Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(54)

“Where are you right now?” Hogan asked.

“I’m on my way to Tucson. I have an errand to run.”

“Is it all right for me to give Jorge your number?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay,” Lyn Hogan said. “I’m pretty sure he’ll give you a call.”





Chapter 22





The next morning, when Grandma Puckett took Peter and Kendall to IHOP for breakfast, they couldn’t have been happier. Daddy had taken them there sometimes, but Mommy never did. Kendall had blueberry pancakes, while Peter ordered the ones made with chocolate chips. Grandma Puckett had scrambled eggs and toast.

There was a question Kendall had been wanting to ask. She’d been thinking about it in bed overnight, but it wasn’t until breakfast that she managed to work up her nerve.

“Could Peter and me come live with you in Casa Grande?” Kendall asked quietly.

Grandma put down her coffee cup. “‘Could Peter and I come,’ not ‘Peter and me,’” she corrected. “But, Kendall, I’m far too old to be raising kids. Why would you even ask such a thing?”

Because you feed us, Kendall thought, chasing a stray blueberry around on her plate. Because you’re nice to us.

There were lots of things Kendall could have said, but she chose the one she thought might work. “Because I don’t like Randy,” she said aloud. “He scares me. He has mean eyes.”

Grandma’s expression hardened, but when she spoke, her voice was full of concern. “Scares you how?” she wanted to know. “Has he ever hurt you?”

Kendall nodded.

“How? What did he do?”

“He grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me—real hard. His thumb left a bruise right here.” Kendall pointed to a spot just under her collarbone.

“Has he ever hurt Peter?”

Kendall shook her head. “I try to keep Peter out of Randy’s way so that won’t happen,” she whispered.

A waitress stopped by the table and refilled Grandma Puckett’s coffee cup.

“I don’t like Randy either,” Peter muttered when the waitress walked away. “I saw him kick Coon once.”

“Your dog?” Grandma asked, frowning. “That’s terrible. I noticed the dog wasn’t here, but . . .”

“Mommy said he got out of the yard and got hit by a car,” Kendall supplied.

“And the vet couldn’t fix him,” Peter added. “So Coon’s dead, too, just like Daddy.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Grandma said. “You really loved that dog, didn’t you?”

Peter nodded. “He always slept at the bottom of my bed and kept my feet warm.”

After IHOP they went to Walmart. Kendall was amazed. While she pushed the grocery cart, Grandma Puckett filled it up with all kinds of things—pairs of pants, shirts, socks, and underwear for both of them. They each got two new pairs of shoes, “one for school and one for dress-up,” Grandma Puckett said.

Kendall thought that the word “dress-up” really meant that those were the shoes they should wear to Daddy’s funeral. The same held true for the dress shirt and clip-on tie for Peter and the pretty new dark blue dress for Kendall—the nicest one she ever remembered having. Not only that, they both ended up with brand-new jackets—warm ones. There were other things, too, like new toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste. Kendall thought this was way better than Christmas.

When they got to the checkout counter, Grandma didn’t complain about how much everything cost. She just got out her credit card, put it in the slot, and pretty soon the receipt came out. Kendall never remembered seeing one quite that long.

“Are you sure we couldn’t come stay with you?” Kendall asked once they were back in the car.

She kept hoping that between breakfast and now Grandma might have changed her mind. Instead, she just shook her head.

“Sorry, Kendall,” Grandma said. “The place where I live is only for old people. You’re too young.”

On the way home from Walmart, they stopped off at a place where Peter could get a haircut and Kendall a trim. Grandma said Peter’s hair was so long that he was starting to look like a girl. When they went back to the house, Mommy wasn’t there. Kendall and Peter helped unload the car. Grandma had them carry all the bags into the kids’ bedroom so she could help them take off the sales tags and put everything away. Instead of doing his share of the work, Peter climbed onto the lower bunk and fell asleep.

When it came time to hang things in the closet, Grandma started taking out the existing items she thought were too small for Kendall to wear. She was right—some of them had been too small on the day Mommy brought them home. But the deeper Grandma went into the closet, the more Kendall worried about what she’d find there, and it didn’t take long for that worry to become a reality.

Grandma Puckett leaned down. When she straightened back up, she was holding the empty peanut butter jar. “What’s this?” she asked with a frown.

“It’s for Peter,” Kendall said.

“Why would Peter need an empty peanut butter jar?”

“To pee in,” Kendall said quietly.

“Why not use the bathroom?”