Chapter 4
1619 Words
Chapter Four
Billy Jo had slapped her steering wheel a half dozen times as she called that arrogant cop every combination of four-letter words she could think of. She’d wanted to talk to everyone else at the camp, but what had Detective Mark Friessen said but no?
No!
Like, what the hell was that? After what had seemed like some over-the-top male bonding with Todd, the counselor, she had half-expected the detective to invite him out to the local pub for a beer or whatever it was guys did together!
Both men had been under the impression that she and Jeanette were overreacting, even though she knew they had to have heard all of her suspicions and the urgency. That was likely why she was imagining running the jerk detective over now as she geared down.
The engine revved way too loud. She hadn’t realized how fast she was driving as her car hit a rut in the driveway going up to her place. The car went sideways, and she heard a clunk that didn’t sound good. She jammed on the brakes, skidding across gravel and dirt.
She came to a stop at the bottom of her stairs, probably a little too close, and pulled up the emergency brake, then saw three sets of eyes staring at her from Lesley and Lorne’s front porch.
“Oops, sorry,” she said, more to herself than anything, as she turned off the engine and then opened her door.
Her dad stepped off the front porch. They’d all seen her pull in, crazed and out of control.
“Everything okay?” Lesley called out.
She gave her door a shove closed and didn’t miss her dad’s expression as he strode across the yard with purpose. Of course, he knew something was up.
“Sorry, yes,” Billy Jo replied, really feeling like an i***t. “Didn’t realize I was driving so fast. Sorry!”
The closer her dad got, the less impressed he seemed. She looked up to her front porch and spotted the door open, Harley looking down on her as if to agree with everyone.
“What’s wrong?” was all Chase said.
Billy Jo pulled in a breath, ready to say it was nothing.
When he stopped right in front of her, he didn’t have his sunglasses on, and she didn’t miss the seriousness in his blue eyes. “Don’t you dare say it’s nothing, because I know you, and I know when something is bothering you or throwing you off your game. Now I know why your car was such a mess. If you’re upset, don’t take it out on your car. Don’t take it behind the wheel, period.” He pulled his arms across his chest. “I don’t like leaving when you’re like this. I can see that something has upset you. It didn’t go well?”
She shut her eyes, but that was a mistake, because red hair and blue eyes were all she saw, along with the disdain and arrogance the detective had for her. The feeling was absolutely, one hundred percent mutual.
“No, it didn’t. There was this guy…” She let her head fall back, because he wasn’t just a guy. He was going to be a very real problem that would get in the way of her doing her job.
Her dad was still looking at her. “Are you telling me some guy here is giving you a hard time?” he said. There it was, that overprotectiveness that had always existed.
“Detective Mark Friessen,” she said. “He’s such a jerk. I went out to the wilderness camp because there’s a missing girl, yet this detective basically shut down any search for her. You know, he actually believed I was overreacting. I’m not kidding. The head counselor over there, also a male, basically came out and said as much. Me! I do not overreact.” She made herself pull in a breath. Her dad’s sharp gaze was enough of a warning about how loud she was being.
“When you left, you didn’t say what this was about or who. A missing girl, huh? How old? Here on the island?”
She wanted to groan. She couldn’t be talking about this, but this was her dad. When she got upset, she went on a spiral, going into a rant, her mouth running like it was now. She shut her eyes for a second and touched her hand to her forehead.
Her dad was watching her, maybe trying to figure out how to fix this for her.
“Yeah, just a kid,” Billy Jo said. “But it’s more about the fact that one of the counselors, Jeanette, sounded the alarm and put a call in to the police. She said the missing girl had marks on her, that she refused to wear the T-shirt everyone in the camp does. Once, when Jeanette accidentally walked in on her when she was stepping out of the shower, she saw bruising on her arms that appeared old, as if someone had grabbed her too hard, and on her back and the backs of her legs, as if she’d been kicked.
“Even after hearing that, the detective wasn’t all over this! He just stood there while the two counselors argued back and forth. The male counselor was saying they have no way of knowing whether someone hurt Shay or she did it to herself. Apparently, she has a history, and until they can get her in a chair and question her, no one can say for sure what happened and when.”
She was pacing, and she lifted her hands and gestured to her dad. “Okay, I get it that none of us know for sure, and he could be right that it was one of the kids at the camp. But still, that damn arrogant detective said he’d make some calls. Then he basically ordered me to leave. There was a point there that—”
“You wanted to argue, defy authority, do what you wanted to do, to hell with anyone?” her dad cut in. He had said it so calmly, but she didn’t miss the punch in his words. He really did have a way of seeing her in the most unflattering angle.
“You make me sound impossible, difficult.”
There it was, the subtle tug of a smile at her dad’s lips. “You don’t make things easy at times, honey.”
Maybe it was the way she frowned that had her dad putting his hand on her shoulder and really looking at her as if he needed to make a point.
“You listen to me,” he said. “It doesn’t mean your mom and I love you any less. We love you with all these quirks of your personality. Some of these traits will make you a damn good social worker, because if you take that passion and that fight and use it for the kids you’re trying to help, you’ll move mountains. But at the same time, I have to caution you, you can also burn out…”
“From caring too much,” she said. She wasn’t sure how to take it.
Her dad rested his hand on her shoulder again, maybe to settle her. “Let me finish, Billy Jo. You butt heads with authority—at times with anyone. I know it. But you’re in a field where you’re going to be working with a lot of authorities, and you’re not going to agree with them in some of the things they decide. If you go at some of them like this, you could end up hurting the kids you say you’re trying to help, because doors will close, and those in power, with the authority to make a difference, will turn their backs on you and won’t tolerate this kind of pit-bull attack.”
She said nothing.
Her dad pulled in a heavy breath as he stepped back, then glanced up at her place. “Look, I have to leave soon for the ferry…or I can call your mom and tell her I’m staying.”
“Dad, no. Go. I’m a big girl. You don’t have to stay and fix this. I’m just…”
Her dad pressed his hand to her shoulder and gestured to the car. “Go up and put the cat in. Then you can buy me that lunch you promised, but it sounds like you may be off to a rocky start here on the island, butting heads with someone who can make things easier or harder.”
She knew he was talking about the detective. She was about to dig in, to argue, when he gestured again, ready to tell her what to do.
“Billy Jo, you know this already, but in case I need to spell it out to you, sometimes being an adult and doing the right thing means you need to swallow your pride so you can make a difference to a kid who needs your help. If you want to find this girl, it sounds like you need the help of this detective. Mark Friessen, you said?”
The way her dad said his name, she had a feeling there was something more there, but he only shook his head.
“You want me to suck up to him, don’t you?” she said. She could feel the growl inside of her, wanting to claw Mark’s eyes out instead.
“No, I want you to be a big girl and find a way to form a truce, to get along with this detective to find this girl. Sometimes you have to work with people you don’t like, so my advice to you is to dig deep and find something to like in him. Everyone has something. If that proves too much, tell yourself that if you don’t, a girl who could be in trouble is the one who’s going to pay the price for your pride.”
Now, how did he do that? The words he used were like an icy splash of water.
But why did she have to be the bigger person here?
The problem was that she already knew the answer.
- Writer
