Paranoid(32)

Nate had leaned out the driver’s window as a squirrel began to scold from the gnarled branches of the pine. “Tell your mom you’re staying with a friend,” Nate had suggested. “Call Lila. She’ll cover for you!”

But she’d just come from Lila’s.

“I’m trying to talk Rach into coming tonight,” Nate had said to his friend as Luke opened the passenger door.

“Is that right?” Luke had paused outside the Beemer and leaned on its roof to study his half-sister’s face. “You really gonna do it?”

“I don’t know.” Rachel had squirmed.

“It’ll be fun.”

“If you say so.”

“Hey, I’ve even got an extra gun.” With a glance at the house to make sure their mother wasn’t peering through a window or walking out the front door, he’d unzipped his backpack and withdrawn a small black case. “Inside. Extra ammo included, no charge.” He’d tossed the case over the roof of the car and, panicked, she’d caught it.

“I don’t know. I’ve never—”

“Doesn’t matter.” Nate had started the engine, but he’d still been staring at her, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “Come on, Rach. You’ll like it. Have a blast. Get it?” he’d teased, his trademark smile slowly widening. “Promise. You’ll never forget it.”

Well, amen to that.

Truer words had never been spoken.

She remembered Nate reversing out of the driveway, the tires of his car squealing against the street just as the sound of the garage door grinding upward had reached her ears.

Mom!

Rachel’s heart had nearly stopped.

Frantically she’d hidden the gun case under the rhododendron flanking the pine just as Melinda came into view. In jeans and a sweater, Melinda had shaded her eyes with one hand. “About time you showed up, Rachel. I’ve been waiting.”

“Sorry. I . . . I lost track of time.”

“With Lila. Doesn’t surprise me,” her mother had said, and then catching sight of the blush climbing up Rachel’s neck, she’d added, “Is something wrong?”

“No. Nothing.” Rachel had hurried into the garage and slid inside the passenger seat of her mother’s Camry. Craning her neck to look through the back window, she’d spied her mother staring thoughtfully down the street to the intersection where Nate’s car was disappearing around a corner.

Could she do it? Could she lie to her mother? Her dad—a cop? He was a detective, good at ferreting out fact from fiction. Her palms had begun to sweat as she’d turned around in her seat and peered through the bug-spattered windshield to her father’s workbench, stretched against the far bare wood wall.

She’d swallowed against her dry throat as she heard her mother’s footsteps on the gravel drive before the door groaned open and Melinda slid behind the steering wheel. A bemused smile on her face, she’d glanced at her daughter and started the Camry’s engine. “Do you have a crush on Nate?”

“What? A crush?” Rachel had blurted. “God, Mom, this isn’t nineteen sixty.”

“It’s okay,” Melinda had said with a knowing expression. “We’ve all had them.”

“I don’t have a ‘crush’or anything else on Nate Moretti,” she had said and turned away, hiding the fact that she was scared spitless, her short breaths actually fogging a small corner of the window as Melinda backed out of the drive.

“All right. Fine. No crush. Or whatever. Oh, shit!” She had hit the brakes. The Toyota had ground to a quick stop as a kid on a bike flew past behind them, inches from the bumper. “Damn it. That Farello boy’s going to get himself killed! Did you see that? He didn’t stop, didn’t see me. Holy God. And no helmet! What’s his mother thinking?” Letting out a frustrated breath, she’d slowly hit the gas again, backing out into the street.

Do it. Right now! Rachel had blurted, “Is it okay if I sleep over at Lila’s tonight?”

Her mom’s expression had tightened. She didn’t like Lila, though she’d never admitted it, only remarked on more than one occasion, “That girl had better watch herself or she’ll end up in big trouble.” Lila had always dated older boys, some lots older, and now she’d settled on Luke. That fact had really gotten under her mother’s skin. But at the moment, Melinda had seemed to think she was connecting some romantic dots. “Oh, I get it,” she’d said. “You’re planning to meet up with Luke and Nate.”

Rachel hadn’t said anything to change her mind, and at the cross street, her mother had warned, “Be careful, Rachel. Stay out of trouble. Okay?” Melinda had shot her daughter a worried glance.

“I will,” Rachel had promised.

But it had been a lie. A horrid lie.




“Hey, you okay?” Lila said now, snapping Rachel back to the present, to the meeting and the strains of a familiar song. Wilson Phillips was singing “Hold On,” a popular song from grade school, the harmonized strains drifting from hidden speakers. Of course Lila would be playing the songs that brought back all those wretched school day memories.

“Rachel. I asked if you were okay?” Lila repeated.

Her heart pounded in her ears. No. I’m not okay. I’ll never be okay. I have horrible nightmares, I lost my job, my kids worry me to death, our classmate was murdered, and it’s the damned anniversary of the day I shot and killed my brother “Fine,” she forced out with a weak smile. “I’m fine.”