Paranoid

by Lisa Jackson

  Vale slid his glance to the side. “We . . .”

  Inching her chin up a fraction, her backbone ramrod stiff, her hair catching in a gust of wind, Harper said, “We met last week.”

  “Last week?” Rachel’s jaw dropped. “Holy . . . When?”

  “We were at a baseball game. Lucas brought him.”

  Rachel shook her head. “This is ludicrous. You met him last week and tonight you were . . . Oh, geez, honey, what were you thinking?”

  Cade doubted much thought had gone into the encounter. He remembered what it was like to be young, how hot one’s blood could flow, how quickly emotions got out of hand, how he and Rachel hadn’t been able to keep their hands from each other’s bodies, how all they’d thought about was being together, alone. And what had happened? Barely a year out of high school Rachel had gotten pregnant with the very daughter she was now trying to warn.

  “How old are you?” he asked Vale as a car turned the corner, a white sedan. Reminded of the Buick with Idaho plates he’d spied earlier, he watched, tensing, as the sedan drove past, engine purring, headlights washing beams over the street before heading downhill. An older Ford Taurus. Oregon license plate illuminated. Not the same vehicle.

  “Just turned twenty,” Vale was saying. “I, uh, I go to U of O, down in Eugene. I was just up here hanging out with Lucas. We played ball together. I’m in pre-law. His old man, er, his dad said I could work for him this summer full time. I work there now, part time.”

  My old man, Cade thought.

  “Harper’s seventeen,” Rachel said in a low voice. For a second her eyes narrowed on Vale; then she glanced at her ex, as if he could solve this problem.

  Cade had been a few years older than Vale was now when he and Rachel had first gotten together. He’d been to college, served as a Marine. But he’d fallen for a teenaged girl. “Look. I think what Harper’s mom is saying is that if you want to date our daughter, ask her out.”

  “She wouldn’t let me go,” Harper spat, shooting her mother a hard glare.

  “Probably not,” Rachel agreed.

  Cade held up his hands. “Let’s just slow this train down, okay?”

  “Nothing happened, Dad!” Harper cried. “Nothing. We just kissed.”

  “Okay.”

  Vale gave a quick nod. “She’s right. Nothing happened.” But his dark eyes smoldered and Cade didn’t trust the kid as far as he could throw him.

  “Let’s just keep it that way, okay?”

  “Yeah.” The kid gave a quick nod while Harper, mortified, glared at her father.

  Dylan, embarrassed, on one foot then the other, caught his attention. “Can we just go?”

  “Yeah,” Cade said. “You got your things?”

  “In Mom’s car.”

  “Transfer them. I’ll be right there.” Then as Dylan hurried down the steps and bounced across the yard, Cade eyed Harper and Xander. “We all understand each other here?”

  Harper nodded stiffly.

  Vale said, “I’m cool.”

  “Good.” Cade doubted it; he’d been in the throes of teenaged lust. “Cool” wasn’t a part of it. Worse yet, Harper was casting the kid a sly, adoring glance. As if Xander Vale were God’s gift.

  Yeah, that was a problem.

  Cade said, “Okay. Let’s go, then.”

  Relieved, Vale lifted a hand in Harper’s direction, turned, opened the door, and zipped into the house to take the stairs two at a time.

  Athletic. Good looking. Slightly rebellious. Older.

  Trouble.

  “This is not over,” Rachel warned and Cade didn’t know if she was talking to Harper or him, or both. He decided the statement was probably all inclusive.

  “Can we just leave?” Harper whispered.

  “Yeah. Okay.” He glanced at his ex-wife, and she didn’t argue. To Harper, he said, “I’ll meet you in the truck. I want to talk to Mom a sec.”

  “Oh, great,” Harper mumbled, rolling her eyes before heading to his pickup.

  “Deal with this,” Rachel ordered, pointing at his chest. “I’m serious.”

  “I know. I will.”

  “Good.” She started to follow after the kids, but he caught her by the arm and spun her back to face him.

  “What?”

  “We were that age once,” he reminded her and she looked at his fingers, clenched as they were on her wrist.

  “Exactly.” Her gaze met his. “And I got pregnant.”

  “And it wasn’t the end of the world.” He let go.

  “She’s only seventeen. I was older. But let’s not have her replay our mistakes, okay? She’s got a whole future ahead of her.”

  “You’ve talked to her?” he asked.

  “What? About sex? What do you think?” She shook her head, the auburn strands of her hair catching in the light cast through a nearby window. “From the time she was in sixth grade. Of course. Have you?”

  “Not really.”

  “What about Dylan?” she asked.

  “He’s just—”

  “Fifteen,” she shot back, her face in shadow. “How often did you think about sex at his age?”

  Too often. All the time, in fact.

  His face must’ve given him away.

  “Yeah, I thought so. So there ya go,” she said.

  “I will. I’ll talk to him. Tonight.”

  “Good. I’ve already brought it up. We had a discussion. He hated it, of course, but it had to happen. Face it, Cade, we don’t just have to worry about our daughter. Right? Dylan could be sexually active for all we know.”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “Me too. But . . .” She let her voice trail off and he stared at her profile—narrow nose, big troubled eyes, dark lashes that brushed high cheekbones and lips that were now pursed in thought.

  “Let’s take it down a notch, okay? Not go all parent-ballistic on them? Try to have a reasonable discussion.”

  One dark eyebrow raised. “Is that what I’m doing? Going ‘parent-ballistic’?”

  He actually felt his lips twitch. “Well, I wouldn’t say you were exactly the calm voice of reason.”

  She didn’t seem amused by that. “Okay. Then that’s your role, okay? You be the super dad who talks things out and keeps his cool. That’s on you. But you might want to know that Dylan’s in trouble at school.”

  “What?”

  She told him about his son cutting class and trouble with an older kid who was bullying him over some bet not being paid.

  “I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “Good. Do that. I’d prefer not to have Marlene Walsh on speed dial.” When he didn’t respond, she clarified, “She’s the vice principal.”

  “Got it.” He paused, sensing there was something more. Something she was holding back. “What?”

  She opened her mouth, hesitated, then said, “I’m just upset. Everybody”—she motioned toward the big house and the people inside—“all of us knew Violet and . . . well, it’s a shock.”

  “I know.” In the half-light she appeared vulnerable, the girl he’d fallen in love with. Hurting. He thought about pulling her close, but knew she’d reject him. Thankfully, the door flew open.

  “Everything okay out here?” Lila asked, stepping outside.

  “Just dandy,” Rachel said, and for a second he thought she was going to let things lie. But that wasn’t Rachel. She tilted her head and said, “You could’ve told me Lucas had a friend over.”

  Lila shrugged. “I did. When you first got here. Xander goes to school at Oregon, but practically lives here when he’s not in Eugene. Uses the apartment Charles has for out-of-town clients. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Rachel shot back, then said, “Unless you mean everything.” And she swept into the house.

  “Is she okay?” Lila whispered to Cade.

  “Right as rain.” The lie was easy. He didn’t want anyone, especially not Stepmommy-Dearest, to know anything private about his kids or his ex-wife. Besides, he never
had trusted Lila, not when she was pretending to be Rachel’s good friend and certainly not as his father’s second wife. There was just something about her that made Cade wary.

  “We’re all . . . you know. Unnerved. Upset. Freaked out. Whatever you want to call it. About Violet.”

  Rachel returned and swept past them. “If the kids need me—”

  “They’ll call,” he said, but his ex-wife, purse and laptop tucked under her arm, keys in hand, was already down the steps and hurrying across the damp grass to her Explorer.

  Lila’s eyes narrowed and she was about to ask him another question when he spied from the lights of the house Mercedes Pope beelining toward him.

  “Hey,” she called. “I wanted to talk to you. About the Violet Sperry homicide. That’s what it is, right? A murder?”

  “Yeah.” That much was out. There had already been a press conference. “Not my jurisdiction. You’ll have to talk to someone at the sheriff’s department.”

  “Who? And don’t tell me the public information officer. I know that.”

  “Then the officer in charge. Detective Kayleigh O’Meara.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Rachel was still fuming when she pulled into the carport and cut the engine. Her whole life seemed to be unraveling. She was divorced, out of a job, her son in trouble at school, her daughter rebelling with a boy she sensed was trouble.

  And then there was Violet.

  Dead.

  No, murdered.

  She looked through the windshield to the fence that separated this covered area from the backyard. Listening to the engine cool and tick in the darkness, she said a silent prayer for the girl who had been one of the witnesses at her trial, the myopic eighteen-year-old who had sworn there was another shot that night.

  And she’d been right. There had been tons of other guns going off, along with firecrackers and other fireworks. . . . It had all been so stupid.

  But it couldn’t be changed.

  “Move on,” she said and opened the Explorer’s door, the cool of the evening fresh against her face. She used to love the darkness when twilight bled into night, but that was before her sleep was interrupted by night terrors.

  As she was walking into the house, her phone went off and she recognized her father’s number on the screen.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said, letting herself inside the back door only to hear a rapid-fire click of toenails as Reno scrambled down the hall and into the kitchen.

  “Hi.” He spoke in his usual low tone as she took the time to pat Reno’s head, then let him outside.

  “I didn’t hear that,” she admitted as she watched the dog streak into the backyard. “Just got home. Reunion meeting. Had to let Reno out.” She flipped on the back porch switch, illuminating part of the yard while the rest remained in shadow. She dropped her bag on a kitchen chair.

  “I was calling to say I’m sorry to hear about your friend. Violet.”

  She imagined him in his house seated in his recliner facing the flat-screen that dominated one wall. He’d put on weight since he’d retired and had quit shaving every day. More than that, he seemed to have lost his drive, his will to get up every morning and face the day. With the divorce and retirement, he seemed to have lost direction. “Thanks. It’s . . . it’s sad. Beyond sad. Weird, y’know, and there I was with a bunch of kids from the class—well, I guess we’re not kids now—and we all talked about Violet. No one can believe it.”

  “I know. It doesn’t make any sense, but then what do I know?” He hesitated and she knew he hated not being a part of the investigation, no longer being a cop. “They’re not saying much on the news about what happened.” And then she heard it—that click of a beer tab being pulled. “Just that it looks like foul play was involved, a homicide.”

  “You know how the police work. How they don’t say everything.”

  “They’ve already asked the public to come forward.” A pause, and she imagined him taking a long swallow from his can. Then, “You’d think that someone might know something. Hell, everyone and his dog has a phone with a camera in it. And with all the security cams on buildings or for home protection and traffic cams, someone probably caught an image.”

  “Edgewater isn’t Chicago, Dad, or even Portland. Lots of people around here don’t even lock their doors.”

  “Damned fools.”

  “They think they can protect themselves.”

  “As I said, damned fools.” She slid her gaze to the backyard, watched the dog sniffing the bushes, trotting in and out of the light cast from the porch lamp. “So . . . how’re ya holding up?” he asked. “Tough day.”

  “Yeah. I’m okay.” Well, that was a little bit of a stretch, but no reason to worry her father. He had enough and this day was hard on him, too, having been the first officer on the scene to find that his daughter had shot her half brother. She still remembered him whispering into her hair, “We’ll get through this, honey, don’t you worry,” as he’d helped her into the back of the police cruiser. Although he’d been shell-shocked, he had taken charge. But things had never been the same. Never.

  How could they be?

  “Well, I just called to say I was thinkin’ about you.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “See ya later.” And he clicked off, leaving her standing in the middle of her kitchen, staring out the window, phone in hand. The night of Luke’s death had been the beginning of the end for so many things, including her parents’ marriage.

  So you not only killed your brother, you ruined your parents’ marriage.

  “Stop!” she said aloud.

  Besides, that wasn’t quite right. Rachel had sensed there was trouble between her mother and father before that night, an unnamed tension that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But it had been present in the sharp glances, long silences, and tight lips.

  Looking into the darkened backyard, she watched the shadow of the dog as he sniffed around the fence, ferns, and firs before he came barreling back to the porch and whined to be let in.

  “About time.” She opened the door and he shot inside.

  She poured herself a glass of wine and savored the first sip of the merlot. What was it about her? She wouldn’t drink with friends but once she was alone . . . but then were her classmates really friends? Not for twenty years.

  She wondered about Harper and Xander Vale. How far would they have gone had she not interrupted them? Surely they’d have put on the stops with the others in the room. But Dylan and Lucas had been wrapped up in their game . . . and that brought her to her son. Trouble at school. Then there was the Xanax—missing tablets or not? Was that the real reason Dylan had been in the altercation? Did it have to do with drugs? She’d been certain she’d smelled marijuana.

  “Don’t do this,” she said aloud and took a gulp from her glass. The kids were with Cade now. Their father. She hoped to hell that Cade would talk to Harper and get through to her.

  Yeah, right.

  What were the chances of that?

  And as for Dylan?

  God only knew. Cade could handle him for the weekend.

  Tonight, though, she had another project.

  It was simple: Check out Xander Frickin’ Vale.

  Another long sip, then she topped off her glass, grabbed her laptop, and, with Reno at her heels, headed upstairs. In her bedroom she stripped off her clothes, tossed them into an overflowing laundry basket, then slipped into a pair of comfy pj’s.

  As the dog curled onto his bed, she headed across the landing to her office, which was located on the other side of the staircase. Like her bedroom, the office was tucked under the eaves, an attic conversion complete with built-in file cabinets, bookcase, and a long desk-height counter stretching beneath the single window. She set up her laptop next to her much larger desktop. She was good with technology and had honed her skills at finding out about people. She’d done work in HR at her last job along with bookkeeping, and then there was her side business, which, if things didn�
��t improve on the employment front, she’d have to expand.

  So how hard could it be to find out some details about Vale?

  She cringed inwardly, but just a little. Was she crossing some forbidden line, breaching her daughter’s privacy?

  Hell no!

  What about Vale’s?

  She figured he gave that up when he started French kissing her daughter.

  Another long swig and she went to work, her fingers flying over the keys. Within seconds she was searching for anything she could on Xander Vale. His profiles, his conversations, his photos. She found him on Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, to begin with, and his privacy settings were set low if at all, so she could snoop around easily.

  She scanned each screen eagerly, digging for anything she could find on the mystery man, who turned out to be not that much of a mystery. The long and short of it was that he’d grown up in Portland, gone to high school at Wilson, and was currently a college junior majoring in general studies. There were pictures of him partying, of course, at football games, downing cans of beer with various girls, none of whom was her daughter.

  Typical college boy.

  His parents still lived in Portland, were still married, and had two other younger kids: a boy and a girl. Xander had been an all-league football player in high school.

  Now he was enrolled in college, at the University of Oregon. That would put him down in Eugene, hours away, for most of the week until the end of the term in mid-June. Unless he was taking online classes.

  And what had Xander said? That he was working part-time for Chuck, that he was going to spend the summer working full-time in Edgewater?

  “Not good.” She took a sip from her glass and discovered it near empty, which explained the slightly warm, buzzy feeling running through her veins.

  Maybe Harper’s hot romance would flame out by summer.

  “If only.”

  Unlikely. It was already late May. Summer was just around the corner.

  From the bedroom, Reno gave out a low growl.

  Rachel spun in her desk chair and knocked over the remains of her wine, the glass toppling, the dregs of wine sloshing onto her desk. “Crap!” Again Reno growled and this time she looked across the landing to the other side of the house where the dog, tail stiff, hackles raised, stood facing the window.