Chapter 16 #2
He nodded, looked around again. “He thanked me, but didn’t seem to take me all that seriously since I didn’t have any other details.
Alicia never saw the person. No notes or calls.
Nothing like that. That’s what makes it so creepy.
She said she’d wake up at night and feel like somebody had been in the room with her.
Or turn around and no one was there when she’d felt like someone was right behind her. ”
“Does Alicia have any enemies that you know of?”
He lifted his shoulders and let them fall with visible disgust. “That’s what the cops are focusing on. But I can’t think of nobody. Everybody likes her. I swear. She’s the most popular girl in school.”
“I guess when you’re that gorgeous, you get used to the jealousy.” Even a girl with no enemies in the broadest sense of the term had to have experienced envy, particularly one as physically beautiful as Alicia. “After all, whenever there’s a winner, there are always losers, too.”
Another of those disheartened shrugs. “I don’t think that really bothers anybody. Alicia is Alicia. If she walks across that stage, she’s gonna win. The other girls just accept it.” His forehead lined as he hesitated, obviously reconsidering. “Except maybe . . .”
Sarah waited, the tension swelling in her chest. Give me a name, Brady. Some damned place to start!
“I don’t think Polly likes Alicia too much. She sort of had a crush on me, and that caused some trouble a while back. But it wasn’t that big a deal.”
Polly . . . where had Sarah heard or read that name? “What kind of trouble?”
“You know, the whole talking behind Alicia’s back, saying she was a snob and crap like that. Polly’s kinda got a reputation for running her mouth, so nobody pays much attention to what she says. Sometimes her mouth gets her in trouble, though. But she’s okay.”
Polly . . . Polly.
Damn. Polly Conner.
Kale’s little sister.
Holy cow.
“Polly Conner is a senior this year, too, right?” Sarah asked, confirming her conclusion that the Conner girl was the Polly he meant.
He nodded. “She feels real bad about Alicia and the stuff she said in the past. I told her Alicia didn’t take it seriously, but I’m not sure it helped Polly feel any better.”
“Brady, I need you out back.”
Sarah’s attention swung to the corridor on the left of the registration desk just as the owner of the very unhappy female voice appeared.
“Coming, Mom.” Brady glanced at Sarah. “Gotta go.”
“Fill the wood box and see that the cord Mr. Jacobs just delivered is stacked neatly in the barn,” his mother ordered as he swaggered past her.
“I’ll take care of things in here.” That last part hadn’t been intended for Brady.
She’d stared straight at Sarah as she made the statement, disapproval and distaste radiating from every square inch of her petite frame.
Sarah didn’t let that stop her from pushing a greeting smile into place.
If Brenda Harvey expected her to run for cover, she could forget about it.
Tougher broads than her had tried that tactic.
“Is there something you need, Ms. Newton?” Brenda took her son’s place behind the counter. “I can help you if you’re ready to check out.”
News traveled fast. “Thanks, but I’ll be staying a while longer.” The tightening of lips told Sarah that Mrs. Brenda Harvey wasn’t too happy to hear that.
“You stopped at the counter,” she maintained, “so you must’ve wanted something.”
Touché. “Just checking to see if I had any messages.” Good one. Sarah gave herself a pat on the back.
The silent stare dragged on. Gave Sarah time to analyze the lady.
Well-fitting green dress that brought out the emerald flecks in her eyes.
Brenda Harvey was slender, maybe five one, with blond, graying hair arranged in a neat braid that coiled around the back of her head.
She wore small wire-framed reading glasses that hovered on the end of her thin nose.
“You don’t have any messages,” she finally said with a distinct snap.
“Thanks.” Sarah threw in another smile, just to be a good sport before turning away. She’d gotten two steps away from the desk when the innkeeper’s wife spoke again.
“I don’t want you talking to my children.”
Sarah hesitated, considered ignoring the comment, but then she wouldn’t learn anything that way.
She faced the indignant lady. “Rest assured, Mrs. Harvey, you have nothing to fear from me. All I’m looking for is the truth. Unless, of course, you’re hiding relevant information that would help this investigation in some way.”
Brenda’s eyes flared wide, and the indignation shifted the tiniest bit, to something more like uncertainty or maybe fear. The transition roused Sarah’s curiosity. She’d been fishing, casting lines wherever and whenever. It was her tried-and-true strategy. Seemed she’d gotten a nibble.
“The Gerards and Appletons are friends of ours,” Brenda said firmly, but without the fire and brimstone of before. “If we knew anything at all, don’t you think we would have told the police?”
“I’m certain you would.” And yet, there was something the lady was worried about. Something she wasn’t about to tell a soul. Especially not Sarah.
“It’s just that Brady”—Brenda glanced in the direction her son had gone—“is taking all of this very hard.” She blinked several times, but the shine of emotion in her eyes wouldn’t be exiled.
Nor would the palpable sense that she felt somehow cornered by Sarah’s very presence. “It’s difficult for us all . . .”
Don’t say a word. As much as Sarah wanted to ask what she meant, she knew better than to break the spell. Let the woman talk. Don’t even breathe.
“My husband and I are worried sick. We don’t want our children exposed any more than they’ve already been. God only knows what might happen next. We don’t—”
“Brenda, have you seen—”
The innkeeper strode into the room, drew up short when his gaze bumped into Sarah. He looked from her to his wife. Suspicion immediately narrowed his gaze.
“Is there something you need, Ms. Newton?”
Here she went again. “No, thanks.”
He glared at his wife before cutting his attention back to Sarah.
That would be her cue to exit. Except that she stared at his face, specifically his left cheek. A little puffy, and the pale skin there was a deep reddish color as if he’d been punched or . . . kicked.
The tingle of adrenaline rushed over her nerve endings as the images from last night’s encounter zoomed into high-def clarity in her mind’s eye. Right height . . . right build . . .
“Barton slipped on the ice last night when he was carrying in firewood,” his wife said. She sent a look of concern at her husband’s face. “Poor dear, almost gave himself a black eye.”
The innkeeper waved off her worries. “I should have been more careful.” He stared straight at Sarah then. “You can never be too careful in the dark. Especially this time of year.” His meaning was crystal clear.
He’d been the one and, on some level, he wanted her to know it.
“I’m always careful, Mr. Harvey,” Sarah returned, her own meaning unmistakable. “There’s no telling what or who you’ll run into.”
Their gazes held a moment longer before Sarah turned her back and headed for her room.
If the innkeeper thought he could scare her off, he should give it his best shot. Sure, he’d shaken her up last night, but she wasn’t running.
No way.
“I understand you’re leaving us,” he called after Sarah.
Was there an echo in this village?
Sarah paused near the newel post at the bottom of the staircase. She met the man’s haughty expression. “Not yet, Mr. Harvey. When the time comes, you’ll be the first to know.”
If looks could kill, Sarah would have dropped dead right there on the polished hardwood. Instead, she mounted the stairs to the second floor.
The harsh murmur of voices told her that Mr. Harvey was letting Mrs. Harvey know that she was not to be fraternizing with the inn’s one guest.
Nothing like being the most popular girl in town.
Happened every time.
The difference between her and Alicia Appleton was Sarah never got a crown.
After going through her research material and comparing what she’d learned before arriving in Youngstown to what she’d discovered firsthand, Sarah hit the streets. She needed to think without any distractions—particularly Kale Conner.
Without a doubt, she appreciated his rescuing her the night before, but that was the exception to the norm, not the rule. Sarah wasn’t in the habit of needing a rescue. She had been taking care of herself for a very long time.
As if the thought had triggered the wrong file retrieval, memories flooded her brain, swelled in her throat. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she attempted to push them away. Blood-soaked earth. Bones . . . so many bones. Rotted dresses. Disintegrating purses. Shoes with broken heels.
Her mind conjured up the image of a little blond-haired girl—needy and vulnerable—hugging her pillow beneath the stairs. The sound of heavy footsteps on the wood floor.
That was a long time ago, she reminded herself. Sarah Newton would never be vulnerable again. And she damned sure didn’t need anyone.
“No way in hell,” she muttered.
Not even a guy who seriously stirred the desire for sex.
That was why she never let anyone close.
It was far too easy to become dependent.
She didn’t like being dependent.
Dependency fostered weakness.
More clips from her childhood flashed in her head. Praying that her mother would come find her before the voices got her. Burrowing her way to the very back of the closet to hide.
“Stupid.”
The voices she later learned were those of her mother’s victims.
The chill seeped deeper into Sarah’s bones.
That was the thing about a really shitty childhood—you learned that prayer was a waste of time.