Close To Danger (Westen #4)(48)
Daniel chuckled and dug into his food, too.
They ate in companionable silence until Lexie’s plate and bowl were empty. Daniel wiped his mouth with his napkin and contemplated the next problem, now that he knew the little girl had had a hot meal. What to do with Lexie?
Rachel appeared in the doorway with two more glasses of milk and a plate of hot chocolate chip cookies. “Mom said I could take my break now and I thought I’d share some of Pete’s cookies with you Lexie, if that’s okay.”
The little girl nodded, her face once more lit up with pleasure at the sight of the cookies.
Rachel set the milk and cookies on the table, then turned to Daniel. “Mom wants to talk with you. I’ll stay with Lexie.”
Grabbing his mug, he vacated his seat for the teenage waitress and headed to find Lorna. He refilled his mug at the coffee station before walking into the busy front of the café. She was standing beside a corner booth where Deke and Libby Reynolds were seated. Which made sense. As the county social worker, Libby probably knew about Lexie and her mother.
“Deke, Libby,” he said, scooting into the booth across from them. Lorna perched on the end of the booth in case she needed to see to customers.
“Daniel,” Deke said, reaching out to shake his hand. “Heard you had a hard afternoon.”
“Was going okay until I got to the Old Thurber place.”
“Lorna said you found Lexie alone inside the house? With no sign of Rosie?” Libby asked, her voice husky with concern.
He nodded. “Lexie was buried under a pile of blankets. No mother in sight.” He gave them a brief rundown of the condition of the little girl, her thread-bare clothes and useless sneakers, as well as the trashed house and drug paraphernalia he planned to go back and bag up later as evidence.
“Only thing I could think to do was bring her here to get some hot food in her,” he said.
“And it’s a good thing you did,” Lorna said, dropping her hand on his shoulder. “I’d hate to have to refuse you as a customer if you hadn’t.”
He grinned up at her threat. For someone with so much tough and sass on the outside, the café owner had a soft marshmallow center.
“The problem is,” Libby said, drawing their attention, “with all this snow, the roads in such bad condition and half the county without power, I have no idea where to put her for the night.”
“She could stay with us,” Deke offered.
Libby smiled at him, but shook her head. “While I’d love to have her stay with us, she can’t.”
“Why not? Even with Kyle in the house, we’ve got two more extra bedrooms.”
“Because when this case goes to court, and believe me it will, I will have to give a very objective analysis of Lexie’s home situation. Her safety and welfare can’t be compromised because she spent even one hour in our home.”
“That sucks.” Deke sounded like a pouty kid. Daniel agreed with him.
“I’d take her home with me, but I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a little girl, much less have anywhere to put her,” Daniel said. He lived in a one room apartment not too far from the downtown area of Westen. It was part of an old thrashing mill from the early nineteenth century that had been converted to apartments nearly fifty years ago. While maintained well, the place really was set up for single people with no kids.
Lorna shook her head. “Rachel would love to share her room with Lexie, except with the condition of the roads, she and I are camping out in my office for the night and maybe tomorrow to keep the café open for anyone straggling in. That’s not a good situation for Lexie, even if it’s better than where’s she’s been the past twenty-four hours.”
No one said it, but they were all thinking that Lexie staying at the café was probably better than any condition the little girl had been living in, even with her mother there to take care of her.
They sat silently, contemplating what to do with Lexie at least for the night.
Suddenly, Lorna slapped a hand on the table. “I’ve got an idea,” she said, pushing herself off the vinyl booth seat and making a bee line for the cash register.
Daniel followed her path to see Melissa Compton paying her bill. Melissa was a sweet woman, quiet and shy—probably from years of being beaten by her ex-husband. Finally, on her own now, she ran the county’s halfway house for teens trying to get a new start on life. In fact, Kyle Gordon, Deke and Libby’s foster son started his time in Westen living at the house.
“What a good idea,” Libby said quietly across from him.
She and Deke were also watching Lorna talk with Melissa. A few minutes later the two ladies headed into the kitchen area behind the lunch counter.
“Why would it be good for Melissa to take Lexie? She already has that halfway house and several teens to be responsible for,” Daniel said, still staring into the kitchen area.
“Because Lexie needs someone to mother her,” Libby said. “And Melissa needs someone to mother.”
*
“My feet are killing me.” The last surgery finished, Dylan flopped down on a sofa in the staff lounge of the surgical unit, kicked off her clogs and elevated her feet on one of the plastic chairs circling the lunch table. Per her usual routine, she’d stayed with her patient all the way into the recovery room and for the first set of vitals.