Saint Sloan (Saint Sloan #1)(18)

“I get it. But I think you’re being ridiculous and reckless. Your mom needs to know. Maybe not the cops. Maybe not Detective Morgan, yet. But definitely your mother. You can’t keep this from her.”

Oh yes, she could. “Just give me until tomorrow to figure it out, okay? To handle it on my own. If I can’t, I promise I’ll tell her.”

“Her who. Which her?”

Ugh! “My mother, okay? I’ll tell my mother if things get creepier. Would that make you happy?” Her words had more bite than she’d expected, but Ray frustrated her to death. Why couldn’t he just let her deal with this on her own? It would kill her if someone got hurt because of her, and Ray needed to understand that.

“I’d hate to see it creepier than it already is.” He looked away and barely whispered.

Sloan took a deep, cleansing I’m-not-going-to-be-mad-at-him-anymore-because-he’s-just-worried-about-me-and-I’m-being-sort-of-too-hard-on-him breath. “Look. Ray, I’m sorry about snapping at you. I’m just stressed. It’s not been the easiest year.”

“That’s an understatement.” A small, sad grin pulled his lips.

“Right? I don’t know what to do. I just know I can’t tell anyone yet. I need time to figure things out. Maybe even decide who is sending the flowers.”

“And you think you can do that on your own? You’re not exactly a detective, Sherlock.”

She glared at him, semi-playfully. “I know that, Watson. But I can do some things. Talk to some people.”

“Have any ideas? Any clues?”

She shook her head. Clues were the hard part. Being all brave and strong and smart and detective-ish in theory was great. Actually doing it scared the worms out of her. “Just the letters. Something about a fall that will happen the day of the prom, but I don’t know what kind.”

“Hopefully an emotional one. Much less permanent than a physical one.”

He had a point. Emotional would embarrass her to death. A physical one, well, it could likely lead to her own death, something she’d thought about a lot in the past few months since Boyd had tried to kill her. She wasn’t ready to die. Well, she was in theory. She was saved and knew where she’d go in the great hereafter. Didn’t mean she was counting down the minutes to go there. She had things to do, people to see, and she was only eighteen, for goodness’ sake. Telling her mom and Detective Morgan might not be an option, but neither was letting whoever was stalking her win.

Then hopefully, she’d move off to college and people would leave her alone, crazy stalker people anyway. “I vote non-permanent falling. Definitely.”

“Any ideas on who sent them?”

Oh she had an idea. A big idea. The best idea of all.

He must have read her mind. “Boyd. You still think he has something to do with it?”

“If not him, who? How many people have I ticked off?”

Ray started counting them off with his fingers, which made Sloan feel real good. “Darcy. Tanner…”

“Boyd.” She added the obvious choice.

“Boyd’s mom.” Ray kept right on going, with four fingers held up. The four suspects.

“Why Boyd’s mom?”

Ray’s hand fell. “Really? You hurt her baby. Any mama bear would go grizzly on someone who had done that.”

She so didn’t see Boyd as a baby. “I don’t think that she’d hold a grudge.”

All Ray had to do was raise both eyebrows.

“Okay, fine. Yeah, if I were her, I’d hold a grudge. I guess we can throw her on the list.”

“And Darcy? You really think it could be Darcy? She’s been acting so, I guess, nice these last few months. I thought she was sort of becoming my friend again.”

“What’s that saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Who says Darcy hasn’t been playing you, or that she hasn’t been working for someone?”

Truthfully, Sloan didn’t want to think about it. It had been nice having Darcy around again, a little weird at times, but nice. Then again…

“She did know my locker combination today.”

“There ya go!” He slapped his knee like he’d figured out the killer in that game Mystery Manor. “See. She has a good reason to get even with you. This could be how she’s doing it.”

“A countdown to the prom with roses? Isn’t that kinda lame?”

“Maybe. But it sure is scaring you.” He leaned closer. For some reason, Sloan did the same. It wasn’t like they had an audience in the empty auditorium. “Think about it. Lame or not, it’s obviously affecting you. Whoever it is doesn’t want you to go to the police, and Darcy was all over you this morning to open your locker. It’s her. Why would she care if she didn’t know what was inside?”

Sloan didn’t have a good answer for that.

“See. She had to know or she wouldn’t have been pestering you to open it.”

He made a lot of sense. Lots of valid assumptions, but she couldn’t really focus on any of them. She felt so sleepy and rolled her neck around her shoulders to keep awake. It wouldn’t take much to fall over and nap all evening. Man, it would be nice.

“You okay?”

Ray, always on top of things, Ray. “Just sleepy.”