Page 92 of Take The Risk

​“I would go to the bookstore on Stein. I don’t know why. I just feel…comfortable there. When she started to talk to me, I ignored her at first. I mean, I’ve heard about her my whole life, so I knew Amber-Rae was just not nice.”

​She shot Rowdy an apologetic look.

​“It’s okay, Lilah. I like her even less than you.”

​Lilah?

​“Go on,” Wade encouraged, pulling his police notepad out of his pocket after Rowdy nodded to it.

​“For a while, she just sat there with me. I mean, she wasn’t with with me. We were just sitting at the couches by the fake fireplace, you know? Then she kinda just started talking to me. It wasn’t anything heavy at first. How was I doing? Why wasn’t I in school? She talked about the bake-sale fundraiser and how she wanted to make something different this year and did I have a suggestion? I don’t know why, but…I talked to her. It felt good to talk to her. She wasn’t mean or weird or anything like that. And then I had to go home and that was it.”

​“So then what’s all this about?” I had to ask. If there was nothing to that conversation, what the hell was going on here?

​“That was the first time,” Delilah explained. “It seemed every time I went to the bookstore, Amber-Rae was just…there. I didn’t even realize it, but over time I started to tell her things. And then she started to say things too. She started with a rumor about you and Phoebe after you’d been shopping somewhere. I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, rumors in this town are par for the course.”

​Which was bullshit.

​“She’d made a joke about it. About how if you and Phoebe got together with her being from the city that maybe you’d both move there instead? You know, small-town life isn’t for city girls?”

​I’ll just bet she did. I wanted to say something here, but I knew if I did, Delilah would clam up. Given she wasn’t shaking or crying right now, I kept my mouth shut.

​“What she didn’t know—actually, she did, but I didn’t know she knew—was that Mom had been saying some things like that already.”

​“Excuse me?” I burst out. Wade shot me a look of warning, and I took a deep breath.

​Delilah looked down at her lap, picking at the material of her pants. “I heard Mom talking to Grandma on the phone. She told her about Phoebe and that she thought she was trying to get her hooks into you for your money or something. She said she was from the city and probably living off her ex-husband and that she knew women like her. Like Mindy.” Delilah named the woman her father had run off with. “She said if she didn’t find a way to stop her, that Phoebe was going to destroy your life and take you away.”

​“That’s ridiculous!” I was going to lose it on my mother later. What the hell kind of crap was this?

​“Ty!” Rowdy and Wade both warned me in unison.

​Delilah didn’t even bother looking up. “I didn’t want to think it was true. When Mom told Aunt Louise and Aunt Helen the same thing, they both said she misjudged the situation. Mom was sure. Phoebe was going to try and seduce you so she could live off you when her divorce was final and maybe get you to move back to the city because ‘city girls don’t stay in small towns.’”

Fucking hell.

​“So when Amber-Rae said it, I started to think maybe it was true? When she’d said it, I was upset. Amber-Rae hugged me, telling me it was all right. She knew what it was like to have her family ripped apart by someone in the city, and she could help me if I wanted.”

​“That’s a lie,” Rowdy pointed out as if we didn’t know his family history going back three generations. But Delilah didn’t.

​“How was she going to help you?” Wade remained focused, his pen scratching on the paper of his notepad.

​“She said she knew a secret about Phoebe, and if Phoebe thought the secret would come out, she’d leave.”

​A sense of foreboding cramped my gut. “What was the secret?”

​“She didn’t tell me. She just said that if I wanted Phoebe to leave, I could deliver a couple of notes to her house that Amber-Rae wrote, and Phoebe would read them and leave.”

​Ah, hell. I ran my hand through my hair. “Why didn’t you say something to me, D?” That fucking bitch had used my sister to torture Phoebe.

​“I was—then I—”

​“You what?” I prompted. Leaning forward, I covered her hand with mine. “I’m not going to be mad. Amber-Rae manipulated you. I would have understood. I do understand.”

​“I was going to tell you. Especially after she made Jesse laugh at the church. I’d started to see that Phoebe was really…nice. I figured Mom had to be wrong and I felt bad. Until I heard you guys talking.” She pointed between Wade and me.

​“Talking about what?” I racked my brain.

​“You were in the hall of the church,” Wade recalled, and it hit me.