Chapter Twenty-Seven

The heavy rain had leveled off to a drizzle by the time I drove toward home in the dark .I thought about stopping off at the local gossip corner for a bite to eat, but I had more important things to do, like track down my daughter before she made the foolish mistake of marrying a man she barely knew. Or better yet, one I hadn't been given the opportunity to approve or disapprove of.

I thought I saw Mitch's pickup pull away from my driveway as I approached. If it was him though, he was around the curve in the road before I had a close enough look to tell for sure.

If it was him, he'd be back. But I went ahead and called his farm anyway once I got inside the house and had checked the answering machine for messages. There were none.

I got Mitch's answering machine and hung up before it finished with its announcement to leave a message after the beep. Kitty was fed and given some attention before I headed up the stairs to get out of damp clothes and hit the shower.

As I stripped down to bare skin, my mind searched for answers to my daughter's whereabouts. Joe insisted he knew nothing of her seeing a boy on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, he hadn't heard from her since the last time she was home, which was almost a month ago.

When I thought about the kind of sheltered and affluent life Alicia had growing up, and how, as a result, she was probably too naive about the opposite sex, it brought Angel into my thoughts. The sad tale she told me over tea was about a childhood totally opposite Alicia's.

Angel was raised below the poverty level. Her mother had introduced a stepfather into her life when she was age two. She had very little to say about the man, but I sensed she didn't like him much. Just because the stepfather used his disability check to buy booze and gamble, and her mother worked two jobs and was never home, didn't mean they weren't a happy little family as Angel had stated. It's the tone of voice she used when she said it, and the way her features reverted back to that stone cold state I witnessed on previous occasions, that told me all was not as she wanted me to believe.

I was bending over to reach in and turn on the shower when the doorbell dinged. I grabbed the terry cloth robe from the back of the bathroom door and made it downstairs on the third ding-dong.

"Saw the lights on and figured you were here," Mitch was saying as he took off his hat and stepped inside.

"I was just about ready to hop in the shower."

"Well, go ahead. I'll wait. Put on some coffee too, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind," I said to the back of him as he started down the hall to the kitchen.

Instead of hurrying upstairs to shower and dress, I followed him to the kitchen. Something didn't feel right about him showing up on my doorstep when just a few hours ago he thought it best he stay away for the night.

"Has something happened?" I asked from the doorway, where I stood watching him fill my Mr. Coffee pot with water.

"Get your shower and we'll talk."

The way I was looking at him must have been why he said more.

"It's nothin' to get worked up about. So go on now. The coffee'll be done soon."