Her First Mistake by Carey Baldwin (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

Her fists balled up, her eyes stung, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her break down. Gritting her teeth, she got to her feet and looked him dead in the eye. “I don’t want a spotlight on me. I find that accusation both unfair and unkind.”

He rose, and then extended his arm toward the door. “Don’t misunderstand me, Mia. The picture I just painted of you, as a mixed-up misfit and an attention seeker, is not unkind in the least. That is, I’m afraid, my best-case hypothesis.”

Twenty

Mia removed her clenched hand from the steering wheel and rubbed away the tightness in her jaw. She glanced at the speedometer.

Sixty in a forty-five.

She let up on the gas.

A mixed-up misfit in need of attention.

If that was Detective Samuels’ best-case scenario, what was his worst? The answer was obvious: he thought she had something to do with Celeste’s disappearance.

She could hardly blame him, considering all those weird occurrences—and he didn’t even know about the keys.

But everything she’d told him about was real. She didn’t imagine anything. She wasn’t manufacturing drama. More drama was the last thing she needed in her life.

Still, what did these strange events amount to?

Taken individually, there was nothing she couldn’t explain away.

A horn honked, and she checked her rearview to find a gray-haired woman barely peeking above the dashboard. She’d just cut off somebody’s dear old grandma.

She slowed to thirty, turning her head just enough to mouth sorry, and then she saw it, two cars back—a black sedan. She signaled a lane change and moved to the right, let up on the gas until she was crawling along at what had to be an aggravating speed for the drivers behind her. But in the slow lane, she had every right to hold steady below the speed limit. In her side mirror, she kept an eye on the sedan. Instead of gaining on her, or passing her from the other lane, it slowed, too.

Click click click.

She’d forgotten her turn signal.

She tapped it off, taking note of the emblem on the sedan. She’d never owned a Lexus, but she recognized their logo. If only the sedan would pass, she could memorize the plate. Her speedometer read twenty-five. The Jeep behind her was climbing her tail, but the black sedan—the Lexus—still kept pace in the next lane over, while car after car switched to the far-left lane to get by. Between the two of them, they were creating a blockade. She sipped from a water bottle and forced herself to concentrate. If this really was the same car she’d seen following her yesterday in the Gaslamp Quarter, she needed to do something about it.

She could drive back to the police station, but the thought of facing Samuels with yet another vaguely ominous circumstance dissuaded her. Without proof this car was tailing her, he couldn’t do a thing to help. And it would only reinforce his theory that she was some mixed-up misfit looking for attention.

The on ramp to the interstate was coming up, but she didn’t dare go home. If this person—she couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman beneath that baseball cap—didn’t already know where she lived, she didn’t want to lead them there.

Not signaling her intentions, she turned into a residential area.

The Lexus followed suit.

Her hands relaxed on the wheel, and her thinking sharpened.

Aunt Misty always insisted Mia was better under pressure—and she might be right.

Time to pull over.

Either the sedan would find a way to wait—confirming her suspicions, or pass by, giving her an opportunity to glimpse its license plate.

Or… the Lexus could turn down another street before she had the chance to pull to the curb—like it just did.

She blew out a breath.

She had already been worked up from the week’s events, and then Detective Samuels had put his big fat you’re-a-basket-case cherry on top. She was just on edge—the number of black Lexus on the streets of San Diego might be shy of infinity, but not by much.

Mark down one more probably nothing on the list.

If she let her paranoia get out of control, she’d only prove Samuels right.

She hit the Bluetooth on her steering wheel. “Call Dr. Baquero.”

“Calling Dr. Baquero, work,” came the reply.

“Cancel! Cancel!” She disconnected.

It was enough to know her psychiatrist was still there if she needed her. But Dr. Baquero wasn’t a detective. She wouldn’t have the answers to Mia’s questions about Celeste.

Only she might be able to help with something else.

Mia was about to repeat her command to call Dr. Baquero when the phone rang.

Bluetooth caller ID popped up.

Right away, Mia hit the answer button. “Alma, hi. How are you feeling?”

“Could you stop by, dear? I was hoping to speak to you in person.”

“Of course, I’m not that far away. Is now good?”

Alma returned from the kitchen to the Cooper family living room with a bouquet and a brave smile on her face. Not wanting to arrive empty-handed, Mia had stopped to buy a bunch of purple Pacific Coast iris, dotted with lacy white yarrow. Now, the flowers towered majestically, as iris are meant to do, from an etched crystal vase.

“So thoughtful,” Alma said, placing the arrangement in a prominent position on the fireplace’s mantel. “They brighten the room, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Mia replied, but the room hardly needed brightening with its pale hardwood floors and reams of light pouring in. The French doors led to a stone patio surrounded by the greenest grass Mia had seen this side of a golf course, and the place was overflowing with floral offerings from well-wishers.

“I adore these,” Alma said, following Mia’s gaze, and perhaps reading her thoughts. “These iris are native, so natural, and unlike some—” she swept out an arm “—not in the least funereal.”

Mia couldn’t agree more. One, no doubt well-intended, person had actually sent a wreath.

“Celeste isn’t dead. I wish people would stop sending these—and all