Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #19)(86)

“Sounds like things are popping.”

“They are. How are things with you?”

“I’ve been sleeping most of the way, and so has Beth,” Butch told her.

“How is she?”

“Hard to tell. She hasn’t said much. She’s been through an emotional wringer and is pretty much worn out.”

“How’s the weather where you are?” Joanna asked. “We seem to be having a few snow flurries down here.”

“Yeah,” Butch said. “It’s weird. The weather in Flagstaff was perfect—cold but clear. It started to sprinkle as we drove through Anthem, and it’s a lot darker to the south.”

“At least you have all-wheel drive,” Joanna said. “Tell Jenny to be careful.”

Butch laughed at that. “Not gonna bother,” he said. “She goes to school in Flagstaff, remember? That means our daughter has way more experience driving on snow than you do.”

Joanna could hear Jenny talking in the background.

“What did she say?” Joanna asked.

“Jen wants to know what’s for dinner.”

“Green chili casserole, of course,” Joanna replied. “It’s her down-home favorite. What did she think we’d be having?”





Chapter 42





When the doorbell rang a while later, Peter didn’t stir, but Kendall did. She went as far as the bedroom door and peeked out through the crack in time to see Mommy, still in her pajamas and with a beer bottle in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, stagger from the kitchen to the front entry. A ringing doorbell meant that the new arrival wasn’t Randy, and Kendall hoped beyond hope that the person waiting outside on the porch would be Grandma Puckett.

Several verbal exchanges followed, with words that Kendall couldn’t quite make out, but she heard Mommy’s voice rising in anger. “What do you mean you want to take me in for questioning? What’s to ask? The DPS said that cop did it. I don’t see why you wanna talk to me.”

Kendall slipped out of the bedroom and crept silently toward the front door until she was close enough to see that there were three people standing outside—two women and a man. One woman was wearing a blue pantsuit and the other a brown police uniform. The man was dressed in a plaid work shirt, jeans, and boots. The woman in the pantsuit, the one doing most of the talking, was tall and blond, while the shorter one in the uniform hovered in the background.

“Well, you can’t take me in for questioning,” Mommy said. “I’ve got two little kids. I can’t leave them here by themselves.”

That surprised Kendall. As if Mommy didn’t leave them there by themselves lots of the time! She was standing just behind Mommy and out of her line of vision, so when Kendall spoke, Mommy jumped like she’d been shot.

“You could always call Grandma Puckett,” Kendall suggested quietly. “I’m sure she’d come stay with us.”

“What the hell?” Mommy yelled. “What are you doing here? Get back in your room. Now!”

But to her mother’s astonishment and to Kendall’s own surprise, she didn’t budge. She fully expected Mommy to slap her, but she didn’t. She just took another angry draw on her cigarette.

“Your mother is in the area?” the woman on the porch was asking. “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to give her a call.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Mommy shot back.

“Then we may need to take your children into custody as well,” the other woman said. “Once we get to the Justice Center, we can have someone from CPS come pick them up.”

“Crap!” Mommy said. “Put them in foster care? Let me call and see what my mother says.”

Kendall held her breath. First Mommy ground her cigarette stub out on the front porch, and then she fished her phone out of her pocket and struggled to make it work.

“Hey, Mom,” Mommy said at last. “It’s me. I need to go talk to some cops for a while. Can you come look after the kids?” There was a pause. “Okay, good. Where are you, and how long will it take for you to get here? . . . Half an hour . . . that long? . . . Okay, I’ll tell them.

“You heard, I guess,” Mommy mumbled. “It’ll take half an hour for her to get here.”

That’s when the woman in the background, the one wearing a uniform, spoke for the first time. “I’m Sheriff Brady,” she said. “I’ll be happy to stay here with the kids until your mother arrives.”

“You sure?” Mommy asked.

“Positive,” Sheriff Brady said. “It’s no trouble at all.”

“All right, then,” Mommy said grudgingly, “I guess we can go.”

“There’s one other problem, Ms. Hogan,” the first woman said. “You’ll need to leave that beer bottle here. You can’t take it with you—open containers and all.”

“No problem,” Mommy said, slamming the bottle down on a nearby table.

When she went to straighten back up, she tripped and almost fell, knocking over the bottle in the process. At last Mommy righted herself and stumbled out the door, while the man on the porch reached out and took one arm to steady her. Kendall was embarrassed that Mommy was still wearing her pajamas as he helped her into the car, but since no one else said anything about it, neither did Kendall.