Scarred Read Free Page A

think they messed up one of the deposits. The numbers weren't reconciling.”
    “K...thanks. Maybe tomorrow.”
    “Yeah, you probably shouldn't be calculating anything in your current state.”
    She dodged into the back room just in time to avoid getting slapped by the magazine I chucked at her head.
    “Lucky!” I yelled after her.
    “You throw like a girl,” a muffled voice replied from the workshop.
    “You do too! Have you forgotten the muffin incident?” I taunted, knowing it would draw her out. She couldn't walk away from a fight. It was a trait she came by fairly honestly.
    “That muffin was so crumbly,” she started, bursting through the door, “that a pro baseball player couldn't have hit anything with it.”
    “Mmhmm...”
    “Ugh, you suck, you know that?”
    I smiled in response, until I saw the headline of the newspaper lying on the front counter. It wasn’t necessary for me to actually read the article—I already knew how that story ended.
    Peyta caught me staring it and broke the silence.
    “They think it's him again,” she said, sounding painfully haunted.
    “It is,” I sighed. “I was going to stop by your house last night to let you know, but Sean said he'd take care of it. I'm sure you'll have a few more boys over there by day's end.”
    “My mom is going to lose it.”
    “I know. I'm worried about her. I was thinking of heading over there now. Any objections?” I asked. “Cooper is upstairs still, I think. I'll make sure he comes down to stay with you while I’m gone.”
    “Do you think they'll ever catch him?” she asked me with the innocence of a child completely ignorant of the kinds of evil that walked the earth. But Peyta did know evil―she just didn't know she was related to it.
    “I’m not sure, P,” I replied with a tight smile. “I hope so.”
    She mirrored my strained expression before returning to the back without another word—no sarcastic retort or belligerent teenage rant. Peyta made me most nervous when she was quiet. She didn't know why the Rev had gone after her mom, and she certainly didn't know that he was her father. We were all working doggedly to keep it that way at Ronnie's request—or demand, depending on how you chose to take it. After seeing what the Rev was capable of, Peyta would have needed therapy for years if she knew she shared DNA with that monster. But she was incredibly smart, and I worried that eventually she'd fall upon the right questions, inevitably leading to the answers that would taint yet another part of her already stained youth. It didn't seem fair.
    Cooper agreed to come down and chaperone Peyta at the store while I went out to see Ronnie. Not surprisingly, she didn't protest. Peyta loved Cooper like an older brother. An older brother she could innocently flirt with. I still hadn't figured out the best way to describe them, but her eyes lit up whenever he entered the room. If she was ever in a funk, he was the man to call. He loved her like family too; he would have done anything for her. She brought out a sweetness in him that I never saw with anyone else. It always made me wonder how he was with his siblings, and if he had any younger sisters that Peyta reminded him of. I could never muster up the courage to ask.
    Cooper didn't like to talk about his family.
    Knowing that everything at the shop was squared away, I grabbed my purse and made my way out to the car. My midnight blue Audi TT 2.0 coupe awaited, parked in her usual city-issued parking spot, courtesy of the newest Portsmouth PD recruit that Alan had sent to his house to retrieve it for me. I'd gotten her only a couple of months earlier after totaling her predecessor in Boston during one of my Rev-induced visions. I'd gone shopping with both Cooper and Sean on separate occasions, trying out different vehicles, but I kept coming back to what I knew. They both insisted that I at least get a different color this time, so I did. I wasn't completely sold on it and was