Free The Most Wanted by Jacquelyn Mitchard Page A

lawyer. Weird how a minor avenue of thought had become a huge time sink, sucking up most of a crowded Wednesday. It was nearly three. By the time I could get to Avalon, it would be close to four. Arley would have to be home from school. Unless she was working.
    I gathered my things and went out to the car. On the cell phone, I called information and asked for Taco Haven.
    The answering voice there said only “Jack.”
    “I’m trying to find Arlington LeGrande.”
    “This is Ginny Jack.”
    “Yes. I’m trying to find an employee, Arlington LeGrande.”
    “No one works here by that name.”
    “No Arley? A waitress?”
    “Arley Mowbray, you mean. She don’t work tonight. Can I please ask who’s caring about that?”
    “This is Anne Singer. I’m, well, I’m Missus LeGrande’s attorney, Arley’s attorney.”
    “She in trouble?”
    “No.
    “Beyond the obvious, I mean.”
    “Ah, excuse me?”
    “Missus LeGrande, indeed.”
    “Oh. Well. No, she’s not in any trouble.”
    “She’s a sweetie pie, you know that?”
    “She seems to be.”
    “Got the wrong heritage, though.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Well, you meet little Rita, her mama, and you see why that girl’s about half better than she should be, which ain’t saying much.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “No, excuse me. I shouldn’t be saying this stuff.”
    “I appreciate it. Really. I don’t know much of what has gone on with Arley. . . .”
    “She’s just such a nice, sweet kid.”
    “I know.”
    “She’s too nice and too sweet to be involved in all this junk. I just ain’t been able to think it all through straight. It happened so sudden.”
    “It sure seems that way.”
    “I knew Rita in high school. She was two years younger, but she was going like sixty before I knew what twenty was, if you know what I mean.”
    “Can I come by and see you, Missus. . . . Jack? I’m actually going to pass by the restaurant on my way out to Avalon today. . . .”
    “Well. Maybe. Well, no. I need to stick my nose back where it belongs. I’m sorry. I got a late lunch rush here, ma’am, so you’ll have to pardon me. I’ll tell Arley you called.”
    I wanted to know more. Despite her critical error in getting herself married to a convict, Arley had made far fewer revolutions around the block than most of my clients, and their children, not to mention their children. I’d once hosted three generations of women from the same family, all pregnant by the same man. Just sorting out the genetics was enough to make you rip out fistfuls of hair, never mind the psychodynamics. I had only Arley’s manner and appearance to work from, but she seemed pretty unaffected by her upbringing. So whatever else her former schoolmates thought about her, Rita Mowbray had to be a fairly protective, consistent parent, if not a plaster saint. I knew plenty of very good mothers who somehow never managed to buy skirts long enough to allow them to sit with their legs crossed. A taste for the fiesta didn’t mark a woman as a poor parent, especially in Texas. And Rita Mowbray, as her daughter had told me, was a fully educated registered nurse. That alone took smarts and guts, particularly for a woman on her own. I was looking forward to meeting her, little Rita who went like sixty.
    And then I did.
    When I finally found the little white house, set back on a corner lot from the dusty, pitted surface of Jean-Marie Street, it was Arley who opened the door. Even through the screen, I could see her brown eyes widen and grow darker. They looked like horse’s eyes, with that tightly strung combination of challenge and fear. “Hello,” she said, but it was a whisper. It was the whisper that made me realize why I’d come at all—a sixth sense that Arley was in more trouble than even her bizarre romantic life indicated. That there was something she needed protecting from, and she was afraid to tell about it.
    “Arley, hi,” I told her. “I know I didn’t call