Free Thicker Than Water by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

whom?”
    Heaven help the sixteen-year-old with a reporter for a mom, she thought. Julie Jones didn’t know how to accept anything less than who, what, where, when, why and how from anyone. Especially her own kid.
    â€œCome on, Mom, it was a mistake. I’m sixteen. I’m not a little kid anymore, and I said I was sorry.”
    â€œDawn.” There was that warning tone in her voice, the one Dawn knew not to mess with.
    â€œAll right,” she said with a heavy sigh. “If you must know every detail, there was a party on the lakeshore, down by the landing. A bunch of kids, a little bonfire, a boom box and a pile of CDs. I left after you went to bed and walked down there with a friend. A female friend, but I’m not going to tell you which one, because if I do, you’ll call her mom and get her into trouble, too. Consider it protecting a source.”
    Her mother lifted her perfectly shaped eyebrows and gave two slow blinks of her pretty brown eyes that told Dawn she was treading on thin ice. “Was there alcohol at this party?”
    â€œNot at first. About an hour ago a carload of kids fromF. M. high showed up with a couple of cases. Things started getting a little crazy, so my friend and I decided to leave.”
    â€œIt was Kayla Matthews, wasn’t it?”
    Dawn didn’t answer. “I didn’t drink, Mom. Smell.” She blew toward her mother’s face.
    Her mother actually took her up on the offer and sniffed her breath, then seemed only slightly relieved. “What else? Were there drugs?”
    Dawn licked her lips, lowered her eyes. “I thought I caught a whiff of weed just before we took off, but I didn’t see it.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œMom, it was just harmless fun. I didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, aside from the sneaking out without asking.” She lifted her head, thinking fast. “Besides, you snuck out tonight, too. In my Jeep.”
    Her mother’s eyes widened just enough to tell Dawn she wasn’t supposed to know about her little midnight run. “Dawnie, you were on foot, in the dark, without me even knowing you’d left. Suppose, on your way down to that party, you and Kayla had encountered a predator?”
    â€œI never said Kayla was with me!” Her mom didn’t even pause.
    â€œSuppose some fiftysomething pervert with a taste for teenage girls had happened by? Would there have been any harm then? My God, I wouldn’t even have known you were missing until morning!”
    â€œOh, come on, you knew I was missing the second you came home from wherever you were tonight. You don’t miss a thing. Besides, I wasn’t alone, and nothing happened.”
    â€œDon’t you even watch the news I have to read every night, Dawnie? Don’t you realize what kind of risk you were taking?” Sighing, shaking her head, she turned and walked back into the living room, reaching for the telephone.
    Dawn raced after her. “What are you doing? Who are you calling?”
    â€œThe police, of course.”
    â€œMom, you can’t!”
    She paused in dialing, the phone in her hand. “Dawnie, how am I going to feel if I go in to work tomorrow and someone hands me some copy about a carload of Fayetteville-Manlius students who crashed on their way home from a party? You said yourself they brought beer. Did they have a designated driver?”
    Dawn swallowed the lie that leaped to her throat, lowered her head, shook it slowly. “No. They were all drinking.”
    â€œThen may be a patrol car will get there before they leave, and maybe they’ll get home alive tonight.” She finished dialing.
    Dawn sighed hard enough to make her mother fully aware of her feelings about this, then stalked through to the stairs and up them.
    â€œWe’re not finished here, Dawn. You’re grounded. Two weeks. No arguments.”
    â€œWhatever,” Dawn muttered. God, everyone was going to know