“Why on earth would you say that?” Her question leaked out in a breathy whisper.
“Are you going to help me out here or not?” Hugh’s patience was gone.
“What do you want?”
Nina didn’t have to elaborate.
“Let’s say an even grand.”
An audible gasp rose from her throat. Over a week’s salary.
“No,” she said firmly.
“Okay. Okay. How about five hundred then,” Hugh countered. “I have Venmo. You can send it to me right now.”
Nina had no idea what Venmo was.
“What are you going to do with the money?” she asked.
“What do you care?”
Nina seldom gave money to panhandlers, because once she did, the choice of how they spent it was no longer in her control. Instead, she’d buy gift cards to a coffee shop or a fast-food place for those in need, and she donated to homeless shelters every year, even when money was tight. Five hundred dollars to Hugh Dolan could end up in his arm, killing him. She didn’t want that on her conscience—couldn’t handle that guilt.
“I’m sorry, Hugh. I can’t do that.”
“Suit yourself,” Hugh said, and with that, the call went dead.
CHAPTER 35
Nina arrived home shaken and anxious, trying not to let it show. She had to focus on Maggie and the latest crisis. Daisy greeted her in the foyer, so excited that she reared up and put her front paws on Nina’s waist, just like the day she’d come home from the lake in a police cruiser with blood matted in her fur.
Connor ambled in from the kitchen, drinking a ginger ale out of a tall, ice-filled glass, even though sodas were for weekends. The look he sent his mother was one of pure desperation.
“When do I go to college?”
He thumbed in the direction of the living room, where Nina found Maggie sulking on the couch, TV turned off.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Nina said, sitting down beside her daughter. She placed her hand on Maggie’s back, hoping to comfort her. Simon came into the room still dressed in his khakis and polo shirt from the school day, glasses in place, magnifying the worried look in his eyes. Maggie propped up on her elbows to glare at him.
“Why is he here?” she asked.
Nina tensed. “Young lady, you do not speak to Simon—or anyone for that matter—like that. Is that understood?”
“She’s upset,” Simon said. “And here I am, everyone’s favorite scapegoat.”
For once he sounded wounded. There may have even been tears in his eyes, and for good reason. The war between Simon and Maggie must have been taking an emotional, perhaps even a physical toll on him. Nina comforted Simon with a quick hug. She felt an irrational fear bubble up that he could smell Hugh on her, as if they’d had an affair instead of a phone call.
“Where do you think it could be?” Nina asked, referencing the missing lab report. “Did you retrace your steps?”
Maggie made daggers with her eyes. “I put it in my backpack, and then when I went to hand it in to my teacher, it wasn’t there. Where would it be?”
“Um, your room,” Connor said. “Have you been in there? It’s like a hurricane went through it.”
“Yeah, because I’ve been looking for my stupid lab report.”
“Well, how about printing off another copy.”
“It’s late so we already got a zero.”
“Then why do you even need to find it?”
“Because I want to make sure I didn’t misplace it, which I didn’t, dummy.”
“Maggie, that’s enough!” Nina snapped.
Maggie shook off the rebuke like a boxer who had taken a jab to the chin.
“Whatever,” she said, sliding off the couch. “It doesn’t even matter now.” Off she went, storming upstairs to her room, slamming the door.
Nina followed, and nearly had a heart attack when she entered Maggie’s bedroom. “Hurricane” wasn’t quite the right description—it was more like a hurricane had detonated a bomb. Drawers were open, papers were everywhere, and clothes from the closet now carpeted the floor.
“Oh, Maggie,” Nina said, bending down to start the cleanup. Usually she’d have made it her daughter’s responsibility, but not tonight, poor thing. She was obviously a wreck.
Maggie rested on her bed, facedown, head under a pillow, while Nina gathered up loose papers from the floor. If she hadn’t had her head turned to the wall, Nina might not have seen the flash of white showing at the bottom of Maggie’s desk. Pulling the desk away from the wall, Nina watched as a stack of stapled papers fell to the floor. She examined the cover page with widening eyes: