Imperfect Rebel (23 page)

Well, at least he was listening. "So, what you need to do is put them in a place where you can whup them without being thrown out of school. The only place you can do that is in wrestling class. I'll have Jared talk to your teacher, and let him help you out with this. Can you do that? Tell them to take their insults to the gym and then the better man wins?"

Gene screwed up his face in disapproval, but he nodded again. "It ain't gonna work, but I'll try. Can I do that for those shits who ragged Kismet?"

Cleo shrugged and stuck her coffee mug under the flow from the machine. "Give it a try." As she sipped the hot black brew, her mind woke to another thought. "What you both need is some friends who'll back you up. Are there any of them you like? People we could ask over and maybe have a beach party or something?"

Gene's eyes lit with all the joy of a child meeting Santa Claus. "You mean that? Really? We can have people over?"

Cleo thought she'd probably lost her mind, but she blamed Jared for that. "Sure, kid. Why not? What's one more reptile or two around the place?"

"Kew-el! Wait 'til I tell Kismet." He took off like cannon shot, shouting through the back of the house.

Now she'd done it. She'd have half the delinquents in town rioting on her beach. She'd have to remind herself sometime why she wasn't supposed to do self-destructive things like that.

Maybe Jared was right. Maybe the kids did need to be jerked out of Linda's negligent care. She just couldn't see Social Services or a group home providing a beach party to make them happy either.

One of these days, she'd learn to mind her own business.

Sipping her coffee and staring out the window at the wind-tossed trees separating her house from Jared's, she no longer believed her own lies.

* * *

"The radio reports a fifty percent chance of it hitting land near here," Cleo said briskly into the telephone to her clerk. "I'm not feeling lucky today, so I'm staying home and putting up the shutters. Have your son come in and nail the plywood over the storefront, will you?"

She answered Marta's quick questions with only half her attention. Her gaze kept straying to the rising wind whipping the palms outside her window. She had only two of the tall trees, but she figured they served as some kind of signal she ought to obey. Besides, she was feeling antsy and outside of herself, and didn't think she'd be any good at the store.

If the hurricane hit here, it wouldn't be until tonight. Could she persuade the kids into a shelter on the mainland if their mother wasn't home? The town was protected by the island and wouldn't see the waves that would smash out here.

She probably ought to check on Linda, but she needed to nail this place together first. She'd spent months of work and effort on this house, and she didn't want it destroyed by a storm that blew in one day and left the next. Maybe she could persuade Linda to go into town to ride it out.

She'd tried calling Jared, but his answering machine was picking up. He could have heard the radio and taken off for dry land already. He'd said he was used to evacuations and knew enough to leave when a hurricane threatened.

As she wrestled with the last of the shutters, cursing their rusty recalcitrance and wondering why she hadn't had the sense to look at them sooner, a strong gust of wind almost blew her off the ladder. Well, if that wasn't a hurricane moving in, she didn't want to see the real thing.

Black clouds boiling overhead warned she'd better decide whether to hit the road or ride it out. Hurrying down the rungs, she started for the house and the radio. Maybe it had hit the coast south of here and this was just the rough edge. She knew absolutely nothing about hurricanes.

Switching the radio on, she dialed Jared's number again. She ought to go down there and make certain he'd left. He could be working and just not answering.

A pounding on the door interrupted the newscaster announcing evacuation routes. Well, so much for hoping it had hit elsewhere. She'd better add Linda to her list of to-dos. That rolling wreck of hers didn't start half the time.

She hung up the receiver and jerked open the front door.

Linda stood there looking so strung out, she swayed. Cleo started to haul her in and sit her down, but the woman's eyes lit like the fires of hell as soon as Cleo tried to speak.

"I told you to leave them kids alone!" she screamed. "I've got case workers all over me now, sayin' my kids ain't living with me and threatening to cut off my checks, and it's your damned fault!"

"Linda, calm down. We can talk—" As Linda grabbed the door frame, Cleo recognized the fresh needle tracks on her visitor's bare forearm, and with horror, she cut off whatever she'd been about to say. If Linda was mainlining, there wasn't a chance of getting sense out of her.

"My kids ain't comin' here no more!" Disregarding Cleo's incomplete sentence, Linda belligerently slammed the door frame. "I'm calling the police the next time you kidnap them. Let the sheriff find out what kind of criminal you are! I sent Lonnie in to make sure they come home, so you stay out of this, if you know what's good for you."

Bits and pieces of Cleo's soul tore loose at Linda's threats. The kids could run and hide from their mother, but she couldn't. In offering to take Linda to AA with her, she'd revealed her innermost secrets to a woman who now sported track marks on her arm. The safe, sane world she'd been carefully constructing crumbled as they spoke.

"Linda, you have to listen to reason—"

"Stay away from them! Don't you dare come to my place no more. I've got a man looking out for us now." With that irrational warning, Linda staggered down the porch stairs, nearly tripping on the last step before tottering away on her high heels.

Clenching her teeth to prevent their chattering in fear, Cleo didn't watch her go. She could call the police. She turned and contemplated the phone with as much horror as Linda had generated. The sheriff would ask questions. She couldn't afford to have Linda spilling what little she knew. All it would take was for the sheriff to notify the feds that she'd been hanging out with a woman who did drugs. She'd never see Matty again.

She couldn't let that pervert have Kismet.

Oh, God, what could she do? Matty came first. Matty was her number one priority. The counselor had said she had to list priorities, and Matty was at the top of every single list. He had to have a sane mother, one with a steady job. She wanted him home with her, but Linda's lies could bring the feds to her door, and she might never see Matty again.

If she did nothing, Linda and her bully would go away. If she did nothing, Kismet could be destroyed.

The wind screamed overhead as she frantically grabbed her purse and car keys and headed out. If she was lucky, the school wouldn't release the kids to a stranger like Lonnie. They'd let them go with Jared, but the teachers knew him. Would they release them to her? What would she do with them after she picked them up?

The roar of Jared's Jeep rocking up the beach drive followed almost immediately on the hiccups of Linda's car bumping in the other direction to the main road. Relief so overwhelming Cleo almost cried swept through her. Jared. Jared would help. The teachers liked him. They'd listen. Maybe he could call the police, and she wouldn't have to get involved.

In near hysteria, she ran outside to flag his car down. There had to be something they could do to save Kismet.

Jared threw the gear into park and switched off the ignition, leaping out before the engine stopped running. "Why aren't you out of here?"

She nearly threw herself into his arms but stopped just in time. "The kids!" she shouted, wanting to shake him into understanding. "Linda was just here. We've got to get the kids." The first splatters of rain hit her arms, but Cleo was beyond worrying about the storm as she jerked open his car door and pointed him into it. "She's sent her boyfriend after them. She's shooting up, Jared! She's beyond reason. You've got to go in and save those kids."

Jared cursed vividly. "Come on, we need to get to the mainland before the storm hits anyway." He grabbed her arm and tried to shove her into the Jeep.

Cleo balked as wheels in her mind finally began to click. "What if he already has them? What if he brings the kids back here? They'll try to come here. I can't leave them out in the storm. I can't go with you."

"Are you out of your freaking mind? There's a hurricane coming! If they're picking the kids up, they aren't coming back here. Come on."

She dug her heels in. "You're not hearing me. Linda's mainlining. That creep probably put her on the hard stuff. They're not listening to weather reports. They're hearing the shit running through their veins. Stop them, if you can, but I'm staying here in case you can't."

She jerked free of his arm and headed back to the house. "I'll try calling the school. Hurry!"

"The line is down. I already tried calling you." Jared ran after her, trying to tug her toward the car. "You can't stay here in a hurricane! This damned island will catch the brunt of it."

She didn't care. She could ride out a storm. The house had stood here for decades of hurricanes; it could stand one more. She was terrified of Linda and her threats, but she was more terrified for the kids. "I'll explain it to you in dirty details sometime, McCloud. Just not now. Go see if you can find those kids. I'm staying right here."

Jared glanced at his watch, looked up to the boiling clouds and dancing palms, then back to Cleo, shivering with her arms wrapped around herself. "I'll be back," he warned. "I'll take the kids to shelter and be back for you."

She watched as he roared off and wished she knew how to pray.

Chapter 19

Curling black waves capped by ominous white froth smashed against the causeway crossing to town as Jared floored the Jeep. Apparently the few tourists in the condos farther out on the island had already evacuated, and the hardy souls who lived here year 'round planned on digging in for the duration. There was hardly a car in sight.

In town, traffic lined the streets bumper-to-bumper, heading for the interstate and safety. He switched on the radio for the latest report. There might still be a chance the storm would pass them by. He hadn't lived in Miami more than a few years, but he'd already learned the high fallibility of hurricane forecasting.

Zigzagging through cross streets where he could, he poured his energy into reaching the school. Surely they had dismissed classes. If the kids had sense to hide when Billy-Bob Pervert showed up, he might find them.

The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach said he should have done something about this problem sooner. He should never have listened to Cleo. That's what he got for thinking with the parts below his belt. The kids would be in some safe home by now.

Not according to Cleo. Shit.

He preferred delegating the responsibility to the state. Cleo preferred accepting it on her own. He didn't know who was right.

Orderly chaos surrounded the school. The last of the big yellow buses bounced from the drive as Jared slowed to a crawl in the line of traffic created by parents preferring to pick up their little darlings in person. He listened to the radio report of school closings and hurricane paths while tapping his hand on the steering wheel and scanning the line of cars. What would Billy-Bob be driving?

Maybe the kids were on the bus. He couldn't see them in the milling mob in the yard. They were sensible kids, but even kids would be torn between going home to their mother during a crisis or hiding somewhere safe onshore.

Not that hurricane winds were ever safe. They really needed to go inland with the rest of the traffic. The weather reports still weren't exact enough to give him a time schedule for picking up the kids, racing back to Cleo, and finding safety. He had his computer and clothes in the back, ready for anything, but he doubted if the kids had anything with them except schoolbooks. Should he take them to a shelter like that? How much stuff did they keep with Cleo? If the island flooded, it could be days before they returned home.

Restlessly, he scanned the crowd of teenagers, the line of trucks and cars, and the street ahead. Why had he thought life would be simpler out here in the middle of nowhere? He was supposed to be working on that screenplay, not hunting down abused children and running from hurricanes. He might as well have stayed in Miami. At least there, he didn't have to worry about anything more critical than where to eat and with whom.