His First Choice

Law enforcement was at the scene before she was. Lacey caught a hint of what they feared—that something had prevented two normally attentive parents from returning home to their girls—but her job wasn’t to solve the mystery.

The neighbor who’d called the police had already fed the girls. She offered to keep them with her, but when neither girl seemed inclined to seek the woman out for comfort, Lacey decided to take them with her.

Helping the girls pack a couple of days’ worth of their favorite clothes, pajamas and toys, she took them back to her office, where she set them up with a snack in the playroom, and then, leaving the door open and taking a monitor with her, she headed down the hall to her office to make some calls.

The girls had an aunt in Santa Barbara. They’d both told her so on the way to the office, in between asking if she was taking them to their mom

my and daddy. The aunt was fairly easy to trace down, but didn’t answer the phone number listed for her on the internet.

She didn’t answer her door, either, after Lacey made a call to local police to make a well-check run. There was no sign of disturbance at the home and neighbors said she’d gone on a trip up the coast for the weekend.

They also said she had a brother in LA, an uncle to the girls who was married with a couple of kids of his own. He’d already heard from the police, was distraught to find out that his sister and brother-in-law were missing, and he and his family were on the way to Santa Raquel.

The overall prognosis for the family didn’t look good—a sudden disappearance of seemingly conscientious and loving parents. The girls were in good hands, though. And for the night, at least, back in their own home as, after investigation, Lacey released them to their aunt and uncle.

But Lacey couldn’t help thinking that their lives were going to change forever after that day. Just as she couldn’t stop thinking about the one thing the police had also wondered...

If the parents were so loving and conscientious, why were both cars gone, and the girls left home alone?

It wasn’t for her to figure that one out. All she could do was wonder, and wait. And worry, if she let herself get in too deep.

That wasn’t her job, either.

But the not knowing, and her inability to do more for the children in that moment, left her pensive.

Missing lunch with her sister and Jem and Levi didn’t improve her mood, but she knew the day had transpired as it was meant to do.

Her life was dedicated to helping children.

Which was why, Sunday afternoon, while Jem was getting ready to pour cement in the trench he’d dug with a backhoe around the perimeter of the new room—not that she’d been paying attention earlier in the week when he’d explained the process to her—Lacey suggested that she and Kacey build a puzzle with Levi. She’d picked a couple of them up at the store on the way home, just to make certain that she didn’t walk in on the tail end of lunch. She’d chosen one-hundred-piece puzzles and was fairly certain that Levi would not only take an interest in them, he’d be able to do them without help.

Jem had already been back at work, and the kitchen had been cleaned up, by the time she’d walked in, and rather than disturb him—or hope to glean any change in his demeanor that would indicate whether or not he’d enjoyed lunch alone with her sister—she joined Levi and Kacey in her craft room, at the multipurpose table she’d set up. Levi sat on his knees on a chair, leaning his elbows on the table—his fist, and cast, pointing straight up to the ceiling—and picked up puzzle pieces as soon as she’d dumped them.

She took to her own task, as well. Leading his conversation, and letting him regale them with his imaginative tales. The puzzle was almost done and Levi was a happy, well-adjusted boy without a care in the world.

If all they talked about was his life with his dad. Things he liked to do. And cars.

“Did you notice that when you mentioned his mother his little lips got thin and he quit chattering?” Kacey asked softly when Levi left the room after announcing that he had to go potty.

“Of course I did,” Lacey said. There was something about Tressa. The woman was genuinely caring. Sweet and loving. And volatile on occasion. A toxic mix.

Of course, Lacey was also in the process of fighting the hots for Tressa’s ex, so she’d be more apt to find fault with the other woman. It was natural. Human nature. It was a good thing she was off the case.

“Can we do another one?” Levi asked twenty minutes later as they took apart the car puzzle and put the pieces back into the box.

“Sure!” Kacey told him. Lacey went to check on the pasta casserole she’d put in the oven, and to see how much longer Jem was going to be, and then went back to join them.

Levi and Kacey were talking about their trip to the beach the day before. About sharks and boats and little-boy things.

“Do you like to swim?” Lacey asked, rejoining them at the table. They already had the perimeter of the puzzle a quarter of the way done.

Kacey seemed to be having as much fun as Levi was. She was a natural with him and would make a great mother. And...

“Uh-huh.” Levi had answered her question about swimming.

“Did your daddy teach you how?” Kacey asked. “Do you have a pool in your backyard?”

Lacey could answer that one for her—they didn’t. But apparently they had a goldfish pond she had yet to see.