Read Anybody's Daughter (Angela Evans Series No. 2) for Free Online Page A

boyfriend if they’d never met?”
    “People hook up on Facebook all the time.” Sydney quickly added, “but I don’t do that.”
    “Do you know where he lives?”
    “Someplace in L.A. Not too far from USC.”
    “Did Brianna tell you they were planning to meet today?”
    “Nope.” Sydney raised her palm in the air. “I swear on the Bible. Jaden didn’t like her to tell nobody their business. But she told me some stuff anyway.”
    “Like what?”
    “Uh, well, he’s an A student just like us. He’s fourteen and he goes to Foshay Middle School and First A.M.E. Church.”
    Dre rubbed his chin. Finally they were getting some information they could use.
    “Do you know his last name?”
    Sydney smiled, glad to be of help. “Yep. Johnson. Jaden Johnson. He has one sister and his mother is a teacher at Crenshaw High.”
    “Did Brianna ever show you a picture of Jaden?”
    “Yep,” she said, blushing. “He’s cute.”
    Her father grumbled and Sydney started twirling the ring on her baby finger.
    “Uh…you wanna see his Facebook page?”
    “Absolutely,” Dre said.
    Sydney ran to her bedroom and came back with her laptop, the screen already lit.
    Her father grimaced. “Why is that on? I told you to turn that thing off an hour ago.”
    “Winston, stop fussing at the child,” her mother said. “We need to concentrate on Brianna right now.”
    Sydney hit several keys on the computer, then turned it around for all of them to see.
    Jaden Johnson was a clean-cut kid whose Facebook profile described him as a Christian who was saving himself for marriage. He had 345 Facebook friends, was a Pisces, loved science fiction movies, and planned to be a lawyer. Dre scanned the postings on Jaden’s page and found absolutely nothing that caused him any concern.
    A knot of apprehension settled deep in Dre’s stomach. “Do you know the passwords to Brianna’s Facebook and Yahoo accounts?” Dre wanted to study Brianna’s accounts for clues about Jaden.
    Sydney hesitated, then gave up the information, which Dre noted in his smartphone.
    “The boy sounds like a good kid,” Sydney’s father said. “At least she didn’t run off with some thug.”
    Dre wanted to tell Winston to shut the fuck up. Brianna had not run off.
    When his eyes finally met Angela’s, he knew they were on the same page. It took a skilled criminal attorney or a street-smart hustler to recognize that this upstanding young man was not what he seemed.

Chapter 9
Day One: 10:15 p.m.
    B rianna had lost all sense of time. She could not tell whether it was late night or early morning, the same day or the next. Her throat was so dry it hurt to swallow.
    “Wake up,” Brianna said, shaking Kaylee by the shoulder. “We have to figure out how to get out of here.”
    Brianna wished she was still drugged. That way, she wouldn’t feel so cold and hungry and scared.
    Kaylee sat up and hugged herself. “They ain’t lettin’ us out, so you might as well forget that. We have to do what they say.”
    “No, we don’t,” Brianna insisted. “We have to escape. Have you seen the rest of the house?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Who else is here?”
    “At least six other girls right now. But it changes every day. Some of ’em like it here. They’re gonna try to get you to like it too. They rather be here than in a group home.”
    “I don’t have to be in no group home!” Brianna started to cry. “Me and my mama have a house and I’m going home!”
    They heard a rattling sound and the door opened. Two girls stepped inside the room. They were probably sixteen or seventeen, but their scant clothes and heavy makeup made them look much older. The shorter one had a pretty face and was wearing a short, red wig. The taller one was toothpick-skinny and had tattoos up and down her arms.
    “If y’all ready to act right, we’ll let you out of here so you can eat.” The tattooed girl threw Kaylee an oversized T-shirt. “Put that on.”
    Brianna decided to play it smart. She