a no. How okay could life be for a girl who had a baby at sixteen?
She eyed him for a minute. “You have ID on you?”
“Huh? Sure.” He dug out his driver’s license. “It’s still Minnesota. I moved a month ago.”
She held it close to look at the picture. “God, you look young. Hot, but young.”
“I was what, twenty-one?” Like you are now. “Thought I was hot shit, but I knew pretty much nothing.” He took it back, stuffing it into his wallet. “The next one will show all my wrinkles and gray hairs.”
“Hah.” She turned away, to look back out at the river. To the quiet winter landscape, she said, “You want my whole story, huh?”
“If you want to tell it. Yeah.”
“And if I don’t, then what?”
“I’ll quit asking. I guess.”
“And go sneaking around checking up on me? Mr. Undercover Cop Man?”
“No! Maybe. I need to know you’re safe.”
“Me saying so isn’t enough?”
“It should be.” But people lie. Even about that. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me anything else, I’ll accept that. I’ll head back to North Carolina. Maybe we can stay in touch?”
“Maybe.” She shook her head no, although he wasn’t sure to what, but then added, “Okay. The short story. While Pops was alive, things were pretty good. I was sad you were gone. For a while, anyhow, but I was a kid. I had friends, and parents, and a cat. I forgot what you were like, okay?” She flicked him a quick look.
“Sure,” he said. I didn’t forget you. But there was a huge gap between the memories of a nine-year-old and a five-year-old, and a difference between a lonely foster kid and one who had friends and loving family and a pet.
Jesus, quit with the self-pity. “Go on.”
“Pops died when I was eleven. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Mom was a mess without him for the first few years. We couch-surfed with friends more than once. She went back to her maiden name at some point, dyed her hair different colors, worked odd jobs and got fired.”
That explained why he couldn’t find them. “Sounds rough.”
“It sucked. I felt like I had to be the adult. But eventually she ended up with a good job working for a law firm as a receptionist.” Ari’s mouth twisted. “Law firm of Sleazy, Skeevy, and Perv.”
Alarm bells rang in Nick’s head. “Where was that?” he asked, as mildly as he could.
She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway, one of Mom’s bosses began hanging around our house. He was a good listener, and patient, not bad looking. We’d moved a bunch of times, I had no new friends, and my cat died. You can probably write the rest of that scene.”
Nick unclenched his teeth to ask, “How old were you?”
“Fifteen the first time, sixteen when the pregnancy test had two lines on it.”
“Fifteen is statutory in every state.”
“Sure.” She hitched a shoulder in a minimal shrug. “Mom accused me of seducing her boyfriend. I had no idea he was sleeping with both of us. He gave me two grand to get rid of it. I took the money, packed, and hopped a bus out of town.”
Nick pulled air in through his nose, slowly. “Where did you go? You didn’t try to call me?”
“Why would I try to find my violent brother I’d almost forgotten, who was probably really in jail now?” she asked dryly.
“What did you do?”
“I figured in a bigger city I could find some kind of job, a place to live, maybe adopt the baby out when it came. I couldn’t just get rid of him.” She looked down, picking at a cuticle.
“And?”
“First place I went was a bust. I couldn’t find a job and the money ran out fast. I hopped another bus.”
“You didn’t think about going home?”
“Home? She’d believed the man who fucked her fifteen-year-old, over her own kid. No, I didn’t go home!” Ari sucked a breath and lowered her voice. “Randy was working with a mission in the city and he was at the bus stop, trying to help runaways not get tangled up in the life. I almost went off with a smooth-talking young guy who was hitting on me, but Randy came up and started chatting and the guy took off. I was mad, at the time.”
“Probably was a pimp,” Nick muttered.
“That’s what Randy said.”
“And he was better? You ended up marrying him. He’s got to be fifty!”
Her eyes flashed. “Don’t you dare talk shit about him! He helped me out with no