, clutching her half-empty coffee cup. Gray hairs, she thought. Millions of them. I’m well on my way to total gray and damn close to being forty years old… “Where did you meet those kids, and how long have you been hanging around with them?”

      “Tom’s Melanie’s brother. He’s really nice…”

      “Nice? Is that how you describe a guy who lures you out in the middle of the night and gets you arrested? A guy who has a four-year police record that includes selling drugs on school property? How can I ever trust you again? How can I ever leave here and not wonder where you are when 2:00 a.m. rolls around?”

      “It’s not Tom’s fault. He didn’t do all those things they said.”

      “No, of course not. Tell me something. Has he told you about the birds and the bees yet? Has he told you that girls can’t get pregnant the first time they have sex? That if he can’t have sex with you he’ll find someone else who really cares about him?”

      Sally’s body language became increasingly defiant. “It’s not like that.”

      Annie’s eyes lasered her daughter’s. “It had better not be. I don’t want you seeing him ever again.” She turned her back on her daughter and paced to the window.