Smokescreen (Pros and Cons Mysteries #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

NINE YEARS AGO

O live Sterling blinked and glanced at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock.

Two-thirty a.m.? Who was talking loud enough to wake her at this time of night?

She squinted, wondering if the sounds had been a dream.

Then she heard the voices again.

No, that hadn’t been a dream.

Someone was having a heated argument downstairs.

Two male voices echoed through her family’s two-story home.

Or was that three?

Olive held her breath, not wanting to miss a thing as she listened.

One of the voices was her father’s. She’d recognize his deep tone anywhere.

But who would he be arguing with? Not someone in her family—it was just Mom and Olive’s twin sisters. No men lived here other than Dad.

Quietly, Olive threw her covers off and crept across the floor.

She needed to know what was going on.

She cracked the door open. The voices became clearer, and snippets of the conversation drifted up to her.

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” an unfamiliar man said.

“I’ve got this under control.” That was her dad. Definitely her dad.

“You better have this under control . . . or there will be consequences.”

Olive’s heart beat harder. Consequences? That sounded like a threat.

“Back off,” her dad said, a growl to his voice. “If I said I’ve got this, then I’ve got this.”

What in the world was her dad talking about?

Her family had moved to this small Texas town only four months ago so her father could take a job at a local bank.

Moving often had always been a part of her life, almost as if they were a military family.

Except her dad wasn’t in the military, and he seemed to switch careers wherever they went. As well as identities.

Olive had thought this was normal, what every family did.

Until she got to know actual normal people and realized that her family was anything but.

There was clearly more going on here than she understood.

More conversation murmured downstairs, but it was softer now. Olive couldn’t make out the words.

Yet she desperately wanted to hear. She wanted answers. Wanted to understand.

She sucked in a breath as another thought hit her.

What if . . . what if it was Jason’s dad?

Jason was her boyfriend. But she didn’t think his parents liked her that much. Jason had sneaked out to see her a couple of nights ago. But he’d been caught, and his parents had been mad.

His dad . . . well, he had a bit of a temper. What if he’d come over to insist to her dad that the two of them break up?

No, that was crazy . . . but was it? Or was she just being paranoid?

She needed to know.

Olive opened the door wider. Maybe she could sneak into the hallway. Creep closer to the stairway and peer down. See who Dad was talking to. One voice definitely didn’t seem familiar. But the other . . . she thought she might have heard it somewhere.

She opened her door just wide enough to step out.

Then a shadow appeared in front of her.

Olive gasped, her hand going over her heart.

But as the shadow became clearer, she realized it was only her mother, still dressed in her favorite dark-blue pajama set.

“What are you doing awake, Olive?” she asked in a sharp whisper. “You need to get back into your bed and go to sleep.”

“But I heard arguing?—”

“Your dad is taking care of some personal business. It’s nothing you should be concerned about.”

Olive wasn’t so sure that was true. Things that affected her dad affected her and her sisters also. It was a basic principle of all close relationships. They’d just talked about it in her psychology class at school.

But she knew by the set of her mom’s brow not to argue. Her mom was usually so passive, so kind about everything. She was a true peacemaker, daily sacrificing her own desires to make others happy.

Right now, Olive knew her mom was dead serious.

Olive swallowed hard and tried to make her curiosity disappear—an impossible task.

“Don’t bring this up to your father either,” her mom continued at a whisper. “Do you understand? You need to forget you heard any of this.”

Her words only made Olive want to know more.

However, she wouldn’t argue with her mom now. Olive was smarter than that.

Instead, she nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her mom watched as Olive quietly closed the door. She had no doubt her mom would continue to stand outside her bedroom and listen for Olive’s footsteps to ensure she’d gone back to bed as promised.

Knowing her mom, she’d also monitor the hallway to make sure Olive obeyed.

Olive had always been a hardhead, and no one knew that better than her mom.

Climbing into her bed, Olive placed her head on the pillow and pulled her pink comforter up around her shoulders. But parts of the conversation Olive had overheard continued to replay in her mind.

“You have no idea what you’ve done.”

“I’ve got this under control,” her dad said.

“You better have this under control . . . or there will be consequences.”

“Back off. If I said I’ve got this, then I’ve got this.”

Her dad was in trouble. Big trouble.

A knot of anxiety tightened in her stomach.

What had happened? How could Olive help?

A crash sounded downstairs, and she sat up in bed.

Her heart pounded in her ears.

What exactly was going on down there? And even more importantly—was her dad okay?