Talking to Reg was like having a train bearing down on you. A train that occasionally needed a nudge back onto the tracks.
“Hideaway Cove,” Jacqueline muttered.
“Cove! Just the word I was after.” Reg snapped his fingers. “And what brings you—ah, yes, of course. Sending the big man to give the truant a hard word, eh?”
He punched Harrison on the arm and then gestured for them both to follow him. Jacqueline almost lost her professional face as he pushed through the door to the cells.
“Boss, don’t tell me you’ve been holding him back here all weekend?”
“Well, you asked us to keep an eye out for him,” Reg replied, winking.
“Not to lock him up!”
“Is that really necessary?” Harrison asked Reg.
“Nowhere else for him,” Reg announced cheerfully. “It’ll do him good, anyway. Scare him back on the straight and narrow.”
Anger pulsed in Jacqueline’s temples. “Really.”
And now I get to explain to the poor guy why calling me for help got him put in the lockup for the weekend. If I’d only come back sooner, not spent the extra night in Hideaway. I could have gotten this one thing sorted out without hurting anyone.
Except then I’d still think I had a chance with Arlo. At least this way, I’ve gotten that over with.
Reg was still talking. “You know kids—well, no, maybe you don’t. If you had your own, you’d understand. Tough love, that’s what they need.”
Hang on—kids?
“Here we go. The Lost Boy himself. Say hi, kid.”
Jacqueline’s heart sank as she saw the figure sitting in the cell. “Eric?”
The man raised his head and Jacqueline’s heart sank even further. Eric wasn’t a grown man, no matter what the Weaver kids had said.
She rounded on Reg. “You’ve had him here all weekend? He can’t be more than sixteen!”
Reg’s eyebrows almost shot off his head.
That must be the closest I’ve gotten to raising my voice at him all the years I’ve worked here, Jacqueline thought. Well, he deserves it!
“Nineteen, it says on his license,” he replied. “Which is somewhere about.”
And how real is that license? Jacqueline wondered. From the expression on Harrison’s face, he was thinking the same thing.
Harrison cleared his throat and walked over to the cell.
“Hey, Eric. My name’s Harrison. I think you and Ms. March here have already spoken.”
Eric looked confused. “On the phone,” Jacqueline prompted, and relief and anxiety flooded across his face in equal measure. He stood up and hurried to the bars.
“Did you—” he began, and then anxiety won the battle. He fell silent, eyes huge.
“They’re all waiting for you in Hideaway Cove,” Jacqueline reassured him. “Tally, Dylan and Kenna.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.” Eric’s head dropped against the bars. “I’ve been so worried. I only meant to be gone a few nights. I only meant to go for groceries but my car broke down after the storm, and I got a lift to just out of town but I—” His eyes slid sideways past Jacqueline, to where Reg was leaning against a desk. “I guess I didn’t explain my problem very well,” he muttered.
God, the poor guy. He’s the one who’s been holding the kids together for the last few months? I thought he sounded young on the phone, but I thought that was just the panic making his voice squeaky.
He wasn’t another Weaver sibling, that was for sure, with his dark skin and eyes. His hair was cut close to his scalp, which was probably meant to be part of his looking-older-than-he-was act. He had huge, puppy-dog eyes that he kept squinted half-shut as he looked between Harrison and Jacqueline, probably for the same reason.