Everything You Are(47)

God. He can’t let her turn out like him.

“Can you wait?” he asks as he gets out of the car.

“Happy to!” Val is in her element, probably, watching all of this human drama.

The woman haranguing one of the cops on the front porch would make a perfect stereotypical character for Val’s book. Little black dress with artificially enhanced cleavage. Botox. Lips chemically plumped. Salon hair.

“What about the cars?” the woman is asking. “They are all leaving their cars here.”

“They can’t drive; they are intoxicated. I’m sure the parents will be back for the cars in the morning.”

“I want them towed. Every single one of them. Trespassing.”

“Ma’am, the cars are parked on the street. They are allowed to be there.”

“This is outrageous.”

“What is outrageous,” the cop retorts, “is that you have fifty-two intoxicated minors in your house tonight.”

Braden stands just below the steps, waiting for an opening. The woman turns to him, trying to raise her perfectly arched brows, her skin so taut they barely move.

“Yes? Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for my daughter.”

The woman presses her lips together disapprovingly. “Maybe next time you could keep track of her so you don’t have to come looking.”

Braden opens his mouth, but thinks better of it and stands quietly waiting while the cop flips through pages of notes.

“Name?”

“Alexandra Healey.”

“She’s inside. She’ll be charged with Minor in Possession.”

“What does that mean, generally?” Braden asks.

“Drug and alcohol classes, community service. If she has no priors, it won’t go to court.” The cop frowns, taps his pencil on the page. “She doesn’t have any priors, right? The name sounds familiar.”

“Not that I know of.” Braden wants only to go in and find Allie, picturing her drunk and frightened.

“Come with me,” the cop says, and leads the way past the woman into the house.

Three girls huddle together on a sofa, arms around each other, tearstained and bleary eyed. A group of boys, all bravado, gather in the corner of the room, laughing as if it’s all a big joke, but Braden can hear the undertones of anger and fear. And then his eyes find Allie, lying flat on her back on the floor. Ethan sits cross-legged beside her, his eyelids heavy.

Braden drops to his knees beside his daughter, cursing the whiskey. He needs a clear head for this. Allie is flushed, her forehead damp. Alcohol poisoning, or maybe she’s overdosed on something, is unconscious, dying, dead. He checks her pulse. Steady. Her breathing is even.

“She’s okay,” Ethan says. “I’m looking out for her.”

“This is looking out for her?” Braden snarls.

“Hey, man. Nobody’s touched her.”

“How many drinks has she had? What other drugs?”

“Just a couple drinks. She was tired. Just lay down right there and fell asleep.”

“Did you bring her here? What were you thinking?” Braden feels his hands curl into fists. Protective fire burns in his chest.

“Hey, I didn’t make her drink anything.”

“You brought her here.”

“Her idea.” Ethan shrugs.

It would feel so amazingly good to wipe the smirk off that face with a fist. Braden feels the crunch, sees the entitled attitude give way to pain, sees Mitch collapse backward into the snow . . .

God. Not here, not now. He focuses on breathing, makes himself register details all around him. Shoes. A small stain on an otherwise pristine carpet. Allie’s face, childlike and innocent despite the flush of alcohol on her cheeks.

He shakes her shoulder gently.

“Allie. Allie? Wake up, little bird.”

Her eyes open, half-mast and clouded. “Daddy?”

His heart turns over in his chest. “I’m here, Allie.”

“I want to go home.” Her words are slurred.

She pushes herself up to sitting, closes her eyes. “Make it stop.”

Braden puts a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She opens her eyes again, peers up at the officer. “I know you,” she says.

“Thought your name was familiar,” he replies. “I’m sorry to see you here.”

Allie draws her knees up to her chin and hides her face.

“You know each other?” Braden looks from his daughter to the cop.

“I picked her up and took her to the hospital after the accident. Stayed with her until social services could get there.” His tone sharpens. “Asked if I could call her dad, and she said he wouldn’t answer. She’d already called, she said.”

Braden has no answer to this, or to the wash of shame and guilt that threatens to swamp him.

He should have been there. He should have been with her.

The cop gets down on the floor by Allie, puts a hand on her shoulder. “So did you hear back from UW? Will you get in?”

“Doesn’t matter,” she slurs, still hiding her face.

“Of course it matters.”

Her only response is a small sound of misery that tears what little of Braden’s heart is still intact into confetti.