Birthdays of a Princess Read Online Free Page B

homeschooling her.”
    “We didn’t find any registration for this.”
    “I didn’t get around to it. Good Lord, what else am I supposed to
do? I can’t handle everything all by myself.”
    “It’s the law.”
    “So charge me.”
    Macintosh’s face turned to stone.
    “What about your daughter? Didn’t she wantto meet kids her
age?”
    “She was twelve years old, had never been in Canada before. When we
left Texas she left her whole life behind her. I can understand why she refused
to go to school. Can’t you?”
    “That’s not my position, ma’am,” he said.
    “And that is not the point, right? The point is, what happens now? What
will happen to her? What will happen to me? When should I go and see her?”
    “I really can’t say, ma’am.”
    “Then find out, for crying out loud. Somebody has to know! Get your
supervisor on the phone. Talk to somebody who knows. You can’t just leave me hanging
in there. I’m her mother!”
    Macintosh thought she had a point there. He had come here to do the
preliminary interview with the woman who was the mother of a crazy druggie gone
wild. He had expected a run-down, anti-social milieu, not a clean, neat flat
with all the signs of low-income suburbia—table and chairs cramped into a
claustrophobic kitchen with cracked linoleum tiles, a pot of herbs on the
windowsill, a bank calendar with red circles around several dates, tea cups
that didn’t match, seat cushions that did . But all this didn’t silence
the voice in the back of his head. There is something wrong with this whale
of a mother. And the meddling granny.
    “Tell you what, ma’am,” Macintosh said. “Let me call my superior and
see what can be arrange.”
    Both women nodded vigorously. He called Sergeant Tong at Homicide and
read out what he had written. It wasn’t much.
    His boss didn’t sound too happy, which was understandable. In a
serious case like this, with a minor committing attempted homicide in front of
fourteen witnesses who would all have a different view of what had happened, a
hell of a machinery would kick into gear.
    He listened to the Sergeant with growing incredulity.
    “I’m sorry,” Macintosh said, after he finally hung up. “We thought
we could keep the lid on this one, with her being underage and all. You know,
the press isn’t allowed to mention her name, and with the victim not…I mean,
with it not being a homicide…we didn’t think it would be an item after the
initial excitement…”
    “So what?” Granny asked. “Did she die?”
    He shook his head. “Not as far as we know.”
    “So, that’s good, isn’t it?” The two women exchange a conspiratorial
look of relief. “Nobody will know Tiara’s name. Nobody will know who she is.”
    “Wrong,” he said. “It’s all over the internet. Somebody posted a
full, unedited clip of Tiara’s attack on YouTube, and it’s gone viral.”
    “Oh God,” Melissa sighed. “I guess I need to see her right away.”
    “I’m so sorry again,” Macintosh said. “You can’t.”
    “What are you talking about? She’s my daughter! I’ve got rights, as
a mother. You can’t just ignore me.”
    “I understand, ma’am, but your daughter has rights too. And right
now she refuses to see you.”

 
     
     
    Chapter
8
     
     
    My psycho-doc makes a fresh attempt to get me talking. Beware! Remember,
he is dangerous. I’m back in his IAU office and stare at him with crossed arms
(I know, that’s such a childish gesture, but how else can I demonstrate the
insurmountable frontier I wish to establish).
    He pretends not to notice and carries on with his monolog as if we
were having a perfectly normal conversation. Continues to stress again and
again how important it is for me to find myself.
    I don’t tell him that I have already made an attempt to untangle the
twisted fibers of my childhood and moor some of their frayed ends—or
beginnings, whichever way you want to rope them in—in the notebook he gave me
for exactly this