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

“You did.” That was the truth of it, and the thought of all her aunt had done for her made her heart crack open. “You gave up everything for me.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Mia. It wasn’t a sacrifice. You’re my family. Without you, I’d have nothing.”

“Because you stopped living for yourself and started living for me the day they found me in the woods. If it weren’t for me, you’d have a full life—a family of your own. I know your fiancé left you because he didn’t want a ready-made family. I heard the argument from my bedroom that night. I’m the reason you never married. I’m the reason your social life is nonexistent. But you never complained. And you never so much as left me with a sitter on a Saturday night.”

“I had to send you to daycare before and after school all week while I worked, so how could I possibly turn around and leave you with a babysitter on the weekends—just so I could go out and have fun?”

“It might’ve been better for both of us if you had. I can’t be your whole life anymore, and I don’t want you to be mine. It’s well past time for me to get my own place.”

Her aunt rubbed her eyes with her fists. “That’s a lot to unpack, and I won’t try to address it all now, but I will say this: you’ve given my life purpose. I don’t regret a thing. If you want to get your own place, in time, I understand. But you just got fired. How will you pay for this new apartment of yours?”

“I’ve got savings. Not a lot, but enough to tide me over for a month or two until I can find another job.”

“You’re going to need those savings for a rainy day.”

Her eyebrows went up. “This is a rainy day. In fact it’s more like a hurricane.”

“You say your new place—which I can’t believe you selected without me—isn’t ready. So why go today? I don’t understand.” Then Aunt Misty paused, and her eyes hardened. “Unless it’s the Coopers. Are they behind this?”

Mia suddenly remembered why she’d been so angry with her aunt. “The Coopers have nothing to do with this. Why would you say that?”

“Because since they befriended you, you’ve been distant. It’s not natural the way you’ve attached yourself to Alma and vice versa. You’ve got a missing mother, and she’s got a missing daughter so, in a way, I can see the connection. But you’ve only known each other a short time and you already seem…” She snapped her fingers as if trying to recall. “What’s that word Dr. Baquero loves so much…?”

“Co-dependent. You can’t seriously be calling my relationship with Alma co-dependent?”

“I can and I am.”

Mia released a long breath. “I’m giving you one last chance to tell the truth, and then I’m heading out. Did you or didn’t you put that note on my car?”

Aunt Misty shook her head. “I’m so disappointed in you, Mia. You’re accusing me of not only of leaving that note, but of lying to you about it. And that scares me.”

“The expert compared your handwriting to the handwriting on the note, and he can’t rule you out. He can’t rule me out either, but I didn’t write it.”

“Nor did I!”

“There’s more.”

“How can there be more?”

“Detective Samuels found a tracking device on my car.” The last thing Mia wanted was to leave on bad terms, but Aunt Misty had gone too far. This time, Mia couldn’t give her a pass. “He says whoever wrote the note must be the one who put the tracking device on my car.”

Her aunt’s face cycled through every emotion in the book, and then she settled into a familiar, hyper-alert posture, her gaze darting continually about the room, as if expecting the boogieman to pop up from behind the hope chest or burst out of a closet. “That detective is off his gourd if he thinks either you or I wrote that note. I don’t believe for one minute that you did, or that you put that GSP on your own car, and I sure as heck know I didn’t do it.”

“GPS not GSP.”

“See, I don’t even know what it’s called. How could I put it on your car?”

That was a little too convenient. Her aunt might not be a techie, but she was smart and well read. She had to know what a GPS was.

Why exaggerate her technical ineptitude?

Though to be fair, Mia wasn’t too familiar herself. She was going to need to do an online search for spy gadgets later tonight so she’d be prepared to spot something like this in the future. “Anyone can get them. All you have to do is stick it under the car.”

“And then what? Don’t you have to install an app to follow the movements?”

And there you had it. Aunt Misty knew enough—certainly more than Mia.

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to get data off a tracker. But that’s not the point. The point is I would never do something like that to you, and I didn’t.”

Mia shook her head. “Ever since I turned off find my phone, you’ve been complaining you don’t know where I am. I know you worry about me. If you did this, you can tell me. It won’t change my mind about leaving, but at least it will be a step toward rebuilding trust.”

“I didn’t write any note, and I didn’t track your car. You’ve got to believe me.” Aunt Misty’s pupils darkened. “Don’t you see what this means?”

“That no matter how much I love you, I can’t trust you to tell me the truth, even when it’s incredibly important.”

“Mia,” her aunt grabbed her hands, “don’t you see? This is proof someone is creeping around.”

“It doesn’t prove anything of the kind.” Mia climbed to her feet, shouldered her purse, and raised the handle on her suitcase.

Aunt Misty