LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Three

      “There’s good news and bad news.”

      Shannon startled at the sound of Trooper Shoffner’s voice. She turned as he strode back into the interview room of the Brighton Post and took a seat at a long table against the wall. She had to be jumpy over the officer catching her staring at Blake again because it couldn’t be that the man himself unnerved her. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t stop looking at her son, even if Blake had no problem ignoring her. Sometimes she could almost feel the boy’s gaze on her, but when she would look over, Blake would be fidgeting or biting his nails.

      “So what did you find out?” She craned her neck to look through the doorway to the open area of the squad room. The caseworker from the Department of Human Services was still at one of the desks, talking on her cell phone.

      “Which first, good or bad?”

      “I vote for good,” Shannon said, though the question hadn’t been for her.

      Maybe some good news was just what Blake needed to help him forget about his anger for a while. She hated that he hadn’t spoken to her during the car ride, but she refused to give up hope of establishing a relationship with her son. They were together, and she could ride for a long time on the adrenaline of that answered prayer.

      “Blake? What do you think?” Mark pressed again.

      Whatever Mark had planned to say had him grinning at Blake, but when the boy didn’t look up, he turned that smile Shannon’s way. Her breath caught. Though she’d noticed the trooper’s straight white teeth when he’d spoken earlier, she couldn’t imagine now how she’d missed those dimples. And for that matter, how had she failed to notice those intense, dark eyes that seemed to see straight through a person? Even women like her, who’d sworn off men, and those with as much on their minds as she had today couldn’t avoid noticing such appealing scenery.

      “The bad.”

      It was Blake’s voice that startled her this time. Instantly, she was ashamed. After waiting so long to be reunited with her child, what kind of mother was she to allow her attention to be drawn away from him, even for a second? With her son blaming her for his life after the adoption and with her girls feeling betrayed that she’d kept her secret, she had no time for other distractions. Particularly a man.

      “Why the bad first?” Mark wanted to know.

      But Shannon suspected she knew why, and that only made the braid of ache inside of her stomach twist tighter. Someone who’d experienced as much bad news as Blake had couldn’t trust anything masquerading as good news.

      Mark closed his notebook. “Okay, the bad news. Your foster parents reported you as a runaway, which adds to a pretty impressive juvenile record. And because you did run, they have refused to let you return there. You’ll be a bad example for their other foster children.”

      “No big loss.”

      “No big loss?” Mark repeated his words.

      Blake lifted a bony shoulder but didn’t look up from his hands. “Is that it?”

      Shannon exchanged a quizzical look with Mark but managed to hold back her own questions. Why didn’t Blake see the rejection of his current foster parents as a loss? Had they abused him? Assumptions crowded her thoughts, each one more horrific than the last. Then the realization struck her that whether or not that couple had hurt him, others probably had. Worse than that, she was responsible for placing him in the care of his first abusers.

      “Miss Lafferty’s out there right now, working with the private agency responsible for your initial foster placement. They’re looking for another one,” Mark continued.

      I’m right here, Shannon wanted to shout. It was difficult to think of another placement for her son besides with her, but her social-work training told her it wasn’t so simple. She hadn’t proved yet that she was Blake’s birth mother, let alone that she could properly care for him.

      “Have fun with that.” Blake’s chuckle held no humor.

      Now Shannon couldn’t stop herself. “What do you mean, ‘Have fun?’”

      “I’m what they call a ‘placement challenge.’”

      “Why?” She tried to ignore that he’d spoken to Mark instead of her.

      “ADHD.” This time Blake stared directly at her as he spat the acronym for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He seemed to have forgotten that he hadn’t sent a single syllable her way since they’d left Hope Haven.

      “That’s not a big deal,” Shannon assured him. “A lot of kids have that diagnosis.”

      That Blake happened to be one of them didn’t surprise her, either. She’d been with him only a few hours, and she’d already picked up on his distractibility and fidgetiness. While before she’d been uncomfortable with the idea of her son being placed with another family, she bristled now that some foster parents wouldn’t want him. How could they be so cruel as to reject her child?

      Blake crossed his arms. “ADHD kids aren’t the ones that foster parents are begging to bring home with them. Low on the cute-little-kid scale. Older kids and those who’ve had trips to juvie are even tougher sales.”

      Shannon took an unsteady breath as the impact of his words became clear. Blake was a member of all three groups. Three strikes against him in a state system where the statistics weren’t on his side. A system she’d subjected him to when she’d signed that voluntary release of parental rights.

      “Trooper Shoffner, didn’t you say you had good news, too?” She managed to keep her voice level, though she was tempted to beg him to say something offering a little hope.

      “Right.”

      But he waited as if he expected Blake to look over at him. Instead, the boy continued picking at his cuticles, his gaze darting to the side. He was curious, all right. Finally, he sat up and looked at the officer.

      “The grocery store owner decided not to press charges. Because of mitigating circumstances, we might be able to have the runaway charges reduced.”

      Blake’s expression remained carefully neutral, the mask of a child who’d learned never to hope for too much. Finally, he nodded. It was something.

      Trooper Shoffner didn’t take credit for convincing the store owner not to press charges or for speaking to the Oakland County prosecutor, but Shannon suspected he’d done both. She’d practiced adult maneuvering like that when a few of her girls had continued making poor decisions. A fleeting thought reminded her that Hope Haven residents might not wish to be called “her girls” after today, but she couldn’t think about that until Blake’s situation was under control. And she was beginning to wonder if that was even possible.

      Two uniformed officers suddenly filled the doorway. Shannon remembered the muscular male

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