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

“No!” she cried. “I need to go now. I’ll explain in the car.”

Nodding, he released her, followed her to his Range Rover and opened the front passenger door, then boosted her up to the seat.

From the window, Isaiah stood watch.

The Range Rover’s engine roared to life, and Baxter drove around the circle, then down the road through the gates. Now, the one time when Mia would’ve been glad for their presence, reporters were nowhere to be found. With Keisha missing, the press had likely gone to harass the family of the latest victim.

They’d traveled no more than a mile or two when Baxter said, “Now that you’ve had a minute to catch your breath, it’s time you tell me what’s going on.”

“Pull over, please.”

“Mia—”

“Please. I’ll explain it all, but you shouldn’t be driving when I do.”

He slowed the car and veered off the road, finally coming to a stop on the widest part of the shoulder. He switched his hazards on and turned to her, pulled a handkerchief from his vest pocket and offered it up.

“Thank you.” She wiped her face and then looked down to see the handkerchief smeared with blood. She touched the bridge of her leaky nose. It felt swollen and bent. “It’s Isaiah.”

“You’re saying my son did this to you? He beat you up?” A vein pulsed in Baxter’s neck.

“I-I fell down the stairs.”

“Did he push you? You just said it’s Isaiah.”

“No. I fell… because I was running from him.”

“He was chasing you?”

“I thought he was, only he wasn’t. But up in his room, he grabbed me. This is the second time he’s done that. I hit him over the head with a laptop, and I got away.”

“You hit my son over the head?” Baxter punctuated each word with a separate breath.

She met his gaze. “Just let me talk. Let me get this out.”

He nodded, the vein in his neck now a fat blue bulge.

“I think Isaiah killed Celeste. Or else he’s taken her somewhere. I’m not absolutely sure but I think it’s him—”

Baxter set his jaw. “I know I agreed to let you tell your story, but I cannot sit here and listen to you accuse my son of murder. Isaiah would never harm a hair on his sister’s head.”

“But you were prepared to believe he’d hurt me.”

“You’re not his blood, Mia. I’m sorry to say so, but it’s not the same thing.”

“Celeste and Isaiah argued—heatedly.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes. May I finish?” She paused, and when he didn’t jump in, she continued, “I’m going to start from the day I first met him—at Pocket Park. Okay?”

“Okay.” He stared ahead, his eyes glazed, detached, like he was watching a movie on a screen in front of them.

“That day, after he tore my blouse, I changed into one of Celeste’s dresses, and I found a matchbook from a strip club in the pocket.”

His eyes widened, but he let her keep going.

“I thought maybe she’d met someone at that club. Or that someone there might know something about her disappearance so I went to Lacy’s—that’s the place—to check it out. Isaiah was there. He grabbed me and pulled me into a back room. Later, he said he didn’t realize it was me, and that it was all a big mistake. But now, he’s confessed—”

“Confessed to what?” Baxter interrupted, his knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel.

“That he’d had an argument, at that very same club, with his sister. He said Celeste followed him there, and she confronted him about his drinking. She threatened him, told him she was going to talk to you, and this time, she was certain you would cut him out of your will. He believed she would get him disinherited. He admitted all of this to me, just now.”

Baxter dragged a hand across his face. “Dear God.”

As her heart rate slowed, she became more and more aware of the damage to her body from the fall. Her ankle was aching and swollen. Her brain threatened to explode out of her skull. She could barely breathe through her nose—and she couldn’t lift or turn over her left arm.

But she was alive.

She was safe.

And she had to make Baxter understand how dangerous his son was. “I didn’t want to believe it was Isaiah, either.”

“It wasn’t,” Baxter said, his voice eerily calm. “I don’t believe it.”

“Someone put a tracker on my car and a bug in my purse. So I searched my room, and I found a dummy smoke alarm—the kind with a camera in it. Isaiah’s computer, the one in his room, shows feed from inside the house. He’s been watching me. I buried Celeste’s keys in Torrey Pines, and Isaiah showed up on that very same trail. He has to be the one who planted them in my room. And you heard Samuels—no one has seen Keisha since we met her at the beach. Isaiah doesn’t have an alibi. No one saw him at church praying for his sister. Celeste was going to persuade you to cut him out of your will—at least that’s what he believes. I’m sorry, but from where I’m standing he looks guilty.”

He looked at her, and her heartbeat counted down the seconds.

Had she convinced him?

“I know my son didn’t do it. But I’ll take you wherever you want to go. To your aunt’s or to the police—only we should get you checked at the hospital first. You’ve lost a lot of blood. You’re white as a sheet.”

“It’s just a nosebleed.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. You’ve got a gash on your head, too. Let me take you to the hospital, and we’ll call Detective Samuels from there. You can tell him your story. But I give you my word, you’re wrong about Isaiah.” His unbending tone set her fingers twitching. He simply could not, or would not, see what his own son was capable of. No matter the differences between him and Isaiah, Baxter was going to defend his son.

He shifted into