Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 09 Read Online Free Page B

brown hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail and a scattering of acne on her forehead that the heavy pancake makeup failed to conceal. Her halter and skimpy shorts made no attempt to conceal a well-endowed bustline, a somewhat thick waist, and heavy thighs. With an afternoon at Estelle’s Hair Fantasies and a supervised trip to a department store, she might have been attractive. At the moment, a scowl did nothing to enhance her appearance.
    “I gotta get out of here,” she said, grabbing Joey’s arm. “It doesn’t matter where-just any place but here.”
    “I don’t know,” he mumbled unhappily.
    Fratelleon put his hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Chastity, I’d like you to meet-“
    She jerked away from him. “Did they tell you about my having to go to some gawdawful little high school? Were you in on this, too?”
    “Malachi and Seraphina only want what’s best for you. You don’t want to put on a tinsel halo and sing to the unwashed for the rest of your life, do you? You need to finish high school so you’ll have some options.”
    “Yeah,” Joey inserted. “I mean, I had to go back to college and get a degree in electrical engineering before I could get any decent gigs. Before that, I was stringing lights in bars for minimum wage.”
    Chastity was not in the mood for career counseling. “Nobody’s gonna make me go to some crappy school where everybody’ll whisper about me behind my back and cut me dead in the halls. And it’s all Seraphina’s fault. Malachi was on my side at first and said something about getting some textbooks so I could study at home, but she dragged him back into their bedroom to talk, and when they came out he said he’d changed his mind. He didn’t change his mind-she changed it for him!”
    As the resident keeper of the peace, I smiled at the girl and said, “I can introduce you to some of the high school kids before school starts. That way you’d have some friends on the first day of class.”
    She glanced at me, then leaned against Joey and said, “Please take me for a bike ride or something. We could grab a blanket and a couple of beers, and find a nice, quiet place where we’d be all alone.” He tried to back away from her, but she stuck to him like a thistle seed. “Come on, Joey. It’ll be fun.”
    “Listen,” he said, shooting a panicky look at Fratelleon, “you can ride into town with me, but all we’re gonna do is get a few things at an electronics store and come right back here. We’re not stopping anywhere else.”
    “We’ll see,” she said, her scowl replaced by a coquettish simper.
    Fratelleon watched the two walk away and then said, “This is not good, but I could see no way to intervene. Despite his penchant for affectation, Joey is a decent young man. Chastity, on the other hand, seems destined for trouble. Seraphina may have erred when she took the child from a foster home and became her legal guardian last year.”
    “Seraphina is Malachi Hope’s wife?” I asked.
    “Yes, and Chastity is her younger sister. Ten years ago the girls were abandoned by their mother and put into foster care. Seraphina was sixteen at the time, and Chastity was only five. As soon as Seraphina felt as though she could offer a home to her sister, she tracked her down and petitioned the state to allow her to assume guardianship. The problem arises from the fact that Chastity deeply resents being taken away from her friends and obliged to participate in our revivals. She’s not yet adjusted to a migratory life in the Bible Belt.”
    “Apparently not,” I said. “Should I go ahead and call a couple of the local high school girls and have them come out to introduce themselves? I can’t promise they’ll keep her out of trouble, but it might help.”
    “She needs more help than any of us can give her,” Fratelleon said, then forced a smile and extended a large, well-manicured hand. “Thank you for dropping by, Miss Hanks. There are countless details awaiting my