Free Trumped Up Charges by Joanna Wayne Page B

hurt those precious little girls, she’d turn him in to the cops herself without blinking an eye.
    Quinton hadn’t stayed long when he’d dropped by Monday afternoon. They’d sipped iced tea at the kitchen table and he’d asked about Sam and Alana who were both out at the time. When he’d asked about her job, she’d told him about Janice’s upcoming operation.
    Another major mistake. He might have gotten the idea right then and there to rob her house while she was in the hospital. Then when he’d discovered that Hadley and the girls were staying there, he’d decided to go for real money.
    Those were only assumptions, but they would explain everything.
    Admittedly, Quinton hadn’t had much of a chance to steal the keys to Janice’s house. The only time he’d been alone was the few minutes it had taken her to go to the bathroom and then to the bedroom to get the hundred dollars she’d lent him.
    But the keys were in plain sight, on the hook in the kitchen where she always kept them. He could have tried the keys on her doors in a matter of seconds and known which ones didn’t fit. By the process of simple elimination he’d have realized the other two house keys were to the O’Sullivan home.
    It pained her to think that Quinton could commit such a depraved and heartless act. But if he hadn’t taken the keys, where were they?
    She whirled around at the sound of footsteps behind her. “Johnny. What are you doing here?”
    “Looking for you. I figured you’d be at mass praying for the O’Sullivan girls.”
    “You know me well.”
    Far better than most mechanics knew their customers. Quinton had worked for Johnny Rouse years ago, before Johnny had fired him for stealing from the cash register. But she had kept taking her cars to Johnny for repairs. They’d started dating a couple of years ago after his wife left him.
    “Do the police have any leads?” Johnny asked.
    “None that I’ve been told about.”
    “Hadley’s gotta be really upset. Her mother, too.”
    “They are. We all are.”
    “Hopefully they’ll find them today.”
    “And find them alive and safe,” Matilda added.
    She started walking again. Johnny kept pace.
    “I heard you came by the shop yesterday looking for me,” he said.
    “I did.”
    “My workers said you were acting crazy. Said you insisted they waste an hour looking for some stupid keys.”
    “I thought I might have lost them when I brought my car in for an oil change Tuesday afternoon.”
    “You had to have your keys when you left, Matilda, or you couldn’t have driven your car home.”
    “I lost house keys, not car keys.”
    “Well, I didn’t see no loose keys of any kind lying about the shop after you left. I s’pect they’ll show up around your house in a day or two.”
    “I s’pect so,” she agreed. “But keep an eye out for them, will you? If you find them, please call me.”
    “Sure.”
    In spite of Johnny’s prediction, there was an extremely slim chance they’d show up at her house. There wasn’t a square inch of space she hadn’t already searched.
    But they could be at Janice’s house. The problem was she couldn’t get into the house unless Hadley was there. And she couldn’t very well turn the house upside down searching for the keys if Hadley was there without admitting she’d lost them.
    She would admit it, if it came to that. She hoped it wouldn’t. She couldn’t afford a lawyer. And what would Alana and Sam do if she went to jail and couldn’t work and pay the bills?
    “I guess you know Sam stopped in yesterday after you left.”
    “He didn’t mention it to me.”
    “Yeah, he asked me about a job.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “I didn’t. By the time I finished what I was doing and had time to talk to him about it, he’d gone.”
    “He’s not very motivated. Having to go to summer school when he thought he’d be graduated by now has really bummed him out.”
    “Kids. Say, you wanna grab a bite to eat and catch a movie