Page 13 of Trick or Trouble
“I’m not too old to turn you over my knee, young lady.”He grinned back when she flushed and her chin shot up.
“You’re as bad as dad, I swear,” Holly avowed, tossing her bright red curls.“I don’t even know why I like you.”She walked over beside him and peered in the refrigerator.“What are you cooking this morning?”
“You like me because I’m your favorite uncle, brat,” he replied affectionally.
“You’re my only uncle,” she sassed back.”
“I rest my case.”
“You’re impossible.”She grabbed the milk and reached into the cupboard for a glass.
“I’m fixing pancakes with bacon and eggs, so leave the Pop-Tarts alone,” he ordered.
Holly wrinkled her nose.“You know I don’t eat a big breakfast.Just pancakes with chocolate chips and powdered sugar will be fine.”
He shot her a wry glance.“Those are just Pop-Tarts in a different form, brat.”
Holly shrugged.
“You are forgetting that we have a guest.Since I’m not sure what Darcy likes, I’m fixing a couple of choices,” he explained.
“She’s not here, though.”
Logan caught her in a frosty glare.“What do you mean she’s not here?”
Holly poured her milk into the glass she’d set on the cabinet.“When I went into the bathroom this morning, the door was open on her side, but she wasn’t there.Since she’s not in here either, that means she must have left.”
Logan’s pulse picked up.“How could she leave?She had no money and no way to get anywhere.”
Holly took a drink of her milk and licked her top lip.“Maybe her mother picked her up.She used my phone to call her and tell her she was okay.”
“Let me see your phone, please.”He held out his hand, his stomach churning.Why would Darcy leave in the middle of the night?She hadn’t said anything about her mother, but if she was close enough to pick her up, why hadn’t she called her in the first place?With a sinking feeling, he knew the answer to his own question.
Desperation.
Discovering that he was a therapist held more significance than he’d realized.Enough to call her mother, whom she wouldn’t have bothered before, as a last-ditch, desperate act.His heart sank.He should have stayed with her last night instead of giving her space, but she’d been so adamant that he not touch her.He hadn’t handled it right, though, or she wouldn’t have run off.
“She deleted the call, if that’s what you’re looking for.”Holly gave him her phone and sat at the table.
Quickly, Logan located the trash on the Samsung phone.The only call out last night was right after they’d both gone up to bed—around midnight.It was to 911 emergency services, though.Handing Holly back her phone, he turned to leave the kitchen.
“Hey, what about breakfast?”she called.
“Grab some Pop-Tarts,” he said, pulling his jacket out of the closet by the front door and racing back to the kitchen.Feeling slightly guilty about leaving his niece to eat an unhealthy breakfast, he opened the garage door and went to his car.Holly wouldn’t care; she loved Pop-Tarts.“I’ll be back in a little bit, don’t go anywhere,” he added.
His niece just rolled her eyes and grabbed the Pop-Tarts box.
Outside, the city streets were virtually deserted in the crisp autumn air.Majestic elms, oaks, and maples were shedding their leaves, leaving a carpet of swirling color on the lawns and in the streets.Little gusts of wind blew them about in delicate, windy spirals that at any other time would lift his spirits.
Pulling up in front of the Birmingham Police Station, he bounded to the sidewalk and into the lobby.The dispatcher, a young blonde woman with her hair in a messy bun and an ink smear on her cheek, came to the window.
“Can I help you?”she asked curiously.
Logan nodded eagerly.“Yes.I would like to know if a young woman named Darcy DeAngelo came in last night.She disappeared from my home over on Walnut Street, and I’m worried about her.”
The dispatcher's blue eyes immediately became guarded.“I’ll get an officer for you.”
In a few minutes, a police officer resembling Telly Savalas, with his bald head and wide, knowing shark-like smile, stepped into the foyer and motioned him to follow him to a room.
