Page 20 of The Dating Charade

All of them, that is, but Star, who hadn’t turned up.

Or returned her texts.

She flicked her turn signal and moved onto Day Street. The small homes there were lit by the occasional string of lights across paint-stripped porches, inflated snowmen, and retro nativity sets—the yellowed Marys seated quietly above baby Jesuses as poor and unnoticed as the renters watching televisions inside.

She slowed whenever she recognized one of the residences of her girls. A silhouette ghosted by of Destiny’s mother walking past one of the windows—involved in her daughter’s life, grateful for the Haven’s services, always willing to lend a hand and dispense doughnuts. The hardworking single mother who’d pushed herself through night school to be an RN. One of her favorites.

Star’s home was at the complex at the end of the street connecting Day to Seventeenth, the “ST” of the stop sign blotted out by black graffiti. Cassie neared it, then saw the blinking lights. She slowed as she watched the two patrol cars parked at the front of Star’s building. When she spotted Ershanna, she jerked the steering wheel to pull into an empty parking space.

Bold as aluminum foil beneath the lamp post, Ershanna stood in her silvery puffer jacket, talking privately to an officer at the lower end of the building. With receding hairline tilted down, he nodded, listening to her while simultaneously jotting notes on his pad.

Cassie waited a beat while two other cars passed, then opened her door.

It was probably nothing. There were over ten—her eyes lifted to the windows, counting the lights, calculating the numbers—twelve apartments in the building alone, with half a dozen more buildings surrounding them. And Ershanna was a chatty-child adult, her personality one that drove toward drama instead of shutting the curtains and letting the matter deal with itself. Her talking to the officer meant little.

And yet, Star hadn’t shown up.

And yet, she so uncharacteristically hadn’t returned Cassie’s texts.

Cassie hopped onto the sidewalk and quickened her pace. She sidestepped an overturned can as she turned up three concrete stairs.

“Ershanna?” She spoke softly, not wanting to be rude or interrupt.

Ershanna turned her face to Cassie. The mildly puzzled concentration of the girl’s eyes told Cassie she had a hard time placing her.

“I’m Cassie. I know Star from Girls Haven.”

“That’s right.” Ershanna’s flat expression dissolved as she nodded expressively and turned, opening up the space for the three of them.

Not a good sign. Cassie didn’t want any come-to-the-circle-this-involves-you vibe, didn’t wish for any welcoming expression or stance.

Reluctantly, she stepped into the circle. “Is everything all right with Star?”

But just as she asked the question she heard a door open several floors above them and the distinct voice of Rachel, the social worker she’d talked with about Cam’s case less than two weeks ago. “Sweetie, your sister is going to hold your hand, see?” she was saying through the child’s screaming tantrum.

Something to the effect of “I don’t want to go” followed by a garbled “Mypapeesndheidr” poured repeatedly from the little girl’s lungs and spread out into the night air.

Then, suddenly, Cassie saw Star. She withdrew immediately and began jogging toward the stairs.

“Ma’am. Ma’am!” the officer called after her, but Cassie only stepped quicker, her Toms slipper-soft quiet as she bounded up one set and began another. Perhaps that, too, was something she had in common with Jett Bentley: evading officers.

Halfway up the stairs, she met them. “Star?”

Star was hip-holding Deidre, whose six-year-old legs hung loosely toward the ground. Her youngest sister, Kennedy, the four-year-old Cassie had only heard about in stories, sat in Rachel’s arms, though the child seemed unable to make up her mind between tear-filled shrieks toward the door and her older sister. She arched her back, and Rachel gripped the railing.

Cassie grabbed Rachel’s coat and held her steady through another round of “Mypapeesndheidr!”

“She wants Tinker Bell,” Star explained, her words stiff and emotionless, detached from the chaos around her. “She wants her puppy.”

“A puppy?” Rachel craned her neck around the mass of the little girl’s hair to catch Star’s eyes. “A real puppy is in there?”

“No, a stuffed one. It’s in my room.”

Cassie turned to Rachel. She wanted to ask what was going on. She wanted to interrupt whatever swift transition they were making to demand answers. But the child shrieked again, and all Cassie could manage was, “Can I get it for her?”

Rachel’s eyes darkened with unspoken meaning. She looked to the child. “Sweetie, we think little puppy—Tinker Bell—is too sick and needs to stay behind. I don’t think—”

“Mypapeesndheid!”