Precedent: Book Three: Covenant of Trust Series by Paula Wiseman

here. If she’s not here, she’s probably stomping around the park, muttering at me under her breath.”
    Jack reappeared, and avoiding Bobbi’s eyes, he said, “She wasn’t downstairs.” He held the cordless phone out to Bobbi as if he expected to lose a hand. “Here’s the phone.”
    “ Thank you, sweetheart,” she said gently, and he nodded. She punched in numbers then held it close. “She’s not answering.” She clicked the phone off and laid it beside her.
    “ She’s not ready yet.”
    “ When will she be ready?”
    “ You tell me.”
    “ I don’t know. I don’t know what she’s feeling, or what she’s thinking.”
    “ Then let’s give her some space.”
    Bobbi crossed her arms across her chest and shook her head. “You have turned a hundred and eighty degrees from yesterday.”
    “ Because yesterday I was wrong.”
    Just then, the phone rang and Bobbi snatched it up, then paled. “It’s the police,” she whispered. “I can’t . . .”
    Chuck took the phone from her trembling hands. “This is Chuck Molinsky.”
    “ Yes sir, you have the law firm?”
    “ Benton, Davis and Molinsky, yes. Why? What happened?”
    “ Your building’s been broken into. We need you to come and give us an idea what’s missing.”
    He held the phone against his chest and took Bobbi’s hand. “It’s okay. Somebody broke into the office, that’s all.”
    “ That’s all?”
    “ Compared to whatever ran through your mind right now, it’s nothing.”
    “ You need to get down there.” She pulled her hand back and stood up, steeling herself.
    “ I can call Chad.”
    “ No . . . Shannon will be home soon. You need to take care of this. I’ll be fine.”
    “ Call me when she gets home.”
    “ I will.” She kissed his cheek. “The minute she walks through the door.”
     
    * * *
     
    Shannon stuffed the envelope full of cash deep in her purse. Withdrawing her tuition money as cash wasn’t the brightest thing, she admitted, but she might need the money in the coming weeks and couldn’t risk her dad shutting the account down. Monday she’d open a new account at a different bank.
    “ What else do you need?” Dylan asked as he pulled out of the bank’s parking lot.
    “ Just the basics. A car, a place to stay and a job.”
    “ Thought you had a car.”
    “ Jack’s hand-me-down? No thanks. And the bookstore will be one of the first places my dad will check, so I can’t go back there.”
    “ You don’t need a place to stay.” He grinned and looked over the top of his sunglasses at her.
    “ Dylan, I cannot stay with you. Let’s grab something to eat and pick up a newspaper. I’m sure there are decent apartments around.”
    “ What are you gonna do for a bed?”
    Subtle. Real subtle. Slimeball. “Furnished apartment.”
    “ I gotta hand it to you, Shannon. This was a bold move, kissing off your parents that way.”
    “ Not my parents, just my dad.”
    “ He must have said some really harsh things.”
    Harsh, no. Her father was a first-class hypocrite, deflecting attention away from himself by harping on her, the disrespectful wild child. He’d never acknowledge the role Jack played in dragging Brad out on that street. Oh no, poor Jack was grieving. She wasn’t about to stay there.
    “ Look, I don’t want to talk about that now,” Shannon said, staring out the window of Dylan’s car.
    “ You don’t have to,” Dylan said, reaching across and putting a hand on her knee. “It’s all cool.”
     
    * * *
     
    Bobbi clicked the phone off and crossed another name off her list. Shannon had been gone for six hours and no one had seen her. With Chuck still gone, she paced, gulped coffee and dialed Shannon’s phone every fifteen minutes. The little reassurances she been whispering to herself all morning were losing their effectiveness.
    This wasn’t like Shannon. There was more than grief at work here. And she couldn’t dismiss it as just anger at Chuck. Bobbi knew that feeling of trapped