Anybody's Daughter (Angela Evans Series No. 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

reports playing in her eyes.
    Dre turned back to the cop. “And even if she did leave on her own, it doesn’t mean she isn’t in danger. She’s only thirteen.”
    “But you don’t know for sure that she’s in danger,” the officer insisted.
    “And you don’t know for sure that she isn’t,” Angela fired back. She’d been worried about Dre going off on the police and here she was ready to go ballistic herself.
    “Call the TV stations,” Donna ordered. “We need to get Brianna’s picture on TV.”
    The cop’s blue-green eyes rolled skyward. “I’ll see what I can do.”
    “If my baby was some blonde-headed white girl, I bet there’d be cameras and news reporters all up and down the street by now,” Donna cried. “But because my baby is black, nobody’s going to do a damn thing to find her. This is racism!”
    The cop sighed and turned to Dre. “Do you have a recent picture of your niece?”
    Donna started to rise from the couch, but Dre waved her back down. He glanced around the room, then snatched a framed picture from a sofa table.
    “This is her most recent school picture. It’s only a few months old.”
    The officer wrote down Brianna’s height and weight and a description of the clothes she was wearing.
    “We need to make some posters,” Donna mumbled, seemingly to herself. “And call the TV stations.”
    “What about Brianna’s father?” the officer asked. “Could he be involved?”
    Donna shot up from the couch. “No, he couldn’t! My husband died in Iraq defending this country!”
    She crumpled back to the couch and into her mother’s embrace. Both of them were sobbing now. Though eight years had passed since her husband’s death, Donna had never fully recovered from the loss. At times, her severe bouts of depression had left her unable to work or properly care for Brianna. His sister would not survive another tragedy.
    “We’ll need to check her email and Facebook accounts,” the officer said, continuing to scribble on his notepad.
    “I don’t allow her on Facebook,” Donna sniffed. “We have the same Gmail account and I check her emails every week.”
    “Does she have a smartphone?” the officer asked.
    “Yeah,” Dre said.
    “Then she probably has a Facebook account you know nothing about. Most teenagers do these days.”
    Donna was on her feet again. “I know my child! How dare you say—”
    “Donna! Stop it!” Dre shouted. “This isn’t helping.”
    He looked at the officer. “She has an iPhone which she never lets out of her sight. I’m sure she took it with her, but I’ll check her room anyway.”
    Dre disappeared down a hallway.
    The front door opened and a man and woman stepped into the living room. The man resembled Dre, but was both taller and younger. He sat down next to Donna and gave her a hug.
    “Anthony, my baby’s gone!”
    “Don’t worry, sis. We’re gonna find her.”
    Anthony looked up at Angela. “Who are you?”
    After a beat of silence, Dre’s mother answered his question. “That’s that girl who was mixed up with that judge and got Dre all over the news.”
    All eyes were pinned on Angela now. His family obviously didn’t view her reappearance in his life as a good thing.
    “I think I remember that case,” the cop said, wagging his pen at her.
    Before Angela could say anything, Dre stepped back into the room, his expression noticeably grim.
    “I couldn’t find her phone,” Dre said, walking over to Donna. “But I found this underneath her mattress.” He held up a pink spiral notebook. “Maybe she does have a boyfriend because some dude’s name is scribbled on almost every page. So who the hell is Jaden?”

Chapter 8
Day One: 9:45 p.m.
    T he possibility that Brianna might have a boyfriend her mother knew nothing about sent Donna deeper into hysterics. It took some doing, but Dre had finally convinced her to take a sleeping pill. Now, as he glanced around his sister’s living room, he wondered where all the people had