At Risk of Being a Fool by Jeanette Cottrell Read Free Book Online Page B

predictable.
    The question was, where wouldn’t Rivera look? He gave the site a long look, watching for movement or red lights from security cameras. He prowled softly, keeping his hands in his pockets. Klutzes didn’t make it for long.
    The crew hadn’t broken through into the building yet, to connect the new part with the old. It looked like a fort built with cinder block Legos. Framing two-by-fours filled the gaps with sharp lines, horizontal and vertical, like bars.
    His stride broke for a moment, and recovered.
    The scaffolding climbed around the construction, like a frame around a picture. Rivera left a neat site, especially lately. There was the trailer, of course, but it was too chancy. There was no telling who’d open it next. Supposedly, the new guy was foreman and Rivera worked under him, but you’d never know it from the way they acted. There was no rhythm, no method to their work, not like when Wogan was around.
    He stepped into the open framework, checking out the crosspieces holding the window braces upright. His gaze traveled high into empty space. The trusses would go there. Trusses held a multitude of hiding places. That could work. He thought about the cinder blocks, with their neatly molded holes, but gave them up. The blocks would mess up the explosion, rather than add missile force. The trusses were probably best, more effective.
    It would take them another couple weeks to get that far. That was okay. He had lots of time. The important thing was to do it right, and get away clean. Not to get caught by the cops, and sure as hell not by Rivera. He had to keep his homeys out of it, too. It was safer, for them, and for him.
    He tested the scaffolding ladder with one foot. It rocked some, but that didn’t bother him. Noiselessly, he climbed to the top.
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
    Bright Futures Transition Facility for Girls squatted in the middle-class neighborhood like a sulking bulldog amidst poodles. An unnaturally clean bulldog. The pavement looked as if someone routinely scrubbed it with a toothbrush. It matched the landscaping, with every bush sculpted, not into beauty, but conformity. Clean, sterile, almost snobbish propriety was the order of the day.
    Jeanie shifted to the other foot as she waited on the doorstep. Perhaps it was only Mackie’s stories, Sorrel’s sullen silence, and Brynna’s paranoia that made her expect the worst at Bright Futures Transition Facility for Girls.
    “Yes, ma’am, can I help you?” The girl bowed her head, presenting a view of perfectly clean hair and nothing much else. The blondish hair was dull and dry, separated into two exactly symmetrical portions, like a stick of butter sliced with a hot knife.
    “I’m Jeanie McCoy. I teach at the GED school. I’m here for Sorrel Quintana. Mrs. Mahoney said she’d been delayed, and I offered to come get her.” Last week Jeanie had offered to transport Rosalie from Esperanza. Esperanza’s wide, bright halls and relaxed atmosphere had warmed her. Rosalie had responded to the sharp-eyed housemothers with mingled irritation and affection, just as Jeanie’s sons had spoken to her in their youth.
    The girl’s fleeting glance lit on her face. “I’m afraid she’s with Mrs. Torrez right now,” she said, with the air of reciting a hard-learned lesson. “Would you care to wait in the rec room?”
    “I haven’t met Mrs. Torrez yet,” Jeanie said cheerfully. “Why don’t I join them?”
    The girl’s instant recoil took her two steps back into the hallway. Jeanie followed. This poor, nervous child was a juvenile offender? Still, perhaps Mrs. Torrez’s extreme control was necessary, particularly if Brynna and Sorrel were a representative sample. The girls always took every inch offered and several miles that weren’t.
    The girl scuttled ahead of her, pausing at the end of a side hallway. “Mrs. Torrez’s office is the last door on the right.” She snatched up a basket of cleaning supplies and vanished, removing herself