Hour of Need (Scarlet Falls) by Melinda Leigh Page B

haven’t heard from him?” She frowned.
    “No.”
    “I’m sure he’s fine.” But she didn’t sound convinced. “You don’t think he found out about Lee and Kate and—”
    “I have no reason to think Mac is in trouble.” Grant shook his head. “But I’ll feel better if we find him.”
    “Me, too.” Hannah nodded. “Let’s go then.”
    Mac hadn’t relapsed in the ten years since he’d gotten out of rehab, but if he’d found out about the murders . . .
    “You want the baby or the box of files?” Grant nodded toward Lee’s office.
    “I’ll get the box,” Hannah said.
    Not surprised, Grant took Carson out front and opened the back door of the rental car.
    Carson shook his head. “I hafta be in a booster seat.”
    Shoot. Of course both kids needed safety seats. “Where’s your booster seat?”
    “In Mommy’s van.” Carson trotted back into the house and emerged with a set of keys. They trooped around the house to the detached garage. Kate’s silver minivan was outfitted for kids. Toys, bottled water, snacks, and little nets to stow everything. Carson climbed into his booster seat and fastened his seat belt. Grant snapped Faith’s seat into its base unit. He leaned on the carpet. Crumbs embedded his palm. His knee squashed an empty juice box.
    Hannah came out of the house with AnnaBelle on her leash. “She was whining. I didn’t see why she couldn’t ride along.”
    Grant opened the rear door for the dog. Hannah put the box of files in the cargo area. AnnaBelle jumped in. The insides of the van windows were already smeared with dog slobber. Not the dog’s first car ride. Hannah rode shotgun.
    He started the engine. “When was the last time you talked to Mac?”
    She lifted a shoulder. “I haven’t talked to Mac or Lee in over a month.”
    “Me either,” Grant said. “Were we always like this? I seemed to remember we were closer as kids.”
    Hannah sighed. “When Mom died, everything changed.”
    “True.” Grant backed out of the driveway.
    Mom had been the backbone of the family. She’d handled four young kids with a husband who was away most of the time, and when he finally came home, he was paralyzed.
    “Lee used to call me every Sunday.” Hannah shook a piece of hair out of her eyes. “But the last couple of years, I got the impression he was swamped and stressed at work. We talked less and less. I was all over the world. The time differences were a pain.” She sighed. “None of my excuses will change the fact that he’s gone. I should have called him more, and now I can’t.”
    Nothing altered reality and instilled regret with the same permanence as death.

    Julia stepped off the bus and shrugged into her backpack, the weight of the straps digging into her shoulders. She fished her phone out of her pocket. Three text messages displayed on the screen. All of her friends were already home. None of them took the bus. They all drove to and from school. She was going to be sixteen in a couple of months. She’d get her own driver’s license. But she doubted it would matter. They couldn’t afford another car, and none of her friends lived close enough to give her a ride.
    She scrolled past the first two messages to the one from Taylor, another thing that didn’t make her mom’s short approved list. But at some point, a girl had do what a girl had to do, and Julia was sick of being left out of all the fun. She didn’t drink or do drugs. Her grades were straight A s. Instead of being rewarded, her mom practically kept her prisoner with a bunch of ridiculous rules. She wasn’t allowed to date older boys. Taylor was eighteen, and the only boy she was interested in. Julia’s fun was limited to skating, and now even that would suck without Mrs. Barrett as her coach. She flicked a tear from her cheek.
    A funny sensation tickled the back of her neck, like someone was watching her. She glanced around, but there was no one in sight. She looked ahead. Her house was two blocks from