Read Online Mother's Milk by Charles Atkins - Free Book Online Page B

if you can stick it out in that group home and finish high school, it would be better for you.’
    She pulled more tissues from the box, ‘You don’t know what it’s like in that place,’ she said.
    While Chase would never share this with a girl like Morgan, he knew exactly what those places were like. Unlike her, he’d figured out how to work the system, just like now. ‘You have to be careful,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to see anything bad happen to you, Morgan.’
    Her eyes lingered on his, and then his cell phone rang, the dial tone set to a simple ring on low volume.
    â€˜Our time’s up, make an appointment with the secretary and I’ll see you in a month.’
    Morgan got herself out of the chair. She moved slowly and stared back into Chase’s beautiful amber-flecked eyes. She seemed confused, the phone number he showed her, the way her gorgeous counselor was breaking rules for her, looking at her. She wished there was a mirror, as she knew her makeup had smeared, and she’d spent over an hour primping for her monthly meeting with him. Her legs felt weak and rubbery. ‘I might not be here in a month,’ she said, wondering if maybe he was interested in her. Because if he was, she’d do anything for him … absolutely anything.
    There was a second and then third ring. ‘I’ve got to take this call, Morgan … goodbye,’ and he closed the door behind her.
    He pressed the on button and heard Janice Fleet’s voice. ‘Are you alone?’
    â€˜I am now,’ he said, looking out his single dirt-smeared window, which afforded a dreary view of the adjacent municipal garage.
    â€˜Did you get the cell back? Just tell me you did, because I’m having one hell of a day.’
    â€˜No, and you better sit down because it’s about to get worse,’ he said, wondering how she’d handle the news. ‘It isn’t just one of the regular phones that’s missing. I think Bobby had one of the others.’
    â€˜What are you talking about?’
    â€˜The videophones … the ones we use with the girls.’ He waited, while catching his reflection in the window, appreciating the way the three-hundred-dollar sweater showed off the V-shape of his torso. His exercise and diet regimen was a meticulously crafted balance of protein shakes, supplements, yoga, weights, and aerobics, giving him just the right amount of lean, defined muscle but not that bullish steroid look.
    â€˜How did that happen?’
    â€˜It happened,’ he said, not wanting to deal with Janice’s tirades and finger-pointing, while getting a sadistic thrill at the fear in her voice. ‘Worst-case scenario, someone looks at a video of a naked girl, they won’t know who she is and there’s no audio.’ He filled her in on the specifics, how Marky went to retrieve the phones only to find a couple of female social-worker types in the apartment. How one of them called out the name Jerod.
    â€˜Jerod who?’
    â€˜Crazy Jerod. A nut job who’s been hanging around some of the kids in the family.’
    â€˜What does he look like?’ she asked, her tone urgent.
    Her questions took him off guard. Janice rarely wanted details about the disposable kids that Chase carefully culled as they aged out of the foster system. Young adults with no family, nowhere to go, just ripe for a caring adult to show them some attention, give them a safe place to live, money, clothes, and a job … of sorts. Marky, as his lieutenant, showed them how easy it was to blend in with the undergraduates in the big dormitories, setting them up with the right look and fake IDs. He’d teach them how to reel in the children of middle- and upper-class families, starting with a few free tastes, showing them how to snort dope and eventually shoot it, and in a matter of a few short weeks turning an experiment with drugs into an insatiable habit that