Gem Stone Read online

  "Gemma. Come in, please."

  Gem took a few steps forward to stand just inside the door. She stared at Creepers, sitting in front of her. Soft chins, soft hands, he was just doughy everywhere. She shuddered. He did give her the creeps.

  "Is something wrong, Gemma?"

  His soft voice raised the hair on her spine. She stiffened and stared him straight in the eye, a touch of defiance in her gaze. His pale gray eyes were always blank, like no one was inside.

  "No, sir."

  "I'm hearing some disturbing stories today. Another student has implicated you in a cheating scam. On your chemistry midterm."

  Damn Misty. Forcibly keeping her expression neutral, she struggled to match it to her voice. "I'm sorry to hear that, sir."

  "I'm going to ask you once and once only. Did you cheat?"

  "No, sir." She didn't need to cheat on exams. School was easy for her.

  "Did you help anyone else cheat on their exams?"

  At least she could answer honestly again. She looked him straight in the eye. "No, sir."

  Silence.

  "That's not what I'm hearing from other sources." He studied her intently as if hoping to read a different truth on her face. "I wouldn't want you involved in anything that would make me reconsider your placement here."

  Shit. Misty was a bitch. The girl would do anything to avoid getting into trouble herself. Including throwing Gem into the mess to confuse the issue. Again.

  "People will always talk, sir."

  "Yes. They will, won't they? Well, we will leave it for the moment. As long as you realize, that if I receive one ounce of proof that you cheated, your permission to stay here will be rescinded. Got that?"

  "Yes, sir." She dropped her gaze to her feet and the almost-too-short jeans. There were a lot of good things happening here. She didn't want to leave. She also didn't dare let him know how much this mattered.

  Silence again.

  Gemma risked a quick look at him. He was staring at a thick file open in front of him. Her file. Gemma groaned silently.

  "I see you're still busy with that camera of yours…"

  Was that a question? Gemma didn't know what she was supposed to say. "Yes, sir."

  "You know better than to take pictures of people and situations that you aren't supposed to, right?" His pale gray eyes lifted from the desk, flicked to the field outside the window then back, catching hers.

  Acid bubbled in her stomach. Did he know?

  "We wouldn't want you ignoring other people's privacy now, would we? Even if the pictures don't turn out well, people might think you captured events you weren't entitled to see. Understand?"

  A frisson of fear slid down her back. He couldn't know, could he? She didn't even know what she'd seen. She gulped and nodded once. "I'm very careful."

  "Yes. Careful. That describes you very well. Careful in what you say. Careful in what you do. Careful in how you act. Always. What goes on behind those big brown eyes of yours, Gemma? You're always quiet. Deep. You've been here with the others for several months now and yet, you're still essentially a loner."

  And what was she supposed to say to that? She remained silent.

  "A word of warning, there will be several new girls arriving over the next few weeks, so expect to go back to sharing your room again." He studied her carefully. "And still you stand there and say nothing." He closed the file before resting his interlocked fingers on top. He stared up at her, a frown creasing his forehead. "I'm not a big fan of mixing boys and girls at your age. Unleashed hormones and troubled kids make for a nasty mess." He narrowed his gaze and added, "Make sure you don't contribute to the problem."

  "No, sir. Are we done here, sir?" Gem stared down at her standard-issue running shoe. Like all her clothes. The home provided everything, slightly less institutionalized than at the center, but still generic. Soon she'd be allowed to get a job, then she could buy her own clothes.

  He studied her bent head.

  "Never an ounce of give in you, is there?"

  "Sir?" She eyed him curiously.

  "Never mind." He picked up her file and added it to the stack on the right. "Yes, we're done."

  She took that as a dismissal. "Thank you, sir." Just before escaping down the hallway, she popped her head back in and said, "I don't cheat."

  He looked up in surprise. "I know that. You don't bother reading the textbooks either, do you? But not everyone here has your IQ. Make sure you aren't helping the others cheat. It won't do either of you any good in the long run."

  She nodded. She had no intention of helping anyone cheat, but that didn't stop them from cheating off her. Though it would have been easy to point the finger in the right direction, she wasn't Misty. She wasn't going to turn anyone in to make it easier for herself.

  Life here hadn't changed the first rule, learned the hard way on the streets and reinforced in juvie. That rule was to keep your mouth shut – no matter what. Or else.

  She bit her bottom lip as she raced down the hallway. She didn't want to miss dinner. She'd already outstripped most other girls her age, for height. She could only hope one day, she'd match them for curves. At least she had them all beat for brains.

  It was a relief to get out of there, but she'd feel better if she understood what was going on by the creek. And why Creepers cared.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The oversized kitchen was busy even though there were only five teenagers in residence at the moment. Along with Gem and Misty, were three always-hungry males. With an apologetic smile at Doris – John's wife and their house mother – Gem took her place at the table and quickly heaped her plate. Misty kept trying to catch her eye, but Gem refused to look at her. She wasn't going to let her off the hook so easily.

  The meeting with Creepers was too fresh for that.

  The meal of baked ham and mashed potatoes was hot and tasty and she ate with gusto. Now that she'd survived Creepers, her stomach had settled and turned to more important matters. She didn't know why she was always so hungry or why, despite that, she could only tolerate certain foods recently. She had no allergies and would have said a year ago that she could eat anything. That had slowly changed.

  Now there were certain things she couldn't put on her plate. Like green apples. Red ones were fine. Green, something about that color, just wasn't any good anymore. Yet green in other foods was great, like spinach. She adored spinach. Hated Swiss chard – it had red in it. Go figure.

  "Gem, do you want more potatoes?" Doris asked, standing beside her with the bowl in hand. Food was important to Doris – that fact was underscored by her round figure and double chins.

  Gemma eyed the bowl and nodded gratefully, then grabbed two more buns from a different bowl and dumped several pats of butter on her plate to go with them. Doris served her a second helping of mashed potatoes.

  As soon as Doris returned to the kitchen, Misty hopped up from the far side of the long table and raced around to Gem. She pulled out the chair beside Gem and sat down. "Hey. Are you okay? What did Creepers say?"

  "Nothing much. He knows I didn't cheat." Gem bit into one of the buns, while she slathered butter on the rest of it.

  "See. I figured it was all good." Misty watched in fascination as Gem stuffed the last bite of the first bun in her mouth. "How can you eat so much?"

  Glaring at her, Gem mumbled, "I'm hungry." Swallowing hard, she scooped up a large forkful of potato and popped it into her mouth and chewed. Then she shrugged and confessed, "I don't know. Maybe I'm growing again."

  "You'd better not be," Misty warned her.

  As if Gem could do anything about it.

  "Guys don't like tall girls."

  "Since when?" Gem countered. "I doubt runway models go without dates."

  Misty grinned. "True enough. But you, my friend, are not runway-model material."

  The plate full of food lost some of its appeal. "True enough."

  "I didn't mean that in a bad way, but your face is quite angular, you know."

>   Angular. Was that another word for a broad forehead and a big strong jaw? Not to mention the slight indent in her chin, like men had. Yeah, she was a long way away from being a model. She brightened. So she might as well not starve herself. She attacked her plate again, half wishing her fair-weather friend would go away and let her eat.

  "What were you taking pictures of outside today? You were so intense…"

  With a forkful halfway to her mouth, Gem paused briefly to consider Creeper's warning, and the curious look on Misty's face. Misty's curiosity won out. "Some guys skulking around. I don't know. Remember the other night at dinner, when I told you about the green stuff on the stream?" At Misty's blank look, Gem shrugged. "Whatever. But that's why I went to take pictures."

  "One guy? Two? What were they doing? Poaching?" Misty leaned forward, her face alight with interest.

  Gemma's mouth was full so she shrugged.

  "Maybe they're convicts?" Misty leaned even closer, her face alive with imagination.

  "Yeah. Like that would be hard to find around here." Gem rolled her eyes.

  Misty giggled. "Wouldn't that be awesome if you had stumbled on a crime, in progress?"

  "No. Not really." Gem shook her head. Misty was simple, given to a wild imagination. That's all there was to it. No. Figuring out the crime and catching a criminal would be dangerous. And Gem, wasn't into heroics. She wanted an education and a future. And each of those things needed the other.

  And she wanted to reinvent herself. Her juvie records could disappear after some stupid, but simple, legal process and as long as she stayed trouble-free after that, she'd have a chance.

  That's all she wanted – a chance. She could do this. And here, in this place, it was easier.

  She stared down at her empty plate. She hadn't eaten it all. Had she?

  With a snicker and a nudge at Gem's empty plate, Misty said, "Man, you have got to be full now."

  "I guess so." Gem stood up while grabbing her plate and cutlery. There were rules here and cleaning up was everyone's responsibility.

  Ten minutes later, they were done. Gem hung up the wet dishtowel, bent down to scratch Major, the old beagle of Doris's. Then she headed back to her room. She pulled out her camera to study the last bunch of photos.

  Misty bounced at her side like a happy puppy.

  "So now what? TV? There might be one of your favorite cop shows on? Foosball? Read another mystery or what?"

  It was impossible to stay mad at Misty for long. Gem grinned.

  "Basketball?"

  Misty rolled her eyes. "Not again. Why are you so basketball crazy?"

  "Why are you so boy crazy?" countered Gem, fiddling with the display screen on the back of her camera. Turning it sideways, she checked out a couple of photos and deleted both. That was the joy of digital. She could pick and choose with the click of a button. She clicked forward to her last series of pictures. There. That one was too fuzzy. That one was dark. That one… She stopped. Something about it made her look more closely. That one needed to be seen on a full-size screen.

  "I'm going to the computers," she said leaving Misty standing in the middle of Gem's bedroom.

  "Great. Can I come?"

  While they walked, Gemma tracked through the photos on the camera she'd picked up from a pawn shop a few weeks earlier. Most pictures weren't good enough to keep. There were a couple that might be clear enough to see details if she had the right software. She really needed to update her old laptop.

  Once they reached the huge recreation room, set up with video games, table games and a computer center, she headed for her favorite computer and plugged in the USB to her camera. Misty grabbed the computer next to Gem's. Reid and Stephen were on two other computers, too engrossed to speak to them. Gemma looked around. There was no sign of Mark.

  All the kids came here in the evenings. If not for video games, then computer games. John had scrounged a bunch of older pieces of equipment and turned the basement into a kids' room. With limited Internet service, getting on and staying on had become a challenge. Because there were only five kids at the home now, it wasn't so much of a problem, but if new kids were coming next week…it could be a different story. Heavier demand meant less time for each.

  Reid, their techno kid, had done wonders with the four shared units. Maybe between the two of them, they could get her laptop up to speed too. It had serious problems right now.

  Gem started the file transfer, then brought up the first images. With a practiced eye, she deleted everything but the best, then flicked through the six pictures she'd kept.

  Misty leaned forward. "What is that?"

  Gem couldn't quite see the details but there was a profile of a face hidden in the shadows of the picture. She twiddled with the software settings, cropping around the spot in question and enlarging the image.

  Yes. That was definitely a nose and chin. A big chin. Chubby cheeks. Strange. Perched on a large rock, he reminded her of the character Humpty Dumpty without his wall. The domed bald head definitely clinched the image. He wasn't so much fat, just big…and eggshaped…especially at the belly. There'd been two men out there, so she dubbed this guy Dumpty and his slightly taller slimmer partner Humpty. Was Dumpty the man that had turned and looked straight at her? She hadn't gotten a clear enough view to know for sure. Still....

  She bent closer to the picture. She hated how blurry pictures looked when they were enlarged so she took it one step further and used imaging software to clean it up a little more.

  There.

  The last image showed a hand carrying some kind of small canister. She couldn't see any details.

  What would they be doing with that at the creek? Testing the water? Dumping something into it? Or were they just sitting there, having their lunch, enjoying the scenery? Somehow she doubted that was the case cause they weren't lounging around in t-shirts and shorts. They were being secretive. As if trying to hide what they were doing. Besides they'd worn gloves.

  The question was why? She couldn't even begin to formulate an explanation.

  Then again, maybe they were smoking stupid cigars and hiding it from wives or girlfriends. She shrugged. Who knew?

  Clicking back through older pictures, she found the same area in daylight. The creek drifted through the back of the image. She frowned. There was nothing in that area but a field. A few treed areas, clumps of bushes and the creek. The creek meant life and that was why she'd wondered about the green stuff that had floated on the creek's surface the last time she'd been there. What had happened? Was it something dangerous or something natural for this time of year? She'd have to go back tomorrow and take another look.

  ***

  The older brother sat in the front of the black suburban, and pondered the problem.

  "How much could they have seen?" he asked. He couldn't shake the idea that the girls posed a problem. Not that they'd been very close. Still, they couldn't take any chances. He had to tell the boss, get orders on how to proceed. They were being paid to keep watch after all. This mess was almost cleaned up. A few more days…

  They didn't need anyone getting in the way now.

  His kid brother grumbled beside him. Dressed in denim from top to bottom, he shifted his huge belly over his belt and snickered, "Nothing. I already told you that."

  Turning his cold glare on his brother, he snapped, "Really, and how's that?"

  "They'd have come back if they'd seen anything suspicious, wouldn't they?"

  Ass. He considered the issue. "Maybe, they haven't had a chance, yet."

  "I guess we'll have to wait and see."

  Comfortable silence settled between them.

  "I wonder what that thing was in the one girl's hand," He said thoughtfully.

  "A camera maybe?" His brother suggested, "Or a cell phone?"

  It was his turn to snort. "Not likely a cell. Look at the crappy service they have in this hick town. We can barely get our phones to work. They're probably inmates at the kid's jail… You know they have
one around here. And juvie in the next town. Hell…this whole area is probably full of hoodlums and thieves."

  "Eleanor would love it here."

  What had his idiot brother said? He spun around inside the truck cab to stare at him in shock. "What the hell? Eleanor? You mean your cat?"

  "Yeah, my cat. So?" the younger man spluttered. "She's a hell of a thief. She'd steal the dinner off your plate if she could."

  He rolled his eyes. Talk about time to refocus the conversation. This was their first job like this. So easy and so lucrative. He didn't want to screw it up. This could lead to more good things if they did it right. There was good money here. No snoopy kids were allowed to interfere.