Vulnerable (Morgans of Nashville) by Mary Burton Read Free Book Online Page B

the morning he decided to cut Mike off from his allowance. And then before dawn, worry tightened his gut. It wasn’t the first time the kid had stayed out all night but that night brought a persistent worry that chewed at him relentlessly.
    The next morning he received a call from Emma Reed. Her daughter Bethany had been on the science trip with Mike. Her voice was steeped with stress and worry when she told him that Bethany had not come home either. His annoyance gave way to enough worry that he started calling around. When he found out Amber Ryder was one of the three kids on the trip, his blood boiled. Mike was forbidden to see her, and yet, the kid went behind his father’s back. Knowing Amber Ryder was in the mix ramped up worry tenfold.
    He called the cops, who dispatched officers to the park immediately. The first forty-eight hours were full of hope that the kids would be found. Percy Warner Park was a couple thousand acres and getting lost would be easy to do. The weather wasn’t bitterly cold, so he suspected the kids would be uncomfortable but would survive.
    When search patrols found Amber, he and Emma were hopeful. But then Amber insisted she did not remember. Hope cracked and then crumbled with each passing day.
    And now the fifth anniversary loomed.
    Five years without his boy. Five long years. He never thought he’d miss the arguments, the piles of dirty laundry, and the thud of Mike’s size thirteen feet. But he missed it all. He ached.
    He kept tabs on Amber for the last five years, putting detectives on her, thinking she’d make a mistake. Confess her sins to someone. But she never had. She always maintained she did not remember. She went about her life as if none of this happened.
    Life. Mike and Bethany remained missing. They weren’t living their lives as God had intended. But Amber was, and she was back in town.
    “You’ll pay for all this, you little bitch.”
    * * *
    That evening, Georgia stopped at the Chinese takeout restaurant just after nine and ordered stir fried vegetables, sauce on the side, and two egg rolls. Climbing the steps to her apartment, she realized how little time she spent there. No doubt, if not for this case, she’d have opted to work or sing. Every candle could only take so much burning and hers was just about extinguished.
    She kicked her front door closed and set down the bag. Turning, she flipped the two dead bolts and then slid the chain in place. She’d upgraded all three of the locks when she moved in, knowing it was likely against the rental company’s policy, but figured it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
    She kicked off her shoes and pulled the rubber band from her hair, letting the red curls tumble over her shoulders. Her apartment was small, not more than seven hundred square feet with a living area, small dining space, and a galley kitchen. The furnishings in the den were nice but incomplete. When she first moved into the apartment, she was excited and ready to make it her own. She received approval to put up wallpaper on an accent wall and choose paints for her bedroom and bathroom. However, she discovered after painting one wall she did not have the patience for decorating. She could collect fingerprints for hours but putting a roller in paint and then to the wall was mind numbing. No wonder painters drank.
    And so the paint cans were sealed up and the unopened rolls of wallpaper still leaned against the wall.
    The furniture, straight from the factory showroom, created more of a department store feel than a designed, chic space. Feng Shui it wasn’t. But her one saving grace was the dozens of framed family pictures featuring her brothers, her parents, and even an old publicity still of her birth mother, Annie.
    She set the food in the small kitchen and moved to her bedroom where she changed into an oversized Titans T-shirt and a blue pair of workout shorts that dated back to college.
    Grabbing a plastic fork from the takeout bag, she