The Bad Daughter(30)



The phone in her pocket began ringing again.

Shit, Robin thought. “Honestly, this will just take two seconds—”

“No phone calls at dinner!” Landon banged on the table with both hands, his body beginning to rock back and forth.

“It’s just that it could be important,” Robin said, removing the phone from her pocket and rising from her chair. “I’ll take it in the other room.”

“No phone calls at dinner!” Landon jumped from his seat, lunging for the phone in Robin’s hand.

“Wait!” Robin cried as he tore it from her grasp. “What are you doing? Stop!”

“No phone calls at dinner!” Landon hurled her phone against the far wall.

Robin watched in horror as the phone shattered, shards of plastic falling to the kitchen floor.

“No phone calls at dinner!” The words bounced off the walls as Landon ran from the kitchen.

Seconds later, Robin heard the front door open, then slam shut.

“Guess that settles that,” Melanie said.



* * *





The first thing Robin did the next morning was to borrow Melanie’s car and drive downtown to purchase a new cell phone.

Melanie declined to come with her. Landon was still in his room, having stayed out until well past midnight. He’d spent the balance of the night rocking in his chair while Robin lay awake in her bed, a prisoner of his rhythmic compulsion, wondering where he’d been. “He’ll be back,” was all Melanie had said, shrugging off Robin’s concern and retreating to her bedroom to watch TV.

Robin had used the landline in the kitchen to call Blake, but he hadn’t picked up. Nor had he returned either of the messages she’d left on his voice mail before she went to bed. She’d dozed off briefly, only to wake up when Landon returned, and when she finally did manage to fall asleep at almost five o’clock in the morning—courtesy of the two Ativan tablets she’d taken out of desperation the hour before—a small snake had slithered out of an unpleasant dream to bite her in the neck, its imagined sting keeping her awake until she finally pushed herself out of bed at seven A.M., exhausted and vaguely hungover from the drugs still in her system.

Main Street was surprisingly busy for ten o’clock on a weekday morning. Robin had forgone breakfast at home, not wanting to risk another unpleasant encounter with Landon. Instead, she chose to stop by the local Starbucks. In front of her in line were two women in matching pink beautician uniforms and a man in a business suit nuzzling the neck of his female companion. Behind her two young women were whispering.

“I was at their house-warming party last week,” one of them was saying. “You should see that place…”

Robin turned slightly, trying to identify the women while pretending to be checking the clock on the wall. Both women were in their late twenties, ponytailed, and dressed in stylish workout clothes. Neither looked familiar. As Robin was turning back, she caught sight of a man standing outside the front window, his face pressed against the glass, one hand cupped over his eyes. There was something familiar about him, although she couldn’t make out his features. Are you looking at me? Do I know you?

Don’t be silly, she admonished herself. Just because a man is looking through the window doesn’t mean he’s looking at you. He’s probably checking how long the line inside is. You’re being paranoid.

“I heard there was trouble in Paradise,” the woman in front of her was saying to the man nibbling on her neck.

“A friend of mine said he saw her cozying up to Donny Warren a few days before the murder,” the man replied. “Rumor has it they were more than just friends.”

“You think he had something to do with what happened?”

The man shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me. He’s kind of an oddball.”

Who are these people? Robin wondered. And who the hell is Donny Warren?

“Excuse me,” someone said.

Robin felt a tap on her shoulder and spun around.

“You’re up,” said one of the ponytailed women behind her, pointing at the counter.

A uniformed young man was gazing at her expectantly. “What’ll it be?”

“A mochaccino and a cranberry muffin,” Robin said, her voice so soft he couldn’t hear her and she had to repeat her order.

“Afraid we just ran out of cranberry muffins.”

“Whatever, then. You choose.”

“The buttermilk blueberry muffins are my favorite,” he offered with a toothy smile.

“Sure. Why not?”

She paid for her order and stepped aside, munching on the stale muffin while waiting for her mochaccino.

The outside door opened and a woman walked in, about to join the line. Suddenly she came to an abrupt stop. “Robin?” It was part question, part exclamation. “My God! You poor thing. I knew you’d come back. How are you?”

Robin recognized Sandi Grant’s grating voice before she recognized her face, which was considerably fuller than the last time Robin had seen her. Though they’d gone through Red Bluff High together, sharing many of the same classes, they’d never really been friends, so Robin was somewhat skeptical of the other woman’s concern. She swallowed the chunk of muffin she’d been chewing, feeling a blueberry stick to the roof of her mouth. “I’m okay. You?”

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