Birthdays of a Princess Read Online Free Page A

on the table.
It showed the mug shot of a young girl. “Is that her?”
    Melissa put her hand over the picture. “Yes. That’s my daughter. Is
she in prison now?”
    “Yes, ma’am, at the Youth Custody Center in Burnaby, at least until
her exact age is established.”
    “Tiara is fifteen.”
    “Right. Thank you.” Macintosh explained that the girl, being
under-age, would definitely stay at the Center until a psychiatrist had checked
her mental state.
    Melissa’s mother interfered again. “The woman? How is she? I mean,
the one who…, is she…? Did she…?”
    “The victim was alive when they transported her from the scene of
the crime. She’s in emergency care.”
    Melissa Brown, still standing, cringed when he mentioned ‘victim’
and ‘scene of the crime’.
    “Please, Mrs. Brown, sit down again. There’s nothing you can do for
your daughter right now, except help us understand by answering a few
questions.”
    She sat down again. Her eyes were dry, but her face was scrunched up
in a silent bawl.
    “How can I? I don’t understand it myself. My Tiara, my baby! What
has she done?”
    He stared at the lined page of his notebook. “Please, ma’am.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    He scribbled Tiara Brown on the empty page. It was important to take
notes. “You said she’s fifteen?”
    “She turned fifteen this August. August twenty-first.”
    “Right.” Macintosh took a consent form from his notebook. “Her being
a minor, we’ll need parental permission to interview your daughter.” He slid
the form over to the mother, then he coughed uncomfortably. “And do a drug
test.”
    The two women shot ping-pong looks at each other. Melissa Brown
seemed to hesitate, the older one nodded and took over.
    “Yes, of course, my daughter will sign it. Just her. Tiara’s father
died fifteen years ago.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    The older woman continued. “He was a US soldier. Got killed in the
line of duty.”
    Macintosh turned to the mother. “What nationality is your daughter
then?”
    “Canadian,” the older woman said.
    “Please, ma’am, I’d appreciate if you let Tiara’s mother answer.”
    “Both”, Melissa said. “She was born in the States, so she’s got dual
citizenship.”
     “Her father’s name?”
    “Mike.”
    He wrote that down too.
    “And when did you and your daughter come back from the States?”
    “About three years ago.”
    “So, your daughter Tiara has been living here in British Columbia,
in Vancouver, the past three years. Where did she go to school?”
    Now both women looked at him, Melissa spoke.
    “She’s done her eighth grade in the States—before we came back.
Since then, well, she’s kind of looking. I’m homeschooling her to do her GE.”
     “To your knowledge, is your daughter taking drugs?”
    “No, she isn’t.”
    “You sure?”
    “Look, Inspector—”
    “Detective.”
    “Detective. She’s a teenager. They’re a bit wild sometimes, but she’s
a good kid. Always has been, honestly. She’s going through a phase just now. If
you have kids, you understand. Let me tell you about her. Just so you
understand.”
    Macintosh didn’t want to understand. Christ Almighty, he should have
insisted on Harding handling this. He couldn’t deal with stuff like this anymore.
    Melissa didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. She went on
relentless.
    “My Tiara is bright and beautiful. She always got top marks on all
her tests! I home-schooled her, you know, I used to be a teacher. Every single
day I sat with her for hours on end and read to her and practiced writing and
counting. I always insisted Tiara speak properly, so she wouldn’t adopt that
dreadful Texas drawl, and she didn’t. My little girl was such a quick learner.”
    Finally, she needed to catch her breath and Macintosh took over
again.
    “If your daughter is such an intelligent girl, how come you didn’t
enroll her in high school when you came back to Canada?”
     “I told you, I’m