Sound of Secrets Read Free Page A

interstate.
      "Are you okay?" he repeated.
    She nodded even though she had never been less okay in her life. She hadn't even been this out of control a month ago when her much-loved parents had died within days of each other. They had been elderly and ailing, and the doctor had told her to prepare for their deaths. But how do you prepare to go out of your mind? And how do you tell a stranger who probably had the power to commit you to an asylum that it's happening?
    "Listen," the man said and paused, and something she recognized burned in the depths of his eyes. "Is there someone I can call for you?"
    "There’s no one." Cara’s voice caught at the realization that she didn’t have anybody in whom she could confide about the strange visions. Except, perhaps, the man standing in front of her. She bit her lip before she could say so, because that was lunacy.

    "You've got to be joking?"
      Frustration bubbled in Cara's voice when Sam Peckenbush returned to his office after a brief inspection of her car, but the service-station owner didn’t react. He had a thick, muscular build padded with too much fat, and Cara figured him to be in his mid-forties. His beefy cheeks made his small eyes appear like little more than slits, but he didn't look away from her when he spoke.
    "I don't joke about business, lady." He slowly drew out each word. "Your water pump's shot, and if you try to drive that car without a new one, it's gonna burn up on you."
    "So can you replace it?"
    An atypical edge marred Cara’s voice. After everything else that had happened, how could a car she kept in perfect working condition have failed her?
    He gnawed on a toothpick dangling from the side of his mouth and settled deeper into his worn chair. "Sure I can replace it," he drawled, "but not this late in the day."
    "I don’t understand."
    "You don't shop American." The toothpick moved along with his lips. With his surly curbside manner, she wondered how he survived in a job dealing with the public.
      "You'll have to be more specific, because I still don't know what you mean," Cara said, even while a part of her supposed she should be thankful to Sam Peckenbush. A gnawing irritation had begun to replace the panic and confusion that had clouded her brain in the muggy darkness.
    He leveled her with a slit-eyed stare. She resisted the urge to look away, refusing to let him see that he had managed to intimidate her.
    "I carry a fair number of parts for American cars, but you're driving a foreign job. Since car-part places 'round here close early and I’m fixin’ to close myself, I won't be able to pick up a part for it until tomorrow morning. It'll be sometime tomorrow afternoon before it's fixed."
    "Do you mean I'm stuck here?"
    An inexplicable dread gripped Cara. Even if she hadn’t been looking forward to spending two weeks in Miami Beach on her first vacation in five years, she wouldn't choose to stay here a minute more than necessary.
    The gas-station proprietor laughed, although Cara didn't see anything humorous about the situation. "I reckon you are."
    Cara’s heartbeat accelerated, and she frantically searched for something, anything, to make the prospect of staying in Secret Sound more appealing. A mental image of the cop with the stormy eyes formed, but she was hardly likely to see him again. She wasn't sure why that added to her aches.
    She swallowed, telling herself the car trouble would only delay her for one night. She could stand anything for one night. By tomorrow at this time, she’d nod with good humor while her less-responsible friends teased her about falling victim to car trouble.
    "Can you recommend a good hotel?" Cara asked, even though he didn't seem like an authority on fine lodging. Judging from the dirt on the convenience-store floor and the grease stains on its owner’s clothes, he didn't place a high premium on cleanliness.
    Still, she paid dutiful attention as he directed her to a hotel less than a mile away. Her next