Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [70]
For the first time in weeks it wasn’t raining, though the clouds threatened. She pulled up her hoodie anyway and started walking, past the bungalows and Victorians, toward the center of town. By the time she got to Ray and Lucy’s Diner the fitful light of day was at its strongest, and she went inside, hopeful.
Caleb was sitting at a booth, nursing a cup of coffee, and he gave her a brief smile when she slipped in across from him. “I thought you might be in jail,” she said.
“I think Maggie was doing that more for show.” He rubbed a hand across his brow. “She’s too smart to spend her time chasing ghosts.”
“Is the Northwest Strangler a ghost?”
“I hope so,” he said, but he didn’t sound optimistic. “Why don’t you and your mother get out of town?”
“We have to wait until David can get some time off.”
“Go without him.”
“Easier said than done,” Sophie muttered. “I don’t think she’d go if he couldn’t. She’s madly in love with him.”
“You sure about that? I haven’t seen any signs of it.”
“Why else would she marry him and drag me up here, when we could be somewhere, anywhere? We were doing just fine before she met David. She could make enough money for us to live well enough, especially overseas, as long as we weren’t too fussy, and we both liked living with the locals. But suddenly she just threw everything away, our plans to go to New Zealand, and married David. What other reason could there be besides true love?” She sounded disgruntled and jealous and she knew it, but she couldn’t help it.
“You’d be surprised, kid,” he said. “I talked with Maggie. She wants you to stay with her family for the next week or so. I think that’s probably a pretty good idea.”
“Why?”
Caleb would have been pretty cute if he weren’t so old. If her mother had any sense she would have seen it herself—he made his younger brother seem about as interesting as oatmeal. “Just trust me on this.”
“I need to look after my mother. She tends to jump into things without thinking them through.”
“Leave your mother to me. I promise you I’ll make sure no one hurts her. Can you trust me on this?”
She considered it for a moment. In her life she’d been used to trusting her mother first, and then the people her mother trusted.
But her mother trusted David, which was a big mistake in judgment as far as Sophie was concerned. And Rachel didn’t trust Caleb, who was the only adult around who was honest with her. Not even Kristen’s mom told her the truth.
She nodded. “I can trust you. What am I going to tell my mother?”
“I told you. Leave your mother to me.”
Sophie repressed a romantic sigh. If only her mother had better taste, she could do just that.
As it was, her mother had taught her early on that you played with the cards you were dealt, and life had dealt them David. At least for the time being.
“I’ll give you a ride to school,” he said, tossing some money down on the table.
“I can walk.”
“I’m giving you a ride. And from now on you only ride with the sheriff, your mother or me. You got that?”
She grinned at him. “Bossy, aren’t you?”
“You bet your ass. Are you going to do what I say?”
“Don’t I look like an obedient child?”
“You look like your mother’s daughter, a pain in the ass,” he said. “You’re also smart enough to do what’s best.”
“Okay, pops. You can drive me to school.”
“‘Pops’?” he echoed, startled.
“You come on all parentlike, that’s what you get,” she said cheerfully. “Okay?”
“Christ,” he grumbled. “Teenagers.” And he followed her out of the diner, a reluctant grin on his face.
It had taken Rachel forever to get to sleep, and when she finally did, her dreams were horrific. No secretly shameful erotic dreams about the bad boy—in these someone was chasing her, and she kept stumbling over dead women. Every time she turned to look at her pursuer his face changed. From David to