Confessions Bundle. Jo Leigh

time, insidious bitterness entered his heart. He’d managed to hold it at bay, but now…

      He felt a nudge against his hand. Cold. Wet. Reassuring. Freedom. He’d actually forgotten the dog was there.

      Thank God for Freedom.

      “I’m not leaving,” Blake said. He meant the words and would act on them, though the authorities would probably just haul him away for trespassing and zap more charges at him. Threaten more time locked away in a cell, waiting while life passed, taking with it all the opportunities he’d been born to find.

      He was not going to die incomplete.

      “I will see her.”

      “Okay.”

      Her compliance shocked him. With hair falling out of her ponytail, no makeup on her colorless face and droplets of sweat running down between her breasts, Juliet didn’t look any better than he felt.

      “Just let me go to her first,” she said. And when he moved to argue, she held up her hand. “You can stay right here. I won’t ask you to leave. But she’s only a child, Blake. You have to think of her. She’s going to need a minute to hurl hatred at me, if nothing else. And then, hopefully, she’ll be able to listen. We have to make this as easy on her as we can.”

      That note of authoritative love he’d heard in Juliet’s voice earlier came crashing back. It had been the voice of a parent.

      He was a parent.

      And as such, his daughter’s needs came before his own.

      “I’ll wait,” he said. And without another look in her direction, he turned, dropped down to the beach and stared out at one of his oldest and dearest friends—the ocean.

      He might not understand it, but he could count on it to always be there. Steadfast. Unchanging. Living by its routine day in and day out, tide in and tide out, whether he was there or not.

      Even after years away, the ocean had welcomed him home, same as always. Her shorelines might change. The boats upon her waters might change. But she did not. Ever.

      And neither would he. For as long as it took, he was going to sit there.

      “Freedom, come.”

      The dog came. Lay beside his master. Put his head down. And waited.

      “JULES?” Marcie came running through the kitchen just as Juliet came in the sliding glass door from the beach.

      “She’s gone!”

      “What?” Juliet, dreading the minutes ahead, deathly afraid that life would never be good again, stared at her twin.

      “Mary Jane’s gone!”

      “Gone?” As fear tore into her, Juliet ran through the cottage. “She can’t be gone. She just came in with you.”

      There was no sign of the girl in the living room.

      “Mary Jane McNeil, you come out here right now!” Juliet screamed so loudly her throat stung. “I mean it, young lady. Come out here, now!”

      Before this morning she’d never spoken to her daughter like that. Now it was twice in one day.

      “She went to her room,” Marcie was saying, running behind Juliet. “She shut the door and said she wanted to be alone.”

      That wasn’t unheard of. Mary Jane didn’t usually pout in public.

      “I had to go to the bathroom and when I came out, her door was open and she was gone!”

      Juliet burst into Mary Jane’s room. “Mary Jane? If you’re hiding under that bed, you’d better give it up. Now!”

      The space under the bed was empty. And the room looked surprisingly normal. As though this was any other ordinary Saturday and they’d be leaving for the grocery store any minute now.

      Until she noticed a bend in the blinds over the window.

      And once she lifted them, the open window was obvious. So was a truth Juliet didn’t think she was strong enough to withstand.

      Mary Jane had run away.

      HEARING FOOTSTEPS running in the sand behind him, Blake jumped up. He could hardly breathe as he turned around, ready to take his little girl into his arms for the first time.

      He was thinking about how furious she’d been when he’d introduced himself, almost as though she’d recognized the name and had known who he was. It didn’t make sense. But he was sure there’d be a logical explanation.

      In the meantime…

      He turned. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Juliet running toward him, alone, with a face so pinched it was almost unrecognizable.

      By the time she reached him, the blood was pumping painfully through his veins.

      “She’s run away!” Juliet’s terror was a horrible thing to see. And contagious.

      A little girl out in the world alone. He shivered with cold and fury against all the unknown evils that could befall his child. And he was shocked at his own reaction—as though he’d been a parent far longer than this mere half hour.

      “Call the police,” he barked out.

      “Marcie already is. And calling some neighbors and friends, too, to start a search.”

      He nodded. “Fine, but it’ll take too long for them to get here. We can’t wait that long.”

      “I know.” Juliet swallowed. “I think she climbed out her window.”

      She pointed to the side of the cottage blocked from view by a little patch of trees.

      He nodded and pushed aside any feelings he might at one time have had for her. “I’ll take the beach. This direction.” He pointed up the beach, where the child would have come out through the trees. “You and Marcie take the street. You go one way and tell her to take the other.”

      Looking like a lost little girl instead of the powerful defense attorney he knew her to be, Juliet nodded. “I’ll take my cell phone. Marcie’ll have hers, too.”

      “Mine’s back in my car,” Blake said. But he wasn’t losing a second to go back for it. “Honk a car horn three times if someone finds her and I’ll know to come back. Depending on how long I’m gone, you might have to drive up the road a bit for me to hear.”

      She glanced at him once more, and nodded. Blake refused to take the comfort she was offering. Or to give her what she needed, either.

      He just didn’t have it.

      “Can Freedom stay inside?”

      “Of course.”

      “Go, boy,” Blake said, grabbing the dog’s collar and handing him over to Juliet.

      They hadn’t even turned around before he was hiking up the beach.

      SHE JUST WANTED to spit. And…and…anything else that would hurt her mother’s feelings. Tromping along in the sand, making huge big footprints because she was so mad and stepping so hard, she stared at the ground. She wouldn’t look at the water at all.

      Mom always told her to look at the water. And to know that there was no end to what she could do with her life. And no end to hope. Or to love, either.

      Mom was a stupid liar.

      She almost stepped on a pretty, perfect shell. It was pink and all shiny with different colors in the sun. Mom’s favorite kind. They always picked up and saved those ones. Mary Jane thought about stomping on it, but she didn’t want some kid in bare feet to come later and step on it and get cut. She hated that.

      Instead, she picked it up and threw it as hard as she could, far out into the water where Mom could never ever find it, even if she wanted it badly enough.