Paranoid(13)

Harper scowled, giving Rachel a look that said more clearly than words: You just don’t get it, Mom.

Probably not.

“I think since I’m starting Monday this would be okay.” She opened the bag with Reno looking on, hoping that Harper would drop a crumb or two.

“Your brother up?”

“Dunno.” Harper shrugged.

“Dylan!” Rachel glanced at the clock, saw that they were going to be late. Carrying her own cup, she made her way down the hall and rapped on the door. Ignoring all the dire warnings glued to the panels, she pushed the door open. “Hey, bud,” she called, annoyed when she saw him in the same position he’d been in an hour earlier. He was breathing steadily, his lips parted, his thick eyelashes sweeping his cheek. His head was propped on the wound-up corner of his duvet, his pillow having slid to the floor to settle onto a paper plate that showed the leftover crust of a take-out pizza. “Time to get up.”

He moved, pulling the covers over his head.

“School.”

A groan as he threw back the coverlet and squinted open one eye. For a second he looked so much like his father, Rachel blinked. He wasn’t Cade’s doppelganger by any means, but the Ryder genes were evident in her son. Cade and his brothers had been blessed with strong jaws; heads of thick, dark hair; sharp features; and intense hazel eyes that seemed to vary in color with the light. Dylan was no exception.

If only he’d been blessed with some of his father’s work ethic.

“I think I’ll pass,” Dylan said.

“On school? Nope.” Leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, she took a swallow from her cup. “Get up, bud.”

“It’s almost the end of the year.”

“All the more reason to finish with a bang.”

“Ugh.” Again he yanked a blanket over his head.

“It’s Friday. You know what that means. I’ve been to the bakery.”

He grumbled, “Don’t care.”

“If you say so.”

Rachel left then, returning to the kitchen and hearing the thud of bare feet hitting the floor behind her, then uneven footsteps as Dylan stumbled out of his room to the bathroom. She could always count on his empty stomach and full bladder to force him from his lair filled with video game consoles, computer monitors, and bobble-heads of sports figures. His bed was secondary to his equipment.

Now, thankfully, he was up. Step one.

In the kitchen, Harper sat at the table, her “coffee” forgotten, the doughnut half eaten as she texted rapidly, her fingers flying over the screen of her phone.

Rachel heard the groan of old pipes and the rush of water as Dylan turned on the shower. Less than five minutes later, his hair wet, Dylan showed up in a hoodie and ripped jeans. He made a beeline for the white bag and ate the maple bar in three bites. “You gonna finish that?” he asked Harper, eyeing her half-eaten doughnut as he opened the refrigerator door to find the carton of orange juice.

“You can have it.”

“Good.” Before she could change her mind, he swept the uneaten half doughnut from the table and into his mouth in one swift motion. Afterward, he washed down the donut with juice he drank straight from the carton.

“Oh, gross! Jesus, Dylan, you’re a frickin’ Neanderthal. Don’t you know about backwash?”

“Don’t care.”

“Obviously.” She gave a mock shudder and cast her mother a disgusted glare. “Can’t you do something about him? He’s like this . . . this . . . mega embarrassment.”

Rachel said, “Hey, Dylan, you know better.”

He made a disgusted huff. “I just don’t know what’s the big deal.” He returned the carton with a minuscule amount of OJ to the refrigerator.

“You don’t know?” Harper repeated. She slipped her phone into her pocket. “You’re beyond disgusting. More like disturbing.”

“Ah, ah, ah. No insults,” Rachel cut in, then pulled out the pill bottle that had been burning a hole in her pocket. Without saying a word she placed it on the counter.

The kids exchanged glances.

Not a good sign.

“What’s that?” Dylan finally asked.

“My Xanax, or what’s left of the prescription.”

He frowned, his eyebrows slamming together while Harper had gone chalk white.

“So?” Dylan asked.

“So, I think some pills are missing,” she said and waited for a reaction.

“What do you mean?” Her son again.

Harper sent her brother a how-can-you-be-so-dense look. “She means she thinks we took them.”

“Us?” Dylan said, and his face fell. As if he were shocked.

Real emotion?

Or a well-practiced act?

At fifteen, Dylan was almost impossible to read. As a younger kid, her son had been an open book. Now? Not so much.

The same could be said of his sister.

“We didn’t steal your damned drugs,” Harper said, recovering. “What do you think we’d do with them? Like what? Sell them at school?”

“What?” Dylan said, apparently shocked.

Rachel shook her head. “Geez, I hope not.”

“Mom. Really?” Harper was pissed.

Fabulous. So far the morning was on a roll.