Repressed (Deadly Secrets) Read Free

Parker.”
    The operator mumbled something about the chief being too busy to take personal calls, but Sam barely listened. Will was a close family friend. When she’d come home a few months ago to take care of her mother, he’d told her to call if she ever needed anything, and right now she needed him more than anyone else. He could track fingerprints. Fingerprints would nail the deviants. And this time she was absolutely pressing charges. She was way past playing nice.
    She turned back to the door and looked past the dripping letters as she waited for Will to come on. Her car was parked in the center of the garage, undisturbed, exactly as she’d left it. But the used paintbrush and can of red paint sitting on the stool she’d left near her father’s old workbench were new.
    Sam’s gaze shot back to the letters painted on the pane. Her heart pounded a staccato rhythm against her ribs. Slowly, she ran her finger over the letters.
    Nothing but cool glass touched her skin.
    Her throat closed. No longer caring about fingerprints, she reached for the door handle and turned.
    It didn’t budge.
    “Sam?”
    Sam’s heart rate spiked, and Will’s familiar voice over the line did little to stop the icy fingers of fear from rushing down her spine.
    Because someone had been in her locked garage. Someone could be inside her house right this very second.

CHAPTER TWO
    Ethan McClane needed a freakin’ cigarette.
    No, needing and wanting were two very different things. He wanted a cigarette. What he needed was a sharp smack upside the head for agreeing to this stupid idea in the first place.
    He popped a cherry Life Saver into his mouth, one that did little to kill his nicotine craving, and glanced toward the aged bricks of Hidden Falls High School. From the safety of his BMW, it didn’t appear that a whole lot had changed, but then he hadn’t expected much. The yard was still wide and barren but for a couple of oak trees that were bigger than he remembered. A few kids lingered outside, chatting in the late-afternoon sun. Shouts resounded from the adjacent field where the football team practiced.
    The familiar scene seemed calm and peaceful, but Ethan’s stomach tightened with a crap ton of nerves. Almost twenty years later and the thought of being in this placid town in northwest Oregon still made him sick as a dog.
    Get a grip. Remember why you’re here. It’s not personal this time.
    He tugged off his sunglasses and tossed them on the console. As soon as Judge Wilson had called him about this case he should have figured a way out of it. He ran his own private practice now. He didn’t work for the state anymore. Didn’t have to evaluate or treat juvenile delinquents if he didn’t want to. But he’d owed the craggy old judge for being lenient on one of his kids. And if he thought about it hard enough, he had to admit that he’d thought taking this case pro bono might be good for him. That it might force him to face his own demons so he could put the past behind him once and for all.
    Of course, that was before he was actually here.
    Man, he needed a smoke. And a freakin’ lobotomy.
    He pushed the BMW’s door open, grabbed his bag from the passenger seat, and climbed out of the car. He’d only met Thomas Adler once. Just after the kid had been picked up for B&E in Portland. Thomas’s rap sheet was long—theft, assault, vandalism—but instead of tossing Thomas in detention for his last run-in, Judge Wilson had decided that what Thomas really needed was a change of scenery and counseling. Now, Thomas was living with his estranged grandmother in the small town of Hidden Falls, and Wilson had asked Ethan to help the kid acclimate to his new surroundings.
    Ethan wasn’t naïve. He knew from his years working with the state that some kids were beyond help. He just hoped Thomas wasn’t one of them.
    The crisp, early-November breeze blew newly fallen leaves to rustle across his path while rich scents of ripe apples from