~1.12~

Woe jerked her legs back over the patio and slid off the railing. She turned around almost immediately to peer over the edge. Nick still kept his distance, if only because the young (or young-looking) woman unnerved him.

He couldn’t help but notice that it seemed as though the barrier she’d been sitting on was narrow enough for her to grip the top of it with her hands.

“Oh, it doesn’t go straight down, anyway,” she reported. “There’s a pretty good sized lip on the other side.” She turned back to face him. “Good thing, too. There’s no way I could have sat up there without falling.”

“Uh… right,” Nick said.

“Let’s go inside,” Woe said. “All this sky makes me… nervous.”

Once they were all seated around the table in the dining area, Wow got right to the point.

“Do you think your daughter is in trouble, Mr. Brown?” she asked him.

“Of course she’s in trouble,” Nick said. “She’s off with this guy, this hood…”

“The way I understand it, you’re not even sure she didn’t go with him of her own free will,” Wow said.

“That doesn’t mean she isn’t in trouble,” Nick said.

“True,” Wow agreed. “Do you have a picture?”

“Of?” Nick asked.

She gave him a piercing look.

“Your daughter,” she said.

“Oh!” he said, taken aback. Did he? Of course… she was his daughter. He fumbled out his wallet and rifled through the business cards, the credit cards, and the membership cards until he found a picture of a smiling, strawberry blonde-haired girl in a checked dress. “Here,” he said, handing it to the sisters. “A school picture. It’s a little out of date. I think this must be third or fourth grade.”

“It says second on the back,” Wow said. She passed it to her sister.

“What an ugly dress,” Woe said.

“Mr. Brown, I may need to destroy this photo to find her,” Wow said.

“Do it!” Nick said. “It’s nothing to me.”

“Clearly.”