Beneath Her Skin by Gregg Olsen (ebook reader for manga txt) 📗

“Look,” she said into her phone, her eyes nervously scanning the scene. “This thing went too far, and I’m afraid someone is going to call me on it.”

Starla turned her back to the school courtyard filling up with the onslaught of kids as they meandered toward the cars in the lot. She faced the hedge and listened to the person on the other end of the line. Her lips were a straight line, and her eyes narrowed in anger. In that moment, maybe for the first time in her life, no one would have said Starla Larsen was beautiful. Maybe not even reality-TV pretty.

And since she was so pissed off about what the other person was saying, she probably didn’t care what anyone thought about her appearance just then—likely another first-time occurrence.

“Don’t tell me that it wasn’t our fault. I already know that. I never wanted anything like this to happen. I’m putting the blame on you!”

Starla pressed the phone tight to her ear and balled up her other fist. If a kitten had the misfortune to walk by, she might have stomped on it with her four-inch heels. She was that irate.

Whoever was talking to her didn’t have the opportunity to say much. Starla, it seemed, was on a roll.

“The biggest mistake I ever made was to trust you. If this goes any farther, you’re the one who’s going down for this. No excuses! I have too much to live for and I’m not about to have you F it up!”

She lowered her phone and turned around.

Taylor and Beth were coming toward her.

“Starla,” Beth said in that direct way of hers, “you look pissed off. Someone steal your pom-poms?”

Starla barely looked at either girl as she retracted her heels from the muddy grass, making a sucking sound that only served to make her angrier.

“Don’t even go there, you emo-freak,” Starla said, her voice as controlled as possible. She said nothing else and never looked back.

“Wow, she looks like crap,” Taylor said, stating the obvious.

“I almost feel sorry for her,” Beth said. “She’s really going through something. Maybe she hates her highlights.”

Taylor tugged at Beth to get to the bus for the ride home. “I have no idea what’s up,” she said, in what she knew was a big lie.

Savannah Osteen lived in a log cabin in the middle of wooded acreage near the airport. While the location was indeed remote, the mosquito-like buzzing of private planes could be heard overhead as they dropped lower for landing. The aircraft was an audible reminder that even in the woods, there are people hovering, watching. Savannah’s cabin wasn’t one of those Daniel Boone affairs, all mossy and drafty, but a decidedly modern one with a steep roofline and made of perfectly peeled pine logs. Anchoring it from the ground to the sky was a river rock chimney that looked like it might even be made of real rocks. Which it wasn’t, of course.

Moira Windsor edged her pewter compact car under a gnarly grove of cedars that formed a canopy, nearly blacking out the late afternoon sky.

“Moira?” a voice called out.

Moira turned in the direction of the voice. “Savannah?”

“Yes. I’m back here, in the aviary.”

Moira followed the sound to a large, fenced pen with a ten-foot-high ceiling of chicken wire. Inside, a woman in her late thirties was huddled next to a wooden crate. Suspended above the crate was a heat lamp sending an eerie splash of orange over its contents.

Savannah motioned for her to come inside the pen.

“Dumb idea to raise pheasants in the middle of winter,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Moira unlatched the gate and walked over. She bent down a little and looked inside at a dozen or more small birds huddled in one disgusting mass and pretended to be interested.

“They’re pretty,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll be all right. Spring will be here soon enough.”

“I hope so,” Savannah said, looking up at her visitor and smiling. Up close, she was a pretty woman with corkscrew hair that was more gray than brown. She wore slim-fit jeans; a heavy, tan Carhartt jacket; boots; and a pair of garden gloves with the fingertips nipped off.

“Let’s go inside and talk about farm to table, and I’ll tell you how my pheasants fit into that scenario,” she said, lowering the heat lamp a little. The birds peeped loudly and scuttered from the light.

“Oops,” Savannah said, raising the lamp a touch. “Don’t want to cook them. At least, not yet.”

“No, not yet,” Moira said, acting as if she was excited, though she couldn’t care less. She wanted to talk about something completely different from these disgusting birds. Besides, farm to table made no sense to her. Everything she ate came from a box or was shrink-wrapped.

The place was spotless, which surprised Moira. She figured an old hippie—if that’s what Savannah was—would be a grungy pack rat with recycling stations in every room and ugly eco repurposed items like a bucket made into a lampshade. But the house wasn’t. Instead, it was clean and bright with furnishings upholstered in creams and grays.

After Moira removed her boots and jacket, she could see that Savannah was neat, maybe not exactly stylish, but not some Boho wannabe with a trashed-out house. A coil of silver chains swirled around her toned neck. Ten silver bangles ran up each wrist.

Savannah offered coffee, not herbal tea, which also surprised Moira. There was no small talk about sustainable resources, the dire situation with South America’s rain forests. They engaged in some casual chatter before Moira made a confession of sorts.

“I lied to you on the phone,” she said, once they settled at the kitchen table, a large Douglas fir crosscut topped with quarter-inch-thick glass.

“You’re not from the paper?” Savannah said, her tone indicating some skepticism and maybe even a little understanding.

“Not exactly,” she said and looked away.

“Blogger? That’s okay. I understand.”

“No, I actually am from the paper. I’m just not doing a farm-to-table story.”

Savannah perked up a