Everything We Didn't Say(68)

Sullivan reads me like a book. “I don’t like it either,” he says, leaning toward me.

His shoulder is so inviting I let my forehead dip toward his collarbone and close my eyes. When his arms go around me, I bury myself against him. It’s impulsive, but a perfect fit somehow. Sullivan smells of fresh-cut wood and the sharp zest of a cold lime. “What are we going to do?”

I’m not sure where it came from, this we. But Sullivan doesn’t contest it. Instead, he brushes his lips against my forehead and murmurs, “I don’t know, but we’ll think of something.”

And just like that, we’re together. In this moment, there’s no place I’d rather be.





CHAPTER 17


WINTER TODAY



“You look flushed,” Cora said when Juniper burst into the library a few minutes before it was scheduled to open. “Are you feeling okay?”

Juniper was not, in fact, feeling okay. Her trip to the Tates’ estate took less time than she thought it would, but it had been deeply unsettling. She felt pale and clammy. Sick. But she said, “I’m fine. And far more worried about you. How are you?”

“Never better. They adjusted my meds and I’m good as new.” That obviously wasn’t true. Cora’s skin had a gray cast and she looked as if she had lost a few more pounds. Juniper wanted to fuss over her, but Cora was having none of it. “Enough about me,” she ordered. “What’s going on?”

“Did Barry tell you what happened this morning?”

Cora nodded, then waved Juniper into her office on the far side of the circulation desk. “Barry can take care of opening. He’s salting the sidewalk.”

Juniper had already seen him outside with the bucket and ice-salt scoop, and had passed off his car keys with sincere gratitude.

“Come here,” Cora said, just over the threshold of her small office. She held out her arms and Juniper returned the hug, but she was too keyed up to take any solace from Cora’s warmth. Apparently, Cora could sense it, because she squeezed Juniper’s hands and backed away to lean against her desk.

“I’m sorry I was late.”

“Never mind.” Cora flicked off the apology with a wag of her fingers. “Barry was here. I’ve been here for half an hour at least. Tell me: Who did it?”

“Slashed my tires?”

Cora’s lips pulled tight. She didn’t suffer fools.

“Yeah, sorry. There’s a lot going on.”

“Have you called the police?”

“Not yet.”

Cora took this news with a slight nod. Juniper couldn’t tell if she thought it was wise or foolish that the local police hadn’t been contacted yet. She glanced toward the door to make sure that Barry hadn’t crept into the library soundlessly. The floor was empty. Turning back to Cora she said, “I think it was Ashley.”

“I don’t know.” Cora tapped the thin line of her mouth once. “She’s all bark and no bite.”

Juniper didn’t agree, but she didn’t argue. “One of the Tate brothers?” They hated her, and they had good reason to. Though she had been leveled by the murders and later by the knowledge that she was pregnant, in the months that June remained in Jericho, she hadn’t missed an opportunity to accuse the Tates. Anything to take the focus off her brother. Anything to draw attention to what she knew to be true: the Tate brothers had been plotting to do something to warn off Cal and Beth Murphy. June spilled it all—or almost all—over and over again, to anyone who would listen. If there had been any chance that she and Sullivan could make it work, she had annihilated that possibility with the drumbeat of her allegations against his family.

“More likely. Sterling’s wife left him last year. Took the kids. He hates everyone now. But I guess that’s nothing new.” Cora looked thoughtful for a moment. “Sullivan? If Ashley is upset that you’re back, maybe he’s defending her?”

Juniper went very still. Cora didn’t know about her relationship with Sullivan, and she didn’t want to let a single detail slip. As far as Cora was concerned, Ashley’s animosity toward Juniper could be chalked up to June’s relentless assertion of the Tates’ culpability. It had nothing to do with Willa, or what Sullivan had once meant to her. “Maybe?” Juniper said, hoping her hesitancy was understandable, given the circumstances. “I don’t think he’d jeopardize his family that way. They seem solid.”

Cora lifted one shoulder. “Depends on your definition of solid. If you ask me, Ashley is a bit unbalanced. Besides, she has a lot on her plate. I believe their oldest is ten and the baby is still in diapers.”

Sullivan’s oldest isn’t ten, she’s almost fourteen. The thought came unbidden, and Juniper banished it immediately.

Cora snapped her fingers. “You know who you need to talk to?”

Juniper was numb and jarred by the sudden conversational pivot, but Cora didn’t seem to notice. The older woman shuffled behind her desk and started tapping away at the computer. After a few seconds she turned the monitor toward Juniper.

“India Abbot,” she said with something that sounded like pride.

“India?” Juniper was shocked out of her stupor by the glossy main page of Jericho Unscripted. “You’ve got to be kidding.”