Paranoid(39)

I don’t trust you, she thought. Not one inch. What are you doing with my seventeen-year-old daughter?

“Get your things,” she said to Harper, her voice tight.

“Back off,” Lucas grumbled as Dylan nudged him with the toe of his running shoe. “I hit you! You are done, man!”

“Hey!” Dylan said into his microphone.

“What—?” Lucas snapped, yanking off his helmet. “What’s your problem?” Then, from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Rachel and realized the lights were on and the jig was definitely up. “Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh,’” Rachel said, and for the first time caught a whiff of marijuana smoke. Great. She motioned to both her kids. “Now,” she said. “Downstairs. Move it. Your dad’s on his way.”

“Dad?” Harper nearly squeaked out the word and she glanced around the messy room frantically. “My stuff is in the car.”

“Get it.” Rachel was in no mood for any kind of excuse.

Eyes wide, Harper said softly, “You’re not going to tell him about . . .”

“About Xander?” Rachel asked. “Oh, yeah. You bet I am. Not only that, but you”—she pointed at the man/boy and looked him straight in the eyes despite the fact that he stood six or seven inches above her—“you, Xander Vale, are going to meet him.”

Harper let out a little sound of protest. Her makeup was smeared and she appeared so damned young.

In the ensuing silence, Rachel kept her eyes on Xander and was vaguely aware of sounds drifting up from downstairs, music punctuated by voices floating up through the vents. With a tenuous grip on her emotions, she said, “Harper’s dad is a great guy.” Glancing at her daughter, who was frantically shaking her head, Rachel added, “I hope she didn’t fail to mention him.” She tried to maintain what little of her cool she still held on to.

The boy, staring at the floor, plunged his hands into the front pocket of his sweatshirt and had the good sense not to try to argue or butt in.

“Cade,” she said. “That’s Harper’s dad’s name. Detective Cade Ryder.” She waited just a second, hoping to let that final bit of information sink in. The kid, to his credit, stood his ground. “As I said, he’s a cop. And trust me, he’s going to want to meet you.”





CHAPTER 12


Cade had barely closed the door of his truck when he saw his ex-wife and kids fly out of the front door of his father’s house and gather on the porch. Another kid was with them as well. Not Lucas. Maybe older. In an Oregon sweatshirt, jeans, and flip-flops, the boy looked to be pushing twenty or twenty-one. So not a boy. Beside him a white-faced Harper appeared positively apoplectic. Dylan was sullen and distant in his earbuds, and Rachel’s expression told him she was pissed. Make that really pissed.

Great.

Another family trauma.

How many had this old house witnessed? How many while he was growing up? Cade hated to think.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he mounted the familiar steps and felt a cool breeze ripple off the Columbia and blow inland. The door to the house was open, the foyer chandelier aglow, a patch of light silhouetting the group gathered just beyond the threshold.

“This,” she said, indicating the boy he didn’t recognize, “is Xander Vale.” She yanked the door shut, throwing the porch into semidarkness, the only illumination cast by the interior lights through the transom, sidelights, and windows. “He and Harper were getting pretty friendly upstairs in Lucas’s room.” She shot the kid a hard glare.

Vale stood his ground.

Harper seemed to wither.

Cade felt his muscles tense.

Rachel was just gathering strength. “And, though I can’t prove it, I think there might have been some marijuana involved.”

It was the big kid’s turn to blanche. “No—” he said, and met Cade’s gaze. “No weed.”

Marijuana would change things. In Oregon it was still illegal for minors.

“Seriously,” Harper said, finding her voice. “We were not smoking.”

“But you and Xander were . . . together?” Cade glanced at his daughter.

Harper crossed her arms over her chest and, with her chin set, met his gaze defiantly.

Xander Vale said simply, “I like Harper.”

Cade nodded, glanced at his daughter. God, how did she get to be so grown up? “I like her, too,” he said, trying to remain calm.

“It was going far beyond ‘liking’ her,” Rachel said sharply.

“Mom!” Harper said, mortified.

“Harper, you were making out with this guy”—she jabbed an accusing finger toward Vale—“with your brother and Lucas in the room and me just downstairs! So don’t act like you’re embarrassed now. For the love of God, what were you thinking?”

“Mom! Stop!” Harper yelled. “God, please just stop!”

The Vale kid winced in the half light, and Harper looked like she wanted to sink through the floorboards right then and there. Cade didn’t blame her even though he wanted to throttle Vale right then and there. Instead, jaw tight, he stuck out his hand. “Cade Ryder.”

Vale hesitated, then shook his hand warily.

Harper fought tears.