“I was just dropping off a lasagna and wanted to say hi to Eliot and Syd Squid before I left.” I tried to tuck the baggie behind my back, but her senses were honed to razor sharpness from fifteen years of raising kids.

“What’s that you’re hiding behind your back?” When I shrugged stupidly she slid toward me, grabbing my shoulder to physically pivot me. She yanked the bag from my grip, stared at it. “What is this? Drugs?”

“Why are you getting your panties in a wad? It’s just pot, Felicity. Recreational marijuana’s legal now in a bunch of states.”

“But not Pennsylvania. Where’d you find it?”

“Hidden in her desk.”

“I’m not going to ask why you were looking in her desk, but we need to turn this over to the cops. Whoever sold this to her may have been involved in her disappearance.”

I absolutely could not let that happen. Involving the cops in something as trivial as a dime bag was just plain silly. “Felicity, stop. No pot dealer abducted Vera.”

“How do you know, Marin? Maybe she owed them money or something.”

“I’m telling you, this tiny amount is only worth $10. No drug dealer would abduct a kid over ten bucks.”

“Well, I’m still turning this over to the police.” Felicity stepped toward the door, paused, and glared back at me. “And you—you need to leave.”

She turned to leave. I faced a choice: watch the oncoming bus hit the stranger, or run into the traffic and sacrifice my own life. I ran into the traffic.

“Wait! Felicity, I’m the one who gave it to her.”

Felicity stopped, her back facing me. Then she slowly twisted around, ire in her eyes as she stormed up to me. “You gave drugs to my daughter?”

“It wasn’t like that. I swear. She had asked me if I knew how to get some for a friend. I told her no, but when she said she’d find her own source, I got scared. If you don’t know the dealer, you have no idea what the marijuana could be laced with. So I offered to get it for her since I didn’t want her getting something dangerous.”

“So you thought it was a better idea to give drugs to my child than talking to me—her mother—about it?”

“I didn’t think—”

“Exactly, Marin. You didn’t think! Instead you endangered my child.”

“I’m sorry. You know how teens are—they’re going to do what they want, regardless of what a parent says. I figured at least if she was determined to try it, it was better off coming from someone I know and trust.”