Mortal Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

with me. Doesn’t that imply consent? Are you telling me I don’t have a right to protect her?”
    “Unfortunately, that’s precisely what I’m telling you. You have no legal rights whatsoever.”
    Outraged, she said, “What about a moral right, Father? What about my right to protect my own flesh and blood?”
    She could hear the Mississippi Delta, thick as gumbo, coursing through her speech. No matter how hard she tried to prevent it from happening, intense emotion always exaggerated her accent.
    “Sarah,” he said gently, “I’m on your side. I just want you to know what we’re up against. If we take her against her will, there’s a possibility we could both end up in trouble. Have you notified your brother that she’s missing?”
    Somewhere beyond her anger and her fear, somewhere beyond the frustration of the situation, in some lucid corner of her mind, she recognized that he’d said
we
. Not
you
, but
we
. “I’ve tried,” she said. “But he’s pulled one of his infamous disappearing acts. Nobody seems to know where he is.” She leaned forward. “Does this mean you’re going to help me?”
    “First,” he said, moving with easy grace back to his chair, “I’d like to know a little about Kit. Why’d she run away?” He sat, rolled the chair back from the desk, and crossed his long legs, resting one ankle atop the opposite knee. “What’s so terrible at home that she’d rather be peddling her body on a street corner?”
    Fury spiked through her. She looked him directly in the eye and said grimly, “Every second Tuesday, I lock her in a closet and feed her Kal Kan sandwiches.”
    For the first time, she saw a glimmer of a smile on his face. “I’m trying to get a feel for the situation,” he said. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”
    “Look, my brother isn’t exactly a prime candidate for Father of the Year. For ten years, he let Kit ran wild. I’m the first person who’s ever said no to her, the only one who’s ever had expectations of her. She’s having a hard time dealing with it.”
    “I can imagine that would be difficult for her.”
    “If you want to get specific, we had a big blowout Wednesday morning over whether or not she was going to get her tongue pierced.”
    “Let me guess. You were the one who voted against it.”
    “Cute,” she said. “Very cute.”
    “Have you checked with her school? Her friends?”
    “That was my first thought. It was a useless endeavor. Her teachers all said the same thing. Kit kept to herself, didn’t talk to much of anybody. She ate lunch by herself, didn’t have any homeroom buddies. I tried talking to a few of the kids, but all I got was a big, fat zero.”
    She leaned back in the chair, crossed denim-clad legs, and sighed. “I know I’m too strict. Ellie probably would’ve let her do it. She spoiled Kit rotten, but in a good way. She just wanted to give Kit the world. She was a wonderful mother. Then she died, just like that. An aneurysm, at twenty-six.” She paused, took a deep breath. “Bobby couldn’t handle losing her. Everywhere he looked, he could see Ellie’s face. I didn’t blame him for leaving home, but I just couldn’t see him carting Kit around from town to town while he played one-night stands with some third-rate country band. I begged him to leave her with me. Of course, he wouldn’t listen. She was all he had left.”
    Softly, he said, “And?”
    “And.” She took a sip of coffee. “They both survived Bobby’s haphazard lifestyle until Kit turned thirteen and all those adolescent hormones kicked in. The monster Bobby’d created came roaring to life, and he finally figured out that this parenting thing was a little more complicated than he’d thought. It actually involved work, and work is something to which my brother has always had a powerful aversion. That was when he remembered how his little sister had begged for the opportunity to raise his daughter. So he brought her to me.”
    “Lucky