"You're talking about Detective Black."

  "Hunter's a good guy, Mac. And I really like him. I have from day one."

  Her gaze shifted away. "I know."

  "And we're taking things slowly. Dating like real grown-ups, not just doing the horizontal mambo."

  That garnered me an eye roll.

  "What, do you prefer bumping uglies?"

  "Good God, no."

  "Making the beast with two backs? Gland to gland combat? Taking the hot dog bus to taco town?" I was on a roll.

  "Please, I'm begging you to stop," she wheezed through her laughter.

  "Never." Though my grin faded a bit. "Tell me what happened."

  Mac studied me a moment and then gestured toward the couch. "We should probably sit for this conversation."

  "That bad?" I winced, but did as she said.

  Once we were settled, Mac took a deep breath. "Okay, well, at first it was a little awkward, you know. We really haven't been on our own without you."

  I nodded. "I fill all those pesky silences with inane babble."

  "Right. Anyway, so we drove around for a bit, he bought us calzones, and mostly we listened to his police scanner."

  "I thought you were going back to his apartment?"

  "We were, but then he heard about a homicide of an unidentified female victim, and he wanted to check it out."

  Just as I'd suspected. "So, he didn't offer to take you home before he started nosing around at a crime scene?"

  "He did, but I told him I help you with cases all the time."

  I took a deep breath. "Mac, there's a difference between running a credit check and interfering with a police investigation. I thought we learned our lesson about that?"

  "We did, but Dad said he had a feeling."

  "Dad" was going to have no feeling from the neck down when I got my hands on him, but I kept that tidbit to myself. "Okay, so you drove to the crime scene. Then what?"

  "We parked up a hill so we had a bird's eye view of what was going on and listened to the police scanner some more, but there weren't any more details of the investigation. So, Dad took me back to his place."

  "So far it doesn't sound so bad."

  Mac shifted, obviously uncomfortable. "When we got back to his place, it was more of the awkward silence. Until I remembered about your session with the shrink."

  My gaze slid over to the counter where her tablet had been sitting since the day before. "But you left that thing here."

  "I did, but anything you downloaded from the shrink automatically uploaded to my cloud. So I borrowed Dad's laptop, and we accessed the file."

  "It worked?" I wasn't sure if I was more proud or horrified. My daughter was an evil genius.

  Mac nodded and then stood in one fluid motion and moved to retrieve the tablet, entered a few keys, and then handed it to me. Rows and rows of yellow document folders labeled with first initials and last names. I swiped down until I found G. Steinberg and opened the tab to reveal more documents within.

  "There are a few video files as well as audio and some general notes, all in sequential order."

  "How much did you see?"

  "Me? Nothing. Dad was totally engrossed when I went to bed. The next thing I know, it's the middle of the night and his car was gone."

  "He left you? No note or anything?"

  She nodded.

  My hands clenched and unclenched. I sucked in some air, held it for a second. Exhaled. Then a thought surfaced. "I thought someone said you were in your father's car? If he left you at the apartment, how…?"

  Mac gnawed on her lower lip, a bad habit she engaged in whenever her nerves got the best of her. "I tracked his cell phone, and then hired an Uber driver to take me to his location."

  I shook my head. "He fell victim to a classic blunder. The most famous is never get into a land war in Asia. But only slightly less well known, never try to get one over on Mac when tech is on her side!"

  She rolled her eyes at my bastardization of The Princess Bride quote, but I caught a small smile. It faded when she said, "I found the car, and good thing I had snagged his spare set of keys, so I let myself in to wait. He never showed. Then I got the call and drove his car to the police station. I tried to get ahold of Len, but he didn't pick up."

  I inhaled sharply at the thought of my kid being left alone on the dark streets of Boston in the wee small hours. I'd been out then myself and knew exactly how unnerving it was for a woman to be sitting alone on a dark street.

  "Mac, why didn't you call me? Why did I have to hear from Detective Carson?"

  She looked at her lap. "I thought I could handle it. Mom, I'm so sorry."

  I recalled some of the ugly accusations she'd flung at me yesterday and put my hand over hers. "Babe, it's okay to not be able to handle everything life chucks at you. You're only sixteen. You'll have years to figure out that even when you're an adult with Google, you don't have all the answers. It's okay to ask for help when you don't know what to do."

  She hugged me again, and I held her tight while saying, "Oh, and by the way, you're grounded for a month."

  "What?" She pulled back. "Why?"

  I ticked off the reasons on my fingers. "Being rude and disrespectful to me, not answering my texts to let me know you're okay, showing crappy judgment by sitting in a car all night adjacent to a crime scene, and for thinking your Dad had more of a clue how to be a parent than me for starters."

  She nodded, accepting my reasons. "So, what's being grounded entail?"

  I drummed my fingers on the back of the couch. Punishing Mac wasn't something I'd had to do very often, and truthfully, I had no idea how to ground her. Other than work or school, she hung out with me. Grounding her was like grounding myself. Although considering the circumstances, I probably deserved it too. "We'll figure that out later. You look beat. How about you go catch a nap."

  She rose and started down the hallway, Snickers leaping off her dog bed to follow. Mac paused in her bedroom door. "You'll be here when I wake up?"

  Damn you to the fiery depths of hell, Brett Archer. He'd abandoned two Mackenzies in 24 hours. Even more troubling, my daughter had never had that look in her eye before, concern that she would be left defenseless. And I'd let him take her, trusted him to watch out for her.

  A jail cell was too good for his sorry carcass.

  "As you wish." I winked.

  Mac smiled, and the bedroom door closed with a click. I hunkered down to study the file.

  * * *

  Several hours later I set the tablet on the charger and rose, my neck achy, eyes strained from reading.

  Mac looked up from her all-in-one computer. She looked refreshed and rested post nap where I felt like I'd been rode hard and put up wet. "Find anything?"

  "Nothing useful." I'd found out more than I ever wanted to know about Gwen Steinberg/Yates, and yet none of it explained her disappearance. The apartment felt stuffy, and between the heat and the tiredness, I had a weird suffocating sensation. I needed a shower, maybe a walk.

  Mac turned to face me. "Run it down for me, maybe something will click."

  "Well, she was in a relationship that ended abruptly."

  Mac blinked. "Did she say who with?"

  "Not to the doctor. But it was on and off over several years. I got the feeling the guy, whoever he was, freaked her out. She admits to feeling safe with Keith, she calls him nonthreatening on several different occasions."

  "There's a recommendation for a future husband." Mac tapped a few keys. "Was it still going on after she met her husband?"

  I shrugged. "She didn't say, but I'm thinking that yes, it certainly was because according to both her mother and Keith, she was pregnant, and Keith at least believed the child wasn't his."

  "Did her mother know who the other man was?"

  I stretched, trying to work the cricks out of my back. "Maybe, but either way, I doubt she would admit it. She didn't even want people to know Gwen was pregnant."

  "So Gwen married Keith because he made her feel safe. Keith was all set to raise the baby of another man. Something must have changed."

  "I think it has something to do with her late-night diner trips and the man she was meeting there." I brought her up to speed about Knobby and what he'd seen.

  "So was the man her lover? Or her sponsor?" Mac asked.

  Shrugging, I admitted, "I don't know, but something tells me he's the key to everything. I need to find him."

  "Gwen doesn't mention him to her therapist?"

  I shook my head. "I only made it through the last six months. Either she didn't talk about those late-night meetings, or she was meeting with that man long before she met Keith Yates."

  Mac retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and cracked the top. "Does Knobby have security cameras?"

  "He never used to, and I didn't notice any last night."

  Mac took a swig from her water. "Suddenly, I'm in the mood for diner fare."

  I cast an eye to the window. The ice from earlier had changed to snow. "A sensible mother and daughter would just call and ask Knobby if he has cameras."

  "Then they wouldn't get pie." Mac pointed out.

  I bit my lip, torn. "I kinda sorta promised Hunter I wouldn't drive Helga in the winter."

  Mac tilted her head to the side, her gaze assessing. "Okay. We'll take Fillmore."

  "No can do. Hunter had him towed to a garage."

  Mac threw up her hands. "Mom, are you seriously telling me we're stuck here with no transportation and no food?"

  I wrinkled my nose at her. "It sounds bad when you say it like that."

  The buzzer sounded. We both turned to peer out the window. Though night had fallen, the gas lamps cast enough illumination to silhouette a man with his collar turned up.

  "Brett." His name came out like more of a snarl. "He has some nerve to—"

  Mac buzzed him in before I'd even finished the sentence.

  "Hey!" I swatted her arm. "What gives?"

  "He can give us a ride to the diner."

  "Where, if his pattern holds, he will ditch us."

  "At least there's food there. I can think of worse places to wait out the storm."

  "Knobby might not even be open." It was a last-ditch effort, and we both knew it. Knobby was a born and bred New Englander. A little winter storm wouldn't stop him from keeping the lights on for anyone foolish enough to traverse the elements for a burger or a cuppa joe.

  Mac rolled her eyes and opened the door for Brett.

  "Hey," he said right before I drew back a fist and punched him in the face.

  "That," I said, "is for abandoning me downtown yesterday. And this is for abandoning our sleeping child." I kneed him in the groin, and he dropped like a stone into the fetal position.

  "Mom!" Mac yelped and fell to her knees by Brett's side. "What the hell?"

  "I discovered through extensive therapy that I have anger issues," I informed them both as I pulled on my parka.

  "You were in therapy for one hour," she said.

  "It was very enlightening." I scooped Brett's keys up off the floor and stepped over his body. "Come on. He won't mind if we borrow his wheels." Maybe I'd leave it on the street and let the plows and salt trucks have their way with his ride.

  "We can't just leave him here like this," Mac argued.

  I tossed her coat to her. "Watch me." Snagging her arm, I towed her toward the front door.

  "Wait," Brett, whose voice sounded much higher than it had a few minutes ago, squeaked.

  "What for?" I rounded on him, waiting for his next BS line.

  Somehow, he managed to right himself. Blood gushed from his nose, and he couldn't straighten all the way. Good, because my knuckles were singing. I'd never punched anyone before, never thought I would.

  "Have to tell you," he wheezed.

  "Spit it out, pal." I waved him on.

  Anger flashed in his eyes, not an emotion I usually associated with Brett. It shoved all my righteous indignation onto the back burner even before he spoke.

  "Gwen Yates is dead. It was her body they found in that dumpster."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Never give up and only surrender when you're held at gunpoint.

  From: The Working Man's Guide to Sleuthing for a Living

  An unpublished manuscript by Albert Taylor, PI.

  "Mom, you okay?" Mac came into my room carrying a steaming mug of what smelled like hot chocolate.

  "Yeah," I spoke sans enthusiasm. After his revelation, our plan to head out into the storm to dig for clues had lost its luster. My gaze drifted back to the pictures sprawled across my bed. Photos of a smiling Gwen Yates wearing a fairy princess wedding dress. "I'll be fine."

  "It's not your fault." Mac handed me the mug.

  I took it but didn't drink. Deep down I knew she was right, but still. "I feel like if only I had been a little less distracted, had more of a sense of urgency about the case, maybe I could have found her in time."

  Mac sat next to me on the bed. "This is your first missing person's case. You had no way of knowing she was in trouble. Dad's been searching for her for weeks. What's that expression you always use on me?"

  "You're too pretty for my own good?" I suggested.

  She gave me a pointed look.

  I sighed. "Cut yourself some slack."

  She raised an eyebrow.

  I blew on the hot chocolate and handed it back to her. "Here, I'm not in the mood."

  "For chocolate?" She took my wrist and pretended to measure my pulse. "Should I call your doctor?"

  "Har har." I pushed some hair behind her ear. Not wanting to talk about the case anymore, I changed the subject to one equally unpleasant. "I'm going to sell Helga."

  "What?"

  I nodded. "To pay for the repairs to the house. She's impractical in the winter and I promised Hunter I wouldn't drive her. Poor Nona is without a shower, we have a hole in our kitchen ceiling, and I have no way to fix it otherwise. The car is worth a hefty chunk of change, and there are hardly any miles on her. Selling is the responsible, grown-up thing to do."

  "You love that car." Mac frowned.

  "What? I thought you would be happy, me finally acting like the adult and all. Isn't that what you were ranting about yesterday?"

  She shook her head. "It just isn't…you."

  I huffed out a breath and stood, hot chocolate sloshing onto my jeans. "Mac, I don't have a choice. What else can I do?"

  "Did you think about asking Grandpa for the money?"

  I stared at her. "Mac, we've been over this."

  "You're his only child. He's gonna leave it all to you anyway. Think of it as an advance."

  "Yes, and he hates this house. Hated Uncle Al and now Mom, too."

  "We need a place to live," she said as though I wasn't aware.

  I started to pace the small bit of flooring not taken up by my bed or dirty laundry. "The last time we exchanged more than four words, he called my mother a tramp. If I ask him to help, he'll say I only talk to him when I want something."

  "Well…?" Mac gave me a palms-up shrug. "Isn't that sort of true?"

  A frustrated sound escaped. "Being an adult is so overrated. Sure, you can drink and have sex, but all being adult really is, is looking at a crappy situation and deciding between bad and worse."

  "Something to look forward to." Mac got up. "Are you going to leave the room anytime soon?"

  "Is Brett still out there?"

  When she nodded, I rolled my eyes.

  "Mom, it's not safe for him to drive."

  "He can walk." Same way he left me to do.

  Mac rolled her eyes. "You have to talk to him eventually."

  I folded my arms over my breasts. "Says who?"

  "What happened to being a grown-up, making the hard calls, and all that other mumbo jumbo?"

  "I didn't mean all the time."

  Her hands went to her hips.

  I threw my own in the air. "Mac, I just can't deal with him right now, okay?"

  She held up her hands to ward off the crazy bomb. "Fine. Dad and I are going to watch a movie."

  I gasped. "But movie watching is our thing! You would share it with someone else?"

  She put her hand on my arm. "What can I say? I'm just a movie hoochie."

  "Does that make me your movie hoochie mama? Cause we could get matching T-shirts."

  Mac shook her head, picked up the now tepid mug of cocoa, and closed the door behind her.

  I sat back down on the bed, all the sass draining out of me. Truth was, I couldn't face Brett, not because of how he'd left Mac, but because he'd done what I couldn't. He'd found out what had happened to Gwen.

  Though I couldn't bring myself to say the words out loud, Brett was a better PI than I'd ever be. He'd noticed Gwen Yates wearing the same silver bracelet in all of the wedding photos as well as her school pictures and the candid shots from her apartment. Armed with that knowledge, he'd snuck into the dumpster where the police had removed the body of a young woman earlier that night and found the bracelet. I didn't have that same level of dedication to the case. I'd allowed myself to be distracted by my love life, my kid, and my housing issues. I'd been over those photos too many times to count, but hadn't picked up on the bracelet.

  The worst part was, given the same set of circumstances, I doubted I'd do anything different. Would I choose to put the hunt for Gwen above Mac, or Hunter, or our home? Somehow I doubted it.

  Needing distraction, I picked up my phone. My first call was to Hunter, who picked up on the first ring.

  "Hey, Red." Even those two words sounded exhausted.

  "Will you be home anytime soon?"

  "Can't. We've got a state of emergency going on as well as a murder investigation."

  "You mean Gwen Yates."

  Silence.

  "Brett's here. He told me it was her body you were called in for yesterday."

 

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