For the Children

Judges could do anything, but surely they wouldn’t send a kid to detention for missing school.

He’d pressed Steve McDonald. The other man had no idea where they’d taken the kid.

And then later, once he’d found out where the boy actually was, he’d railed against his own helplessness.

“Hey,” Valerie called as she slid out of her Mercedes.

“You have your heart set on coffee?” Kirk asked.

“Not really.”

“Let’s go for a drive. My car.”

She frowned, but walked beside him, climbing into the passenger side of the Vette as he held the door open for her.

“What’s up?”

He shook his head. This wasn’t a conversation he could have while driving. Not with the emotion churning through him—worsened by near panic at the fact that he could still experience such negative feelings. He’d thought, since his transformation, he’d left all that behind him.

He’d meant to.

“I just wanted to get away from the glare of the parking-lot lights,” he told her.

“Okay. You mad?”

“No.”

“Did I do something?”

“God, no.” He gave her a quick smile. At least he hoped not. Juvenile court was a relatively small place. It wasn’t completely unlikely that Valerie was the judge assigned to Abraham’s case.

It wasn’t likely, either. Surely she would’ve said something. All the conversations they’d had about Abraham… No, he’d just had too many hours to blow the whole thing out of proportion.

“But you are angry about someth

ing?”

He nodded. “Let me find a place to park this thing and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Did my sons do something wrong?”

“Of course not. Brian ate an entire hot dog for lunch today.” It was the highlight of Kirk’s day.

“The whole thing?” He could see her grin as a car approached from the opposite direction.

“Every bite.”

His key player was out, but they’d won their game.

He turned off at the first lay-by he came to along the Beeline Highway—a scenic view during the day. He shut off the ignition and turned to face her in the darkness. Would he ever have a conversation with this woman during which he could see her face?

“So what’s up?” Her voice was soft, compassionate, soothing him with the reassurance that she’d do whatever she could.

A car passed, and then nothing. The highway, really just a two-lane desert road connecting Fountain Hills to the Mesa-Phoenix area, had very little traffic this time of night.

“Abraham Billings has been taken by the state.”

Once the car was out of sight, they were engulfed in blackness.