Run So Far Read online

  RUN SO FAR

  Peggy Nicholson

  He wanted her, but not her love.

  Through her work at the crisis center, Jolian met and fell in love with Fletcher McKay. She was the only link between Fletch and his runaway son. So for the moment, he needed her.

  But, by his own admission, Retch ultimately needed nothing—and no one. Jolian knew that someday, perhaps once he’d found his son, Fletch would walk out on her and never look back.

  He’d turn his back on love, wouldn’t have it as a gift. And she’d be left alone to pay the price.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘A vegetarian rugby player? Now I know you’re lying!’ Laughing, Jolian shook her head as the phone rang. ‘Oops!’

  ‘I’m not, he is, and it’s your turn!’ Katy announced, sliding off the edge of her friend’s desk. She skipped around the tall filing cabinets which split the room into two offices, and disappeared.

  Taking a deep breath to banish all laughter from her voice, Jolian picked up the phone. It was important not to sound too cheerful. Sympathetic—yes; obnoxiously happy—no. ‘Reachout Hotline,’ she said quietly. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Er...’ It was a girl’s voice, soft with uncertainty. Jolian swallowed audibly. ‘Hi, I ...’ The tiny voice trailed away again and the girl sighed, a small, breathy sound of despair.

  She’s going to hang up, Jolian thought anxiously, squeezing the receiver. ‘My name’s Jolian,’ she offered quickly. ‘What’s yours?’ If she could just start the kid talking.

  ‘Er ... Suzie,’ the girl sighed again.

  ‘Hi, Suzie. How’s it going?’ Jolian leaned slowly back in the swivel chair, her long legs stretched out before her. Dark blue eyes gazed up at the peeling paint on the ceiling above her and stared right through it, picturing instead the scared child who went with the voice. ‘You doin’ okay?’

  ‘Er ... I don’t know.’ The soft voice was squeaky, now with swallowed sobs. ‘I thought so ... but now...’ She sniffed faintly.

  ‘When did you run away?’ Jolian coaxed, hoping it was recently. The kid certainly didn’t sound street-toughened yet. Not that it took long. Sometimes the runaways found out within hours that they’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Sometimes they found out too late ... She shut her eyes and frowned, this was no time to be thinking of Jane.

  ‘It was ... I guess it was Sunday. Mom and I had an awful f-f-fight.’ Quavers turned to sobs and then were muffled as if Suzie covered the mouthpiece with a hand.

  Jolian waited a moment. ‘Do you want to go home again, Suzie?’ she asked finally. ‘Try to make it up?’

  ‘I can’t.’ They won’t want me now! I ...’ Her voice shuddered and broke upwards and she muffled the phone again.

  Jolian shook her head and waited, half smiling. Sometimes that was true, the parents didn’t want the kids back. Many of the runaways fled homes racked by poverty, by divorce, alcoholism, or other, even worse, problems. Their parents were too exhausted, too bitter, too disturbed to have any love to spare for their own children. But other youngsters struck out on their own in momentary defiance or despair, or out of sheer stubborn teenage pigheadedness, leaving behind families who would miss and mourn them. Somehow she thought that might be Suzie’s case. ‘Want me to call them for you and see if that’s true, Suzie? I bet your mother’s sitting by the phone right now, waiting.’

  There was the quick sound of indrawn, hopeful breath, then slowly she let it out again. ‘But I can’t go home yet, I’ve got to pay Tony back first.’

  Jolian felt the hairs at the nape of her neck stir. ‘Tony?’ she asked casually. ‘Who’s Tony, Suzie?’

  ‘My ... my new boyfriend...’ It was a statement, but the last word rose uncertainly as if there were some question to it.

  ‘Where’d you meet him, Suzie?’

  ‘At the bus station, the first night. He’s been taking care of me. He’s ... spent a lot of money on me.’ Once more there was the questioning lilt to her voice. It was the first stirring of adult wariness. Getting something for nothing was a child’s dream.

  Jolian sighed. So it wasn’t going to be so easy after all. ‘And what do you have to do, to pay him back, Suzie?’ she asked, knowing the answer all too well already.

  But Suzie hadn’t guessed yet, or couldn’t admit it to herself if she had. ‘He won’t say. I’ve got to work for him, but he hasn’t said where yet...’

  On the streets is where, you poor little chump! Jolian gritted her teeth to keep the words in. ‘Look, Suzie, when will he be ...’

  ‘Hey! Who ya talkin’ to?’ A distant crash followed that slurred yell—a door banging open?—and the girl squeaked.

  ‘Gimme that!’ Jolian flinched as hand met flesh in a resounding smack at the other end of the phone line and the girl cried out again. The phone fell clattering to the floor.

  Suddenly a hoarse breath rasped in Jolian’s ear and she shuddered violently. The pimp was listening now. If she could just cover for Suzie somehow. She swallowed hard and spoke. ‘That’s two pizzas—large—mushrooms, mozzarella, peperoni, cut the anchovies,’ she gabbled nasally. ‘Ya wanna pick these up or ya wan’em delivered?’

  ‘Pizza?’ Outrage struggled with confusion in the coarse voice. ‘Pizza, my—’ the phone slammed down, cutting off the obscenity, and Jolian threw back her head and whooped.

  She looked up to find Katy goggling at her from the file cabinets and she laughed again, leaning back in her chair and waving the receiver helplessly. ‘C-cut the anchovies!’ she chortled as Katy took the phone and hung it up for her, shaking her head. Shivering with reaction, Jolian folded her legs up into the swivel chair and gave it a spin. The buildings and traffic of Kenmore Square, Boston, rotated into view and then disappeared as she twirled past the windows and back towards Katy again. Her short, stocky friend was scowling at her as she spun by.

  ‘Jolian, would you calm down and tell me what’s so funny!’

  ‘Nothing is!’ Jolian grabbed the edge of her desk and jerked to a halt, her grin fading suddenly. Hugging her knees, she stared up at her friend, her thick, dark brown hair fanned out over her shoulders. ‘I was talking with a kid who’s been picked up by a pimp. He walked in right as I was getting through to her.’ She shivered. ‘He’s probably beating the living daylights out of her this minute, if I didn’t fool him with my pizza brainstorm!’ Her arms tightened around her knees as she shuddered again.

  ‘Or maybe it sounded like a super idea, and he’s taking her out for a peperoni special right now,’ Katy soothed. She was a nurse with a cheerful, practical outlook on life. They made a good hotline team, her steady temperament balancing Jolian’s mercurial moods. ‘Some pimps control their girls by being nice to them, you know.’

  ‘Mmm, I suppose so.’ Jolian frowned, her dark, winged brows flattening into a straight line above deep-set eyes. ‘But he didn’t sound like the nice type, Katy. He sounded like a bully boy.’ She sighed.

  Katy eased a trim, blue-jeaned hip on to the battered desktop. ‘Jolian, you win some, you lose some, and some you get rained out. You know the statistics. More than half a million kids run away from home every year.’ She smiled down at her friend. ‘You’ll get a chance to help a few of ’em.’

  ‘Mmm, I know.’ Jolian untangled her legs and sat up, reaching for one of the needle files on the desktop. ‘But I wanted to help that one,’ she muttered, staring down at the tool. Picked up by a pimp—was that what had happened to Jane, so long ago?

  ‘Well, now she knows we’re here, maybe she’ll call back again when she gets a chance,’ Katy said briskly, standing up. The phone rang. ‘My turn,’ she announced sternly as Jolian reached for it. She dashed between the file cabinets and back to her own desk. ‘Reachout Hotline.’

 
; ‘And some you get rained out,’ Jolian whispered ruefully. She set the file down and picked up the thick piece of sterling silver she’d been smoothing earlier. Some day soon it would be a bracelet. Restlessly she put it down again and stood up, stretching her slender, athletic frame to its full five feet five inches. People always guessed she was taller. It was her thinness, or something in the eager, long-legged way she moved, which deceived them.

  Half listening to Katy’s encouraging murmurs from the other side of the room, Jolian drifted across the small office, ending up at the makeshift cooking counter with its hotplate and coffeemaker. Coffee ... she checked her watch and then shrugged. Why not? Digging a quarter out of the pocket of her shorts, she dropped it in the dish on the counter. She had half an hour to go before her shift was finished.

  Leaning back against the counter, she sipped from her mug and studied the shabby room, its dusty bay windows glowing now with the sinking sun’s rays, its filing cabinets filled with the names of the missing, the seeking, and the names of the found, the cot in the corner where she’d caught many a catnap these last five years, and the one object of vital, overwhelming importance—the phone on her ancient sunlit desk. For that was what Reachout Hotline was—a phone line, open twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year.

  The phone rang. It was the local line again, Jolian noted as she crossed the room; Katy was still talking on one of the two toll-free long-distance lines. ‘Reachout Hotline,’ she said pleasantly, ‘can I help you?’

  ‘Er ... I hope so.’ It was a boy’s voice this time, gruff with the effort to sound like a man.

  She found herself smiling and was glad he couldn’t see her face. ‘My name’s Jolian Michaels,’ she said gravely. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Jolian,’ the boy said formally. In an adult, the tone would have been almost pompous; coming from a youngster, it was closer to touching. ‘I’m Jem McKay.’ He hesitated. ‘You send messages, don’t you?’ His voice cracked on the last word, and she heard his little hiss of aggravation at the slip.

  ‘That’s right, Jem. That’s exactly what we do. I can call your parents and simply, give them a message for you, or I can set up a meeting—’

  ‘No. No meeting,’ he broke in decisively. ‘If you’d just send a message, please—’

  ‘Okay,’ Jolian agreed easily. There was no use pushing it. At least now he knew that a meeting could be arranged. And often a message was the start towards reconciliation anyway. ‘What would you like me to say, Jem?’ She picked up a pen and reached for her notepad.

  ‘Er ... there’s just one thing, Jolian...’ The boy stopped, obviously struggling with how to say it. ‘You can’t ... you won’t ... tell him what part of the country you’re calling from, will you, please?’ The last few words tumbled out with a squeak and he hissed again.

  ‘No,’ she soothed. ‘Not unless you want me to.’

  ‘No!’ It was almost a shout. He laughed shakily. ‘He’d tear Boston apart brick by brick looking for me, if he knew where to look, Jolian. You can’t tell him!’

  Jolian grinned sympathetically. A formidable father, indeed. ‘Ho-kay, mum’s the word, Jem. I won’t tell. Now, what’s your message?’

  ‘Tell him .. the boy paused again, then muttered quickly, ‘Tell him “Happy Birthday”.’

  ‘Okay...’ Now that wasn’t too bad a start, Jolian thought hopefully. ‘Anything else, Jem?’

  ‘Umm, yes, please. You tell him if he hurts Ralph, I’ll never speak to him again in my whole life!’ Suddenly he was all small boy, desperate and angry.

  Jolian hesitated, mentally starting the report she’d write on Jem for the file. Possible child abuse in family ... ‘Has he ever hurt Ralph before, Jem?’ she asked gently.

  ‘No, but Dad always said he’d sling him out the upstairs window if he ever jumped on his bed.’ The boy sighed heavily. ‘And that’s just where Ralph’ll want to sleep now that I’m gone.’

  Jolian covered the mouthpiece and stifled her laughter against the back of her hand. She took a deep, careful breath. ‘Okay—hands off Ralph if he ever wants a truce.’ Her grin kept coming back, threatening to burst into a laugh again. ‘Anything else, Jem?’

  He thought a moment. ‘No, I guess that’s it, Jolian. Just don’t let him trick you into saying where I am. He’s tough.’

  Jolian smiled again. ‘He sounds it! So what’s his phone number, Jem?’ The boy recited it without hesitation, including the area code for Chicago. Jolian’s brows lifted as she scribbled it down. He was a long way from home. ‘In case I can’t reach him here, Jem, do you know his number at work? I could try to get him tomorrow then.’

  The boy laughed—a surprisingly bitter sound. ‘That is his office number, Jolian. He’s never home before nine or ten.’

  ‘I see,’ Jolian said carefully. ‘Is there any other place I could reach him?’

  The boy sighed again. ‘No. He could be at Marisa’s, or Barbara’s or Jennifer’s, or ... No,’ he said decisively, ‘the best place is the office. He always comes back there.’

  The office, or a girl-friend’s place. Not home. Jolian was beginning to get the picture. ‘Jem, what if he has a message for you? Would you want to hear it?’

  ‘N-no,’ the boy said quietly. ‘Not really. It wouldn’t be any use.’ He was gathering his aloofness around him like a cloak. Any minute he would hang up now.

  Jolian had a sudden inspiration. ‘Does he know what to feed Ralph and how much?’

  ‘Er ... I ... think so...’ Adult resolve faded into small boy indecision.

  ‘Maybe you should call me back, just in case he has any questions about that for you?’ Jolian suggested helpfully. The job was to maintain contact, any sort of dialogue, keep them in touch no matter how tenuous the connection might be. At the same time, any way she could build up rapport between herself and the boy was all to the good.

  She could feel him thinking, suspicion and independence balancing against the need to talk, to be connected to someone, even if it was just a friendly voice at the end of a phone line. Connection won out. ‘Okay,’ he answered finally. ‘When do you work there?’

  He was bright, all right, Jolian decided. Most kids somehow assumed that the first volunteer they spoke with was the hotline, a faceless friend on tap day and night. They were always a little crushed when they found their confidante was just one of many volunteers, available only a few hours each week—not a guardian angel, but an adult with a job and a family and a bed to crawl into most nights. ‘I’ll be here day after tomorrow, Jem, in the afternoon and early evening. Could you call me then?’

  ‘Yes, Jolian. I’ll make a note in my appointment book right now,’ he said solemnly. ‘Friday afternoon. I believe I can work that in.’

  Jolian was amused. Yes, she supposed he did have a little extra time on his hands right now. It must be an odd, lost feeling not to be in school in September for the first time in his young life. She wondered suddenly if he was parodying his father as well as teasing her. ‘Have you got a place to sleep, Jem?’ she asked quickly.

  But with that, she had stepped over some invisible line. ‘I can take care of myself, Jolian.’ The tone was decidedly distant.

  ‘Well, good,’ she said briskly. It was time to back off. ‘I’ll give your father your message and I’ll be talking with you Friday, then—okay, Jem?’

  ‘Okay.’ His voice was suddenly gruff. ‘And ... thanks, Jolian.’ The phone went dead.

  Well. Jolian replaced the receiver thoughtfully. Interesting. That had not been the typical runaway call at all. Jem sounded quite a bit brighter, better educated than the usual waif. She shrugged. But if unusual, Jem was no freak, either. Alienation between parent and child was a classless epidemic in America. The children of the rich, as well as the poor, were running away. If only they would stop and wonder about what they were running towards ... Her wide, slim shoulders hunched as she thought of Suzie, and then she shoved the thought aside. To survive o
n the hotline, you had to practise a certain humane detachment—a detachment that came hard to her quixotic nature. Failing detachment, at least a sense of humour was essential. Pizza, my—she grinned again.

  Katy still murmured little listening sounds on the phone in the outer office. She had a talker there, apparently. Jolian glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes until David and Tracy Mullins came to relieve them. She pulled the phone towards her and began to dial.

  ‘McKay Enterprises. May I help you?’ The voice that answered on the first ring had the chilled-velvet tones of a first-rate receptionist.

  ‘Yes. May I speak to Mr. McKay, please?’ So it was Jem’s father’s company. Somehow she was not surprised. Jolian captured a lock of hair and tickled her nose with it absently, rehearsing her message.

  But it wasn’t going to be that simple after all. ‘I’ll see if he’s in right now. Who may I say is calling, please?’ The cool voice left Jolian in no doubt that McKay was ‘in’ for some select individuals, and ‘out’ for others.

  ‘Jolian Michaels. It’s on urgent, personal business, please.’

  But the elegant voice was not impressed. ‘Thank you. Please hold.’ The line went blank and Jolian swivelled her chair around to stare out of the grimy bay windows. To the west of the low buildings of Kenmore Square, the sky glowed luminous pink. The days were getting noticeably shorter already ...

  ‘Gillian, don’t tell me you’re broke again!’ The male voice that spoke abruptly in her ear sounded half exasperated, half amused.

  Jolian grinned. ‘Wrong lady, Mr. McKay. This is Jolian with a J and an o.’

  There was a moment of thoughtful silence. ‘Jolian as in Jo, who takes her Martinis without olives?’ he tried finally. His voice was pleasantly low, and smooth as good whisky, with just a trace of bite to it.

  Jolian laughed softly. This was absurd. But somehow it was amusing to twit the formidable Mr. McKay. ‘No, it’s Jolian who takes her olives without Martinis, Mr. McKay. You don’t know me. It’s about your son.’