The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney (10 best books of all time TXT) 📗

to elaborate. But they exchange a quick, uneasy glance, and they stop talking.

“You can turn the music back on,” I say.

Felix flashes a smug smile as he fires up the stereo. “See? Everyone loves Queen.”

“Drive the car, Felix,” Alex replies.

—

WITHOUT A CONVERSATION to distract me, I find myself watching the tower instead, growing closer and closer. I rub at my thigh, the friction of my palm creating a simmering heat around Mayor Williams’s business card in my pocket.

The building we pull up to doesn’t look like a radio station—it’s pretty clearly a school. It’s cut in the same clean, angular lines as the houses of Lethe Ridge and is as polished as if it was built yesterday. And yet rising straight up from the center is a radio tower that, supposedly, hasn’t been used since 1973.

“Ah,” Alex says. It’s almost too quiet to be heard, but Felix’s head snaps toward him.

“What is it?” he says, barely a question.

“Nothing,” Alex says.

Felix puts the car in park, still watching Alex. His hand twitches off the wheel, gets halfway to reaching the passenger’s seat, but at the last moment, he drops it to the center console instead. “It’s okay,” he says haltingly. “We’re not going inside.”

I don’t have time to wonder about it. Because it’s then that I notice the woman standing in the shadow of the building: early thirties, in a sundress and a crisp orange blazer, with a twist-out that falls a few inches above her shoulders and bright blush contoured across her high, dark cheekbones. She holds a closed parasol at her side, tapping it in an aimless rhythm on the ground. She looks like she’s stepped out of a Fashion Week candid. And there’s no question as to who she is.

“Hi there.” The sheriff smiles without showing her teeth. “Rose, I take it?”

For lack of anything more intelligent to do, I nod.

“Christie Jones,” she says. “Now, why don’t you follow me inside? We’re already running on Felix-time this morning, so we should get right to it.”

“We were driving carefully,” Felix says.

“We were not,” Alex says.

Sheriff Jones motions for me to follow her. “If we wait for them to stop bickering, we’ll be here until the heat death of the universe.”

I catch Felix’s and Alex’s gazes flickering from each other to the two of us as the doors swing closed behind me, and I have a brief second to connect the dots. We’re not going inside, Felix told Alex. But apparently, I am.

We step inside the front hallway and into the school. A series of windows dot the hallway, flooding long swatches with late-morning light that doesn’t reach the shadows in between. Sheriff Jones steps around the sunlight as she walks.

“You’re not exactly what I expected,” she says.

“Everyone keeps saying that,” I mumble. My shadow curves along the wall as I pass a window.

She throws her head back and laughs, a bright, clear sound. “I just figured you’d be—I don’t know. More imposing? But I guess you really are a kid, aren’t you?”

“Well . . .” I fall a few steps farther behind. “Sorry?”

“Do you know how much time I’ve spent looking for you in the past five years?” she says, her voice still light. “Or more to the point, do you know how much of my life I’ll spend apologizing to my wife’s parents when this is over? All this time we’ve been telling them we can’t spend the holidays with them because I’m allergic to their cats.”

“Sheriff Jones—” I start.

“Christie, please,” she says. “Formalities give me hives. So Maggie Williams talked to you already, huh?”

“How did you know that?” I say. I thought the mayor was the psychic one. Honestly, if they’re all psychic, I’m leaving.

“A good guess. You’ve got that post–Maggie Williams look on your face,” she says. “She must have been excited that she got to you first, before I got in your head.” She dips her tone and waggles her fingers, her eyes fluttering into a devastating eye roll. I like her, despite myself. Gaby would be obsessed with her.

“She was,” I confirm, smiling a little.

“And are you considering her offer?” Sheriff Jones says, just as casually.

My stomach drops. I don’t mean for it to show on my face, but it must, because she grins. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me what you discussed with her if you don’t want to. We’re here to talk, that’s all.”

“I understand that,” I say. “But why are we here here?”

“This is where you wanted to be, right?” she says. “I was told you wanted to see the old radio station.”

“Well,” I say. “Can I be honest?”

“Please,” she says.

“I understand the mayor’s position,” I say. My voice only wavers a little. “I don’t understand yours.”

She glances over her shoulder at me. “You’re a little young to be cynical.”

“If it were me, I wouldn’t want to lose my home. I don’t think that’s cynical,” I say.

She hums thoughtfully. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not meeting you out of the goodness of my heart. My position couldn’t be more practical. The neighbors—they’re my constituents, too. And if I owe you the benefit of the doubt, I owe it to whatever you’ve brought, too.”

I pause. The ever-present movement over my shoulder has stilled since I greeted Christie Jones. Like they’re standing at a distance, waiting to see what happens.

“She says you can get rid of it.” I say it so quietly, I almost don’t hear it myself.

She’s still smiling. But her eyes go sharp.

“Well,” she says. “First things first. Why don’t you answer your own question for me. Why are you here?”

I keep smiling, though my back straightens. “What happened to the benefit of the doubt?”

“You’re looking at it,” she says.

“I mean . . .” I say. “You know my car broke down on—”

“You’re clearly very smart, Rose. So I think you know that’s not what I meant,” Christie says. “Why were you on the road? Traveling somewhere?”

My phone shivers in my pocket. Flora Summer, maybe, checking in on me. She hasn’t