Betraying Innocence Read Free

her plate. Above their head, a low, guttural howl drew their attention to the ceiling.
    Ana sighed, rolling her eyes. “I better go check on him, or I’ll have to sleep with one eye open tonight.”
    Her father chuckled as she climbed off the stool and took her paper plate to the garbage bag hanging off a drawer by the sink. “Hey, I wanted a dog. You picked a cat.”
    “Cats are self-reliant,” she said out of habit. “I don’t have to take him out for walk s in the rain.”
    “Lazy,” he mumbled around a mouthful of pizza.
    Ana snorted. “Says the man who’s home one day out of an entire week!” She folded her plate into the trash, dusted her hands over the sink and turned to him. “Speaking of which, when are you leaving for work again?”
    He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took his time wiping his mouth and hands on a napkin, chew ed his food, swallowed, and finally replied, “Tomorrow morning.”
    Ana blinked. “That soon? Does Mom know?”
    “Does Mom know what?” Somehow, Mom had pulled that stealthy ninja move of hers and appeared in the doorway without ever touching the ground with her heels. Now she stood there, staring at them with one eyebrow raised questioningly.
    Ana stared at her father, who stared at his plate, and her mother stared at both of them, waiting. 
    “I, uh.” Her father wiped his mouth again. “I have to be on the island by tomorrow evening. I tried to get out of it, but they want the project complete by the end of the month and…”
    Mom folded her long arms, sticking out a hip in a stance Ana knew meant there was about to be another war. “Well, that just can’t happen.” She held up the phone in her clutches. “I have to be in Seattle tomorrow to smooth over the mess they’ve made in my absence. Someone has to stay here and get this place organized.”
    Her father shrugged, climbing to his feet. “I can’t. This is why we moved here, so I can be closer to my work. Not going to work kind of defeats the purpose of this move.”
    Then it started.
    “Well, maybe you should have found something in Toronto instead of moving us here to Godforsaken nowhere!”
    Anger lanced off the green surface of her father’s eyes. “This job is paying us three times what I was making back East! Those phone bills of yours don’t pay for themselves!”
    Her mother’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me? Oh no, no, no, I pay for my own bills, thank you! Or have you forgotten which of us brings in more money to this household?”
    As quietly as she possibly could, Ana tiptoed past her mother’s rigid figure and hurried upstairs with the sound of their bickering nipping at her heels. She stopped in the hallway bathroom and rescued Mitzy from his cooped up prison. The cat growled at her, tawny eyes narrowed.
    “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, taking the orange tabby into her room and kicking the door closed with her heel . “I’m a terrible owner for not letting you just run off and get eaten by a bear or whatever is holed up in that jungle out back.”
    The cat grumbled and growled deep in its throat as she placed him down. She let him roam her room while she unpacked the essentials like her bed things, pajamas and toiletries. She made her bed with the sound of her parent’s raised voices seeping through the floorboards beneath her feet. But she’d gotten good at ignoring it.
    She was leaving the bathroom after the hottest shower on the planet with her toiletries in hand when her mother reached the top landing. She blinked in surprise at seeing Ana standing there in her flannel bottoms and over-sized t-shirt. But the look melted into one of guilt as she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her thin nose.
    “I’m sorry,” Mom said quietly, lowering her arm to focus on Ana. “We really don’t mean for you to see that.”
    Ana shrugged, dropping her gaze to the chipped, pink nail polish on her toes from her last girl’s night with her friends back home. “It’s no