"How are you holding up?"
Steve looked at Danny, not exactly sure where he was going with the question. "What do you mean, how am I holding up?"
Danny arched his eyebrows. "You're suddenly playing parent to a teenage girl. I have a teenage daughter. It can be an overwhelmingly dramatic experience."
The commander shrugged his shoulders like it wasn't a big deal. "Everything's fine. She's a good kid."
Still able to see Meg out of the corner of his eye, Steve noticed that the teen had stopped moving around to her music. She was staring intently at her iPad, and he had to wonder just what had caught her attention. He assumed she was connected to a Wi-Fi in order to access her music, whether it was using her phone as a hot spot or using the public Wi-Fi available in the building. Yet didn't appear to be playing a game, as her hands were still as they gripped the sides of the tablet, and something told him she wasn't watching a TV show or video on the internet.
A thought crossed his mind, but he wasn't sure whether he was just being paranoid or if his instincts had picked up on something. He needed some way of determining whether there was any merit to his suspicions before he approached Meg.
"Has she said anything about her home or past?" Danny asked, changing the subject a little.
This was the perfect opening, thought Steve. "Not much," he admitted. "She's been pretty tight-lipped, but I've been able to determine her home state, and I think I'll be able to pinpoint her real name within 24 hours."
Danny's surprise at the news was expected, but Steve's attention was elsewhere. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve watched Meg's eyes grow wide as saucers. Busted.
Holding up a finger to ask Danny for a moment, Steve turned his head to look at crooked a single finger at her, motioning her to join them. To the kid's credit, she pretended not to notice for a few seconds, a look of innocent surprise spreading over her face as she quickly pressed something on her iPad. Slipping on her sandals, Meg made her way out of the office.
"What's going on?" Meg asked, her voice and face the picture of calm curiosity.
Steve's gaze was serious as he stared down at her. "Do you have some sort of recording device or app on that iPad that allows you to hear things in other rooms?"
She shook her head slowly, appearing appropriately confused. "No."
"Do you know how to read lips?"
The question caught her off guard, and she uttered an, "Uhhh…" before she had the chance to formulate a better response.
Steve arched an eyebrow. "Meg."
Meg stared at her feet, absentmindedly noticing it had been a while since she'd had a pedicure. "Maybe."
Taking a moment to give his partner a hint of a smirk, Steve refocused his attention on the kid before him. "Eyes up." It took a moment, but the girl slowly lifted her gaze so he could see her warm brown eyes. "Eavesdropping on a private conversation is rude," he admonished calmly.
Knowing she'd been caught, Meg went on the defensive. "You were talking about me."
"Just because Detective Williams and I were discussing you doesn't mean you had any right to listen in on that conversation, and you know it. If you thought you had any legitimate reason to listen or be a part of the conversation, you wouldn't have snuck around to listen. Were you using the camera feature to see our faces more clearly?
Damn, he was good. Meg gave a slight nod.
The commander folded his arms over his chest. "The eavesdropping ends now. If I catch you trying to listen in on private conversations again today, the iPad will be mine for a few days and I'll find a babysitter to supervise you to make sure you stay out of trouble. Are we clear?"
She didn't doubt that he'd confiscate her iPad, and Meg didn't want to imagine how bored she'd be without anything to occupy her time. "Yes sir," she murmured, feeling slightly embarrassed over being reprimanded in front of Detective Williams.
"Good. Go get settled in the office and behave."
Meg took a few steps toward the office before pausing, turning on her spot to face the men. "What state am I from?" she demanded, summoning a bit of courage to hold off on obeying the commander's orders.
Steve shook his head. "No idea yet."
The girl frowned in confusion. "But you said…" Understanding dawned on her, and she all but glared at the man. "You set me up."
"You weren't as covert as you thought you were," Steve replied lightly. He pointed towards his office. "Office. Now."
Meg sighed, but this time she complied, walking back into the office. Kicking off her shoes, she stretched her legs out on the loveseat and pulled back up her music. She glanced back at the commander, but saw that both he and Detective Williams had turned just enough that she could no longer make out what they were saying.
Out in the common area, Danny had raised both eyebrows. "Everything's fine?" he repeated with a small smirk of his own.
"That was nothing," Steve insisted. "A kid trying to test her boundaries."
Danny resisted the urge to laugh. "So what do you actually know about Meg?"
"Not a lot. She hasn't seen her mother in four days and doesn't know where she is, but I have no idea how long she's been traveling. She confirmed that that her home is far away from Hawaii. I can tell she's scared, but she refuses to give away any information that she feels might put her in danger. There isn't an accent to hint at where she's from. I've combed through every missing person report for a 'Megan' under the age of 18 and have come up with nothing."
"Maybe her name isn't Meg," suggested Danny. "She was very insistent at being called Meg instead of Megan at the hospital. Meg could be a nickname for something else, or maybe even her middle name."
It was sound reasoning, Steve admitted to himself. He should've thought of it himself. "I don't suppose you have any other insights?"
"You've spent more time with her than I have," Danny said with a light smile. "I don't think she's been traveling very long, though. She was too put together – she didn't strike me as a kid who had been on the streets or on the run for more than a few days. I don't know if you noticed, but the makeup she had in her backpack wasn't the cheap stuff you'd find in a supermarket. Grace tried to talk me into buying the stuff on more than one occasion, but there's no way I'm spending that much money on makeup for a sixteen-year-old."
"I'll expand the search," Steve decided.
"So, what do you want to do for dinner, kiddo?"
Meg wasn't particularly thrilled by Steve's repeated references to her youth, but she kept her thoughts to herself. "I don't know," she admitted. "Why are you asking me?"
Steve cast Meg a quick, curious glance before returning his gaze to the road ahead of them. "I'd like to avoid making something you hate if I can help it."
Whatever answer Meg had expected, that wasn't it. "Wait," she demanded, turning to stare at Steve in shock. "You're cooking?"
He chuckled, unable to mask his amusement over her reaction. "Why is that such a surprise?"
Meg shrugged. "You struck me as the kind of person who resorted to frozen dinners or take-out most of the time."
He didn't know whether to be offended or amused. "I see I have something to prove," he said. "All right, young lady. This is your chance now to tell me any foods that you absolutely despise."
She was surprised he cared enough about her opinion, so Meg took a moment to carefully consider the question. "Oysters… calamari… liver… sushi," she announced shortly.
It occurred to Steve that every food Meg had listed was on the fancier side. This was a kid who had probably come from a comfortable home. "Sushi?" he repeated, a little surprised by the last item she'd mentioned.
"I don't do raw fish."
"All right," Steve agreed, accepting her explanation. "Challenge accepted. I know exactly what we'll have, but we need to stop by the store on the way home."
"What are you going to make?"
"It's a surprise."
An hour later, Meg perched on one of the stools at the kitchen table as Steve stood on the other side of the table, finely dicing an onion. Two pounds of ground beef sat in a large mixing bowl on the counter, along with tomato paste, bread crumbs, a couple of eggs, some milk, and a handful of herbs, spices, and seasonings. "You're making meatloaf," she deduced, her voice filled with equal parts approval and surprise.
Steve glanced up from his half-diced onion. "Do you like meatloaf?"
"Definitely. I feel like I should be helping you. What can I help with?"
Pondering Meg's question, Steve reached for a medium-sized bag of red potatoes from the counter and set it on the table near Meg. "What do you think? Roasted or mashed?"
Meg thought it over. "With meatloaf? Mashed," she decided.
"Good choice," Steve told her as he pulled out a large pot. "You could peel and cut up the potatoes."
The teen looked at the potatoes. "I'd wash them first, of course, but would it be all right if I left the skin on them?"
He hadn't considered leaving the skins, but Steve didn't suppose he'd mind. "Sure."
As Steve found a decent knife and a cutting board for Meg, the girl took the potatoes over to the sink to wash them well. Once she was satisfied they were sufficiently clean, she set the wet potatoes on one corner of the cutting board. She placed one potato in the middle of the board and used the knife to begin cutting the potato into uniform pieces – not too big, so they wouldn't take forever to cook, but not too small, so they wouldn't become a mushy mess or overcook.
Having just finished dicing the onion, Steve paused his own preparations to watch Meg expertly handle the knife. Clearly the kid knew what she was doing. "Do you know how to cook?" he asked her.
She gave a small shrug. "I know my way around a kitchen," was her casual answer. Meg neatly cut another potato. When she didn't hear any further comments from Steve, she glanced up at him, surprised to find him watching her curiously. It was obvious he wasn't satisfied with her answer. The girl gave a soft, somewhat mirthful sigh. "Mom can't cook," explained Meg. "She's the only person I've ever met who could burn a pot of water. When I was old enough that Mom would allow me near a stove or any knife sharper than a butter knife, I began teaching myself to cook."
"How old was that?" wondered Steve.
Meg thought a moment before answering, "Eight."
Turning part of his attention back to the meatloaf, Steve continued with his questions, pleased that Meg was talking, even if it probably wouldn't help him find her real identity. "Do you like to cook, or is it something you learned out of necessity?"
"Both. It started out of necessity, but I found I enjoyed it."
"Well. Kou kahukila aku ana ia," Steve said.
The commander expected a confused teen – he had hoped to catch her slightly off guard in a nonthreatening way – but he soon found himself to be the baffled one as Meg said without batting an eyelash, "Mahalo." Steve felt his jaw drop, and had to snap out of his brief stupor before speaking.
"Come again?"
This time Meg glanced up, brow furrowed. "Did I get that wrong? You were telling me I could use the kitchen when I wanted, right?"
Steve blinked. "You speak Hawaiian?"
"Not fluently," Meg admitted, shaking her head. "I just started learning the language three days ago."
"Three days," Steve repeated, struggling to wrap his head around the idea. "You've been studying Hawaiian for three days and you were able to understand what I said?" He watched her shrug. "Do you know any other languages aside from English?"
Setting down her knife, Meg scooped up the potato chunks and dropped them in the pot. She used the fingers on her left hand to count off as she spoke. "Spanish, French, Italian, German, and a bit of Mandarin." At Steve's astonished gaze, Meg lifted a shoulder in another half-shrug. "I like languages."
"Wait, how have you been learning a new language over the past three days? You spent a third of that time in the hospital."
"I have Duolingo downloaded on my phone. It offers a course in Hawaiian."
Steve shook his head with a chuckle. "I suppose you're a great student at school."
"I did all right," Meg said casually, though a small smile betrayed her aloof attitude. "So, it's okay if I decide I want to cook something sometime, right?"
"You bet."