Sidetracked-Kobo Read Free Page B

housed over one hundred realtors. Andy worked in that firm.
    Andy slid the phone back into his pocket, shooting me a wry look. He loved his parents. He loved me. But the three of us were oil and water.
    My own cell phone rang. I checked the ID, and when I saw it wasn’t a policeman, didn’t answer. Intermittently it went off again and again. This friend and that, surely wanting to know if I was all right. And no doubt seeking details. I didn’t want to talk to any of them. At the fourth call I looked helplessly to Andy. I just wanted the world to go away.
    “Babe,” he said, “you don’t have to feel guilty about not answering.”
    “I know but … they’re my friends.”
    “You’ve been through enough tonight.” He took the phone from my hand and shut it down.
    The five of us talked about Clara’s death. Did she have any enemies? Who would want to do this? None of us could think of anyone. The Crenshaws were loved in Redbud. Townspeople had watched Clara grow up. She was one of their own.
    I faded in and out of the conversation, my mind churning through pictures of death, recent and old. Ever since I came to Redbud almost five years ago, I’d met each day with a strange mix of freedom and entrapment. Both of them self-inflicted. I’d built my life here, created the family I lacked. Was on the verge of realizing my dream, if Andy asked me to marry him. Maybe then, I’d thought, I could really leave my past behind. Forever.
    Now this.
    I couldn’t begin to sort it all out. What it meant. Why, on some cosmic level, I’d been chosen to lead a life stained with murder.
    But how could I even be thinkingof myself at a time like this? Clara was dead. Her parents and fiancé, devastated. The town, blistered and scared. Redbud was my town now. These were my people. Somehow I had to help them.
    But a small voice inside me—a voice that sensed what was to come—whispered, At what cost?
     

Chapter 3
     
     
     
    That night I slept fitfully, knotting my covers in scrabbling fists. Fear and grief warred for first place within me. I could not believe Clara was dead. I could not believe any of this.
    In the morning I turned on my phone. It started ringing by six-thirty. I ignored all calls except Andy’s. Told him I was okay. Which I wasn’t. By the time I stumbled into the kitchen around seven, still clad in pajamas, Nicole was already seated at the table, eating her bagel and cream cheese. Breakfasts and lunches were do-it-yourself meals at our house. Dinner was a sit-down-together affair, made by me and whoever else was around to help. I knew Colleen would show up soon. Not Pete. He liked to sneak into the kitchen early, fill a mug with the strong coffee I made just for him—set the night before to go off automatically—and take it back to his room. He’d linger there until the “ladies” cleared out of the kitchen. Often he worked on his memoirs. Through his closed door I’d hear him recounting his railroad stories into his little voice-activated tape recorder. After a few hours of that he’d head for the kitchen, where he could bang around making eggs and bacon with no one else in his way.
    Nicole’s eyes looked puffy. Probably no worse than mine. I gave her a somber smile. “How you doing?”
    She lifted a shoulder, clearly in one of her I-don’t-want-to-talk moods. Which didn’t tend to be good for her.
    I laid my cell phone on the counter and set about making more coffee. When I hit the power button the machine’s loud bean grinder whirred on. I waited for the noise to die down. “This is Thursday. Which means you have a full load of classes, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    Since Nicole came to live with me she’d returned to college, attending the University of Kentucky. She planned to major in business marketing.
    “That’s good. Gets you out of town and your mind on other things.”
    “But how can I think?” She put down her bagel. “How can I do anything?”
    The ennui that comes after someone