Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,56
one of us wants to come home.” She shook her head. “I made a promise to serve,” she said again, her green eyes filled with conviction.
And now Jack was the one fighting his tears. He held out his hand to this woman who awed him despite their disagreement, this woman who took the lofty ideas of honor and duty and lived them, every day, with every breath she took.
“Will and Dolphina will be here soon,” he tried to reassure her. “We’ll find Maggie.”
“And then what?” Arlene asked, sadness in her eyes. “After we find her? How do I make her understand that I have to go back?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
They were four blocks from home, stopped at a traffic light, when Robin’s cell phone rang.
“Hey, thanks for calling me back,” he said, and Jules knew it was Dolphina, his personal assistant, on the other end. “You changed the password on the office computer without telling me—” He laughed. “No, I’m not going to go in there and mess up your organizational—No, I just needed to check my schedule because I got asked to fill in, last minute, as the host of Sundance Channel’s indy film awards and … Yeah. No, Art called me directly. They called him and … It’s two weeks from Saturday and … Yeah, I want to do it.”
The light turned green and Jules tried not to burn rubber as he hit the gas.
But then Robin said, “Oh, crap. She’s not serious, is she?”
Jules glanced at Robin, who mouthed the word Maggie, then We need to go to Will’s, then said into the phone, “No, we’re still in the car. No. No, Dolph. Really. Jules won’t mind—he loves Maggie, too. This falls under emergency. The more people you’ve got looking for her, the better. We’ll be right there.” He snapped his phone shut as their driveway came into view.
And Jules did indeed love Maggie, too, but damn.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he drove past their house and headed west, to Newton.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Will and Dolphina were helping—and yet really not helping.
Jack watched Arlene as Will pulled a list of Maggie’s friends—full names, cell phone numbers, parents’ names and phone numbers and addresses—up on his computer. She was beyond grateful that her brother had kept such close tabs on Maggie while she was gone, but Jack knew that she also hated the fact that Will had the information that she clearly felt she should’ve known.
They went down the list quickly—with Will and Arlene calling the parents and Dolphina, who’d recently taken Maggie and her friends out for pizza and a movie, calling the kids.
Jack took the opportunity to send another text to Maggie. He’d been firing them off ever since he’d gotten her alarming message, hoping to get a response.
Halfway down the list, Jules and Robin Cassidy showed up and joined the effort—Robin helping with the calls, and Jules doing his best to hack into Maggie’s email account out on the living room computer.
But none of Maggie’s friends knew where the girl was. Even more disturbing was the fact that there had been no play rehearsal scheduled for today.
“When did she start lying?” Arlene asked her brother, who shook his head.
“Maggie doesn’t lie,” Will said.
“Well, she did today,” Arlene pointed out sharply. “Clearly you’ve been setting a great example.”
“You have no idea how hard it is.” Dolphina was quick to defend Will. “How hard Will works to—”
“I have no idea how hard it is?” Arlene bristled, her fear for Maggie combining with her frustration and, yes, her jealousy, and expressing itself as anger at Dolphina—this stranger who she felt knew her daughter better than she did.
Jack was on the verge of throwing himself on that grenade when Robin beat him to it. The movie star slipped into the seat next to Arlene at the kitchen table.
“She’s an amazing kid,” Robin told her. “I think we’re all in agreement about that, all right? And okay, maybe she went a little too far, drama-wise, tonight. A little too Parent Trap, but you’ve got to give her props for creativity. And you’ve got to love her ability to hope. She still believes in fairy-tale happily-ever-afters, but she’s also willing to fight—a little dirty, okay, that’s true—but remember she’s trying to win that perfect happy ending. Not just for you, Arlene, but for herself, too.”
And the last of Arlene’s anger deflated, leaving behind only sadness. “I’m sorry,” she said to Dolphina. “I really do appreciate everything you’ve done for Maggie. I do. I just—”