“I can live with that if it means getting her back on track and keeping your family together.”

“I don’t know if Mike will go for it.”

“Yes, he will, Trace. He wants her out of the house. This accomplishes that and puts her in a safe place where she’ll be watched and monitored. He’ll go for it.”

“What about Nick?”

“What about him?”

“He’ll stand by and let you give me twenty thousand bucks without blinking an eye?”

“He’d say, ‘It’s your money, babe. Do what you need to do.’”

Tracy offered a faint smile. “You sound just like him.”

“Come here.” Sam gathered her sister into a tight hug. “Let’s get this done before things get any worse, okay?”

Tracy nodded. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“I wish I could say it’s my pleasure, but I hate that you’re going through such an awful thing.”

“So do I. It would certainly be a relief to not have to deal with her anger every day.”

“Has she been seen by a doctor?”

“I dragged her to mine a couple of months ago. She chalked the whole thing up to hormones and teenage years and promised me she’d grow out of it. I wish I was convinced.”

“She needs to get back into counseling.”

“Group and individual counseling is part of the program at the school. That was one of the reasons it was so appealing to me.”

“It sounds like where she needs to be. What do we need to do to make it happen?”

“I go there and fill out all the enrollment paperwork, pay the tuition and they come pick her up.”

“Would you tell her this is happening?”

Tracy’s eyes filled again as she shook her head. “If I did, she’d run away. That’s my greatest fear.”

“I know it feels awful to be doing this, but it’s the right thing for her—and for you, Mike, Abby and Ethan. In your heart of hearts you have to know that.”

“I do,” Tracy said as tears spilled down her cheeks. “But I wish it didn’t have to be so drastic.”

“I worked with this cop on a detail once, and we were talking about his kids. One of them had big-time drug problems that the family had dealt with for years. The son had been arrested a couple of times, which is a huge embarrassment for any cop. They sent the kid to rehab three times, and every time they had hope. But then he’d come home and fall back in with the same crowd that got him into drugs in the first place, and the whole ugly cycle would start up again. He finally OD’d when he was twenty-five. You know what that dad told me?”

“What?”