Sound of Secrets Read Free Page B

request was for a taxi. In answer, he picked up a telephone book and dumped it unceremoniously on the counter separating them.
    The vision of the little broken boy flashed before her eyes, and she blinked it away, determined not to crumble in the face of adversity. She only wished she had more practice at it.
    She was an only child, a late-in-life baby whose adoring parents made her life safe and comfortable. Her biggest disappointment had been her parents' refusal to let her leave home to go to college to study journalism. Even then, a secret part of her had been glad she could stay in her safe little cocoon. She’d gotten a two-year business degree at a commuter college, and eventually landed an undemanding job in the circulation department of a local magazine.
    The demands of her life, in fact, had been virtually non-existent until both of her parents had fallen ill five years before. They'd needed around-the-clock care, but Cara had refused to put the people who had given her so much into a nursing home. She'd spent nights and weekends caring for them after the day nurse had gone home and developed a reputation for being competent, practical and level-headed.
    So why, as she dialed the taxi company, did she keep seeing the car slam into the ill-fated child who hadn't been there?
    Cara pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. Darn it! She had seen the child with eyes that had been checked barely a month before. She wasn't the sort of person who imagined things that didn't exist. Hadn't she been accused of being too much of a realist, because she considered the world in stark terms? She would never look at a cloud and imagine a snow-white leopard or sky-high palm tree. To Cara, clouds were clouds.
    The phone made a sharp click when Cara replaced it on its cradle, and an idea jangled in her brain. If she had seen the child, maybe Peckenbush had seen him too. She swallowed, reluctant to expose herself to any more of his open rudeness but even more reluctant to walk away before she had answers.
    She cleared her throat, feeling as though two frogs leaped out when she did so, and reminded herself that Peckenbush had no reason to question her sanity. Unlike the nosy cop, he hadn't heard her scream at nothing.
    "Mr. Peckenbush," she began, and her voice broke, "did you see a little boy around here about the time I pulled up?"
      He screwed up his forehead as though she had asked if a colony of rats had overrun the town's most exclusive neighborhood. For a full thirty seconds, he stared at her through half-closed eyes. By the time he answered, she was trembling.
    "A little boy?" Suspicion dripped from every syllable. "What kinda little boy?"
    Cara tried to put conviction into her voice. "A dark-haired little boy around four or five years old."
    The brief confusion that crossed his face did nothing to buoy her courage, because she didn't think he was searching his memory for a face. He was wondering why Cara had asked the question.
    "No little kid’s been here. We're a mile from town, so I don't see many kids unless they're in cars. Why you askin'?"
    Instead of immediately replying, Cara gazed out the smudged window at the barren street. A few cars sped by, but their drivers were surely as oblivious to what had happened there as Sam Peckenbush.
    "The cars go by fast," Cara said. "I suppose it's a good thing there aren't many children around. One of them might get hit."
    He snorted, a rough, unpleasant noise that made her start. "Are you askin' about the kid that was hit in front of the station?"
    Sweet, soothing relief surged through Cara, but it lasted but a fraction of a minute. The inescapable fact was that, although she hadn't witnessed something that had never happened, she had quite possibly seen something that had already happened.
    "When did it happen?" Cara forgot her reluctance at questioning him. "Yesterday? The day before that?"
    "Yesterday?" His thick eyebrows shot up, and he shook his head slowly. "The