Read Online Robards, Karen by Midnight Hour - Free Book Online

last night, Your Honor,” he said at last in a measured way. Straightening, he reached down into his jacket pocket. “Even though she had just paid twenty bucks for this when we came across her.”
    He pulled a Baggie from his jacket pocket and held it up so that Grace could see it. The clear plastic bag held a small amount of what appeared to be dried, ground-up grass.
    Harmless looking, unless you knew what it was. Grace knew what it was. She audibly caught her breath. All the vinegar went out of her, just drained right away along with her spine, so that she was left sitting there like a jellyfish, gazing speechlessly at him and the hideous, horrible, terrifying thing that dangled from his hand. -
    “I see you recognize it.” His voice was dry as he restored the Baggle to his pocket. “Top grade Colomblan by way of Mexico, by the way.”
    11 Oh, my God,” Grace said. She felt as if she’d been socked in the gut by a huge, invisible fist. She could hardly draw breath.
    He nodded. “Hebron was more or less clean up until about five years ago. Then somebody figured out that these kids have the resources to buy drugs and started a campaign to penetrate the high school. Bingo!
    THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
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    Now Hebron’s got a real drug problem, and Dom and I got the job of catching the creeps responsible. I’m hoping your daughter can help us.”
    “Oh, my God.” Grace felt as if she were suffocating. Jessica had bought pot. She was smoking pot. The night before, she’d been drunk. Grace saw all her bright dreams for her daughter wavering like a mirage in her mind’s eye. One wrong move and they w ould vanish. “My God.”
    His lips tightened and his eyes narrowed as he registered her distress.
    “If it’ll keep you from hyperventilating, I’ll start out by telling you I don’t think your daughter’s in very deep.” His voice was not unsympathetic. “At least, not yet. I’ve never run across her before the last couple of weeks, and I would have if she was out there regularly. “
    “How Grace swallowed, then tried again. “Where did you find her?”
    “We were following a car full of kids from Hebron last night. They drove to Brandeis Park, where they met up with a group of kids in another car. We had surveillance set up. Your daughter got out of the first car, walked over to the second. She handed a twenty through the window, got this in return, started to walk back to her group, and passed out cold on the ground midway there. A patrol car cruised by about then, and turned on its lights to go after a speeder. It must have scared the daylights out of everybody because both cars hightailed it out of there, leaving your daughter lying where she fell. One of our cars tailed them. Dom and I
     
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    KAREN ROBARDS
    checked on your daughter. About the time we put her in our car, her description came over the radio, so we took her home.”
    “You’re sure she was the one who bought-that.” Her gaze touched on his pocket. Her lawyer’s instincts were to search for the loophole, to find a way out for her daughter at all costs. Her mother’s instincts were muddier. More on the lines of Jessica needing to take responsibility for what she had done.
    “I’m sure.”
    “Why didn’t you arrest her?” Grace was still having trouble talking.
    He glanced away from her then, very briefly. Then he looked at her once more. “Like I said, I’ve never seen her around before. She’s new to this group, and they’re using her to score. Dom and I aren’t out there to bust a bunch of kids, anyway. We want the big guy, the guy who’s selling it to the little dealer who’s selling it to them. I’m hoping your daughter might be persuaded to help us.”
    “How could she help you?”
    “For starters, she could give us the names of the kids in the cars. A couple we know, the rest we don’t. She could tell us who set up the deal. Who she gave the twenty to. Who that person gives the money to, if she knows.”
    “In other