Read Online Samantha Sanderson Without a Trace by Robin Caroll - Free Book Online Page A

disturbed.
    â€œDon’t tell your mom I’m a creeper, or she’ll never let you sleep over again.” Sam opened her Facebook page and typed Tam’s name in the search box.
    â€œI think she secretly hopes your dad being a cop will make me, I don’t know, want to be a lawyer.”
    Sam broke her focus from Tam’s profile picture to look at her bestie. “She’s still riding that bus? Wanting you to be a lawyer?”
    â€œSadly, yes.” Makayla shook her head. “I don’t know why, either. I’ve never been combative, argumentative, or wanted to debate.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know about not being argumentative,” Sam teased.
    Makayla narrowed her eyes and made duck lips.
    Sam laughed. “Have you told your mom that you don’t want to be a lawyer?”
    â€œNot exactly.” Makayla stopped smiling and shook her head.
    â€œWhat does that mean? You either have or you haven’t.”
    â€œIt’s not that simple.” Makayla twisted in the desk’s chair and tucked her feet under her. “I’ve hinted that it takes so much time and money to become a lawyer, and most of them starting out these days just don’t make the income they once did.”
    â€œWhat does she say to that?”
    â€œShe just says that such things are worth it in the long run.”
    Sam leaned the back of her head against the pillow. “Why don’t you just flat out tell her you don’t want to become a lawyer?”
    â€œBecause then she’ll ask me what I do want to be, and I just don’t know.” Makayla shifted, tucking her feet under the other side of the chair.
    â€œWe’re not even thirteen. We don’t have to know what we want to be when we grow up,” Sam said.
    â€œYou do. You’ve always known.”
    So true. “But that’s because I grew up hearing Mom’s stories and seeing her articles. She let me sit in her lap as she wrote when I was a toddler. Of course I want to be a journalist. I was raised with an excitement for trying to uncover the truth, for exposing what needed to be. It’s a part of who I am.”
    â€œYou’re lucky. You’re so sure of yourself and what you want to do.” Makayla used that wistful voice she sometimes used when she talked about a break in a computer code creation or something along that path that went way over Sam’s head. “It’s helpful to know so you can make a plan. You have one, right?”
    â€œI do, but I’m a freak, you know that.” Sam stuck out her tongue. “And you love me anyway.”
    â€œYeah, yeah, yeah. You’re lucky I do, or you’d be in big trouble.” Makayla’s smile returned.
    â€œOkay, time to become super creeper.” Sam popped her knuckles again.
    â€œStop doing that. It’s gross.”
    â€œYou’re just jealous you can’t crack your knuckles.” Sam laughed as she clicked on the link for Tam’s friends, then started scrolling for anybody whose name started with a J.
    â€œI wouldn’t want to. Haven’t you heard it’ll make your knuckles bigger and give you arthritis when you’re older?”
    Sam stopped scrolling through Tam’s Facebook friends. “You’re kidding, right? That’s an old myth.”
    Makayla shook her head. “My mother says that’s why my grandmother has such horrible arthritis.”
    â€œWell, my dad used to stay on mine and Mom’s case about cracking our knuckles, so Mom finally had enough and interviewed a leading rheumatologist. He assured her that cracking or popping our knuckles would not cause arthritis, nor would it make our knuckles bigger.”
    â€œI’m so telling my mother.”
    â€œBut, he did tell Mom that in over fifty percent of those who cracked their knuckles, when they were older they had issues with their hands swelling.”
    â€œHmm. And yet, you still pop