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“Someday.”
Crystal’s lower lip quivered, and she buried her face in her hands. “Damn it all.” Too proud to cry in public, she scrambled out of the booth and hurried outside. Miranda, feeling worse than ever, followed her and walked, head bent against the wind, to her car. Crystal had been right about one thing; she was going to be a lawyer, the best damned attorney this town had ever seen, and she’d have to use her wits to outsmart opposing counsel. So trying to find out what really happened to Jack Songbird and Hunter shouldn’t be so hard.
Except that she was an emotional wreck. Crystal’s story about Hunt, coupled with Dan’s warning, chipped away at her trust, her faith in love. “Don’t,” she told herself. She needed to talk to Hunt, to sort the truth from the lies. So she had to find him. That was all. How hard could it be?
Taking Crystal’s suggestion to heart, she stopped at a phone booth, flipped through the tattered Yellow Pages, and stopped at the page where private investigators were listed. Running her finger down the column, she found the name of a man in Manzanita and reached into her purse for her coins.
She’d find Hunter, one way or the other, and then she’d face the truth—however grim it might be. She owed it to her baby.
The ceiling fans were keeping time to Madonna while silverware rattled on the business side of the counter, where the cash register rang up the latest order of burgers and fries.
Paige licked the last bit of whipped cream from her sundae and swung her legs from the booth at the local Dairy Freeze. She’d seen Miranda Holland and Crystal Songbird sitting in a booth near the corner, and she’d hidden behind a fake wood trellis that partitioned one section of the Dairy Freeze from the other. The older girls were in some kind of grim conversation, and Paige would have given two months’ allowance to find out what they were talking about, but she’d slunk down in her booth until they’d left and wondered if Weston was any part of the conversation. Probably. Crystal was such a pathetic creature.
But Paige didn’t want to think about Crystal or Weston or anyone but herself right now. Her charm bracelet hung from her wrist and she liked the way it jangled when she moved. It reminded her that Kendall still liked her, and that gave her a sense of peace, as did the gun in her purse. She swallowed a smile. Wouldn’t everyone in the place flip if they knew she was carrying the pistol?
Ever since Kendall had hinted that she wished Claire would drop dead, Paige had considered it her personal mission to find a way to eliminate her. But she couldn’t be stupid, like shooting one of Dutch Holland’s daughters; no, the police would figure it out, and she wasn’t really sure that she could shoot anyone anyway. There was a big step between killing someone and thinking about it, and the truth of the matter was, Paige was a little on the squeamish side. No, just because she had the gun didn’t mean she could actually pull the trigger, but maybe she could scare Claire a little, make her back off. Or, better yet, maybe she could scare Harley. That shouldn’t be too hard.
She left some change on the table and sauntered out of the cool interior to the street, where sunlight glinted off the sidewalk and the brisk scents of salt and seaweed covered up exhaust fumes from the highway running through town. She didn’t know what had possessed her to carry the gun today, but she didn’t want to take a chance on leaving it at home, where it might be found. Any day now she was sure her mother would miss it, and then Paige would have to lie, or own up to having taken it. She winced inside at the thought of explaining why she’d borrowed the thing in the first place. Mikki Taggert had strict rules about her things. Once she’d caught Paige playing dress-up in her old slip and high heels, and Mikki hadn’t missed a beat. She’d slapped her daughter across the face, told Paige never to touch her things again, then stripped her of the clothes and shoes and left her naked in the attic. She’d had to find an old sheet that smelled musty to wrap around her as she’d run, crying, to her room. The incident was never mentioned again, but Paige had felt the welt on her cheek for hours.
So, she’d have to make up a story about the gun or replace it. She walked past a bookshop, an antiques dealer, and an artist’s gallery before seeing Claire standing on the promenade that flanked the beach. The prom was a wide cement walkway with an intricate, but short, stone wall separating the beach from the town. Every three blocks there was a gap in the wall which allowed pedestrians access to trails leading over short grassy dunes to the sea, and there, at one of the openings, was Claire Holland, dressed in jeans and T-shirt, looking nervous and trying not to appear interested in the scruffy-looking boy straddling a huge black-and-chrome motorcycle. She couldn’t think of his name, but Paige had seen him before. He was a troublemaker, she thought, a kid whose dad had some kind of problem, and he was staring at Claire as if she were the only girl in the universe.
Paige smothered a pang of jealousy and swallowed hard. She slipped over the wall, ducked through the dunes, and edged closer, hoping to hear some of their conversation. Oh, what she would do if only some boy, any boy, looked at her the way this guy was staring at Claire.
The wind kicked sand into her eyes and mouth. She spit and wiped her tongue with her sleeve as tears took care of the particles behind her eyelids. She was close enough that she heard their voices, but the words were muffled by the roar of the wind and surf. Unless they came closer, walked down the path near the dune behind which she was hiding, she’d probably never hear what they were talking about.
Blinking, Paige glanced down at her bracelet. What did it matter what Claire said to the guy? The fact that she was talking to him might be ammunition enough for Kendall. Now, if she could just remember his name . . .
Claire clutched her keys until the metal cut into her palm. Of all the luck! She’d hoped to run into Harley, and she’d ended up seeing Kane. As she’d come out of the sporting goods shop, he’d spied her and turned a quick U-turn in the middle of the street to brazenly drive his bike onto the promenade, in front of God and everyone, disregarding the signs announcing that there were no motorized vehicles allowed on the wide pedestrian walkway.
Her heart was thumping a quick double time, as she hadn’t seen him since Jack Songbird’s funeral, hadn’t spoken to him since the night when he’d bared his soul. She’d dreamt about him, always in sexual, wanton ways that caused her, upon awaking, to find it hard to catch her breath, and continuously made her feel ashamed, as if she were somehow cheating on Harley.
And here he was again, seated on his bike, reflective sunglasses shading his eyes, black leather covering his body.
“So, Princess,” he drawled in that suggestive and irritating way of his. “How’s the world treating you?”
“Just fine.” It was a lie. Why did she feel she always had to sidestep the truth around him?
“Is it?” A wayward eyebrow arched over one of his shaded lenses. “No complaints?”
“None,” she lied easily again, and wondered if he had the ability to read her mind.
“Lucky you.” His voice mocked her, silently accused her of a thousand untruths.
“That’s right.”
“Good. Then I can leave with a clean conscience.”
“Leave?” Oh, no!
“Day after tomorrow.”
“For the army.” She felt a sinking, lost feeling tunnel through her body, a sensation that something vital and strong was about to become missing from her life.
“Basic training in Fort Lewis.”
“Oh.” It wasn’t the end of the world. Fort Lewis was in Washington, 150 miles away. “And then?”
“And then the world.” His smile was tight, and his fingers, curled around the handlebars, moved restlessly.
