EXCERPT FROM BETRAYED - A romantic suspense novel | Page 27

BETRAYED

genius when it came to choreographing modern ballet.
Everyone certainly told her often enough. Why hadn’t she
realized how important the contract must have been to her
daughter? To her the dance lessons were nothing more than
that. Just lessons.
As the months passed after her breakdown, Laurel’s school
grades plunged from stellar to failing. Her teachers called again
and again saying how worried they were. Maude didn’t pay a bit
of attention to any of them. Instead, she justified her actions by
snapping back, “I know what’s best for my Laurie. Just butt out
of my business.”
When the calls and letters from the ballet company finally
stopped, she boasted to Mary Margaret, “I guess I showed those
big shots not to mess with me.”
~~~~

Reality pierced the dense bank of fog obscuring the truth.
Laurel hadn’t just been upset that day. It was more likely she’d
had a nervous breakdown, and Maude had done nothing to help
her. It was a fleeting thought, however. Her pig-headedness
prevailed, so she smashed the truth back into oblivion.
She said out loud to the empty room, “Why is it so awful
that she decided not to dance again? So what if her only friends
are her precious Madame Karakova and that Sherry Martin
from the Academy?” Thoughts swirled. So what if she acts like a
zombie these days? Am I supposed to do something? Why
doesn’t she stop crying? It’s downright driving me crazy.
She turned on the little black and white TV she’d managed
to save up enough to buy the month before, and tried to
concentrate on The $64,000 Question, the show everyone was
talking about. It was useless. She flicked off the newfangled
contraption, and sat in silence again.
Tick. Tick. Tick. At last, she had called the police to report
her daughter missing. They told her she had to wait the
prescribed amount of time to file an official report.
The next morning she picked up the phone and called the

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