Miss Trailerhood by Carina Taylor (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📗

call the next morning. I hadn’t slept well knowing there was a mouse in my house. I was pretty sure I’d heard that mouse again when I was trying to get some work done on my laptop.

I’d never called my dad about the lawyer. Riley had insisted that the issue had gone away, but there was something bothering me about the whole thing, and I didn’t want to scream like a little girl when I spoke with my dad. He’d never let me hear the end of it.

“Nate. How are you?”

“I’m good, Dad.” My voice caught on the last word when I glanced at my window and spotted the mouse on the windowsill, staring at me.

“How’s that single-wide treating you?”

“I have a rodent problem.” The mouse held a crumb to its mouth and nibbled away at it.

He chuckled. “I heard Nola and Bane stopped by. How did that go?”

“Really well. Nola was great. Riley was happy to see her, and I think it was relieving to see that Nola was happy with Bane. Nola was Nola, of course. Bane had to pry her off of Riley.”

Dad grunted. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Meh, what can you expect from her? We went on a double date with them last week. I heard some interesting stories about ‘Sally.’”

Dad laughed. “Oh, they told you about that, did they?”

“Pure gold. I like Bane. You were right about him.”

“Yeah, he’s good stuff,” he replied. “When’s Riley coming to visit? Your mom and I are ready to see her, too.”

“Soon, Dad, she’s been busy with some work stuff, but she keeps asking about you guys.”

There came a point in every person’s life when they were able to call their parents without a favor to ask. I wasn’t at that point yet, so I blurted out the reason I called. “Wren’s biological dad wants custody of her.”

Dad mumbled something he probably didn’t want Mom to overhear. “Is he a valid option?”

“He’s never tried before. He’s visited her regularly but never contested guardianship.”

“Has he supported them financially?”

“No.” The mouse was gone from the window, and I sighed with relief.

“Well, that’s good. For Riley. If he’s had contact but has not pursued legal guardianship, it doesn’t make sense that he would want her now. What changed?”

“He got a fiancée.”

“Aha.”

“Yup.”

I leaned back against my front door. There were two kids biking down the street, one of them towing another kid on rollerblades. They were Kristin’s kids. Not a helmet in sight, but there was lots of laughing.

Their laughter stopped abruptly when a large white SUV barreled into the trailer park. I shouted at them to get out of the way as I leapt down the steps, hurrying toward them. The car didn’t slow, but the kids had the sense to hurry off the road. The kids stood there, stunned, watching the car go past.

It pulled into Riley’s driveway and parked.

“You kids okay?”

They looked at me with wide eyes and nodded.

“You go home to your mom, all right?”

“But Mom said don’t come home until dinnertime!”

“Tell her what happened, and that I sent you.”

They looked at me like I was a crazy person to even dream of testing their mother.

“I’ll walk you home and talk to her. But we have to hurry.”

I jogged behind them.

“Nate? Nate? What happened?”

I’d completely forgotten about Dad on the phone.

I lifted my phone to my ear. “Frank and Tia are here. They almost ran over some neighborhood kids.”

“I’ll head over. I’ll call a buddy of mine who’s a police officer here in Riverly. Maybe he can tell us what to do.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I paused, catching my breath when the kids scurried up the steps into the single-wide. “But I think I know a guy who’s a lot closer.”

Johnny’s house was right next to Kristin’s.

“I’ll call you back, Dad.”

I hung up the phone as Kristin leaned out her kitchen window to call to me. “Did someone try to run over my babies?”

“Yes, ma’am! I told them they should go home until the people leave.”

Kristin pointed her curling iron at me threateningly. “You point me at them, and I’ll let them have a piece of my mind.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you. I was going to see if Johnny would want to come talk to them with me.”

She nodded and leaned her elbows on the windowsill while she wrapped the end of her hair around the curling iron. “He just pulled in. Must have been a long night for him. I should make him some coffee.”

I waved goodbye and jogged to Johnny’s. I pounded on the door. I had to hurry. I didn’t want to leave Riley alone with Frank and Tia.

Johnny opened the door a crack. “Oh, it’s you, Nate.”

He opened the door wide, tugging at his shirt gently, as though he were trying to hide something.

“I need your expertise.”

“Sure, what seems to be the trouble? I don’t know much about Jeeps, but I’m sure I can figure it out.”

I stared at him. Oh, that’s right. His cover story was that he was a motorcycle mechanic. “No, I need your legal help.”

Johnny took a step closer. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I wish I had time to explain, but I could really use a police officer on my side right now.”

Johnny’s complexion turned unnaturally white. “What? How did you know that? Who told you that?”

“The whole trailer park knows that, but right now we have more pressing problems. Frank’s trying to take Wren. He’s at Riley’s right now.”

Johnny nodded, his face becoming stoic. “Lead the way.” I jogged down the street because I didn’t want to waste time. When we got to the front of Riley’s house, we were greeted with the sight of Tia screaming at the top of her lungs, one short action away from being decked by Riley.

“I’ll be sharing your face and blasting the trailer park you live in all over the Internet! Everyone will see you for the phony that you are!”

I watched as Riley turned ashen. Tia might have been