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

Cassie’s eyes widen. I wonder if she’s cataloguing it, too: the comment about Adrienne, the list of pawn shop customers. From the very start, all from Theresa.

“Cassie,” I say. “I think—”

“You don’t think,” someone else says. “You know.”

We whip around. And behind us, breathing hard, her perfect clothes and perfect hair in disarray, is Mayor Maggie Williams.

We lock eyes for a long, long time. And Cassie may be the prophet, but I get there first.

“You finally looked.” I smile slowly. “Didn’t you?”

Maggie goes white, her jaw visibly working. But she nods.

Adrenaline surges down to my toes. “Then go,” I say.

For a second, I think she’ll remind me who’s in charge here. But she settles her shoulders, and she does what I ask.

“Knock, knock,” she trills, sailing past us and into the classroom. “Hope you don’t mind if I sit in, Chris.”

“I”—Christie opens her mouth, closes it—“wasn’t expecting you, Maggie.”

“Yes . . .” Theresa’s still got that easy smile. But I can see it calcifying. “Why don’t you sit down, Madam Mayor? You look out of breath.”

And then, ever so slightly, her head shifts to the hall. “And who’s out there?” she calls, smooth and cool as a river rock. “Cassandra? Or is it you, Ms. Nobody?”

“Something the matter?” Christie says. Her voice doesn’t change. Her posture does.

“You’re busy women, both of you.” Though I know she can’t see me, she never looks away. “We’ve all got important things to do today. Let’s not waste time.”

Christie barely flinches. But I see the shift behind her eyes. She’s guessed. She knows.

Maggie perches on the edge of her chair, and for once, I’m grateful for her unflappable PTA grin. “Okay, then,” she says. “Let’s start with what you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. But if you need me to say it, then yes. I’m the person I imagine you’ve been looking for.

“So.” Theresa leans back in her chair. “Let’s get this over with.”

Twenty-Six THE DUE TO THE DEAD

“YOU LOOK SURPRISED,” Theresa says.

Christie’s palms lie flat on her thighs, as if she’s considering whether to move or stay still. “A little,” she says evenly. “Seems like a lot of effort to hide what you were doing, just to tell me so easily now.”

“I didn’t expect our Mags here to pick up soothsaying again.” Theresa shrugs. “Clearly I gotta work on my prophesying skills, right? Anyways, I figure I’ve bought enough time.”

“Time to what?” Maggie says.

Theresa gazes across the table. Still smiling. But underneath that, implacably calm. “If you figured me out too quickly, you might’ve tried something else. Maybe you would’ve even figured out how to stop this. If I could keep you distracted—with the list, with Adrienne—I could keep you from looking for other solutions.”

There’s a beat of silence. I can feel Cassie, shifting closer. “Anyway,” Theresa says. “I’ve taken enough of your time. You’ve got an evacuation to run.”

“Don’t you worry about the evacuation,” Christie says.

“And are you worried, Maggie?” Theresa says.

I can see her trying not to bristle. “We have our differences of opinion,” Maggie says. “But when it comes to the safety of this town, I trust Christie implicitly. And if she trusts her—Rudy to assist, then I defer to her judgment.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Theresa says with a shrug. “Okay, then. I’ve got plans tonight. Few things to prepare and all that. So can we make this quick?”

“And who was it you went through all this trouble for?” says Christie.

“Ah, yeah. You didn’t know him, did you?” She’s bordering on chipper. She could be talking about any new year’s plans. “My father would have passed when you were about this high. It’s too bad. He would have liked you. I really do think you should evacuate, Chris.”

“The evacuation”—I hear the edge in her voice for the first time—“is taken care of.”

“Oh,” Theresa says. Something in her expression shifts. “Were you hoping I could tell you how to stop it?”

“Theresa,” Christie says. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here. I’m assuming you would never bring this to our doorstep if you knew what it was capable of.”

“Don’t condescend to me, sweetheart.” She smiles thinly. “I’m not an idiot. Of course I know.”

Cassie has started gripping my arm right back. Hard enough that I might just be holding her up.

Christie leans back in her chair. “Let’s start with how you know, then.”

“It was just that I started to wonder,” Theresa says. “About this place. About you in particular, Chris—about how things changed after you came back to town. I used to like poking around the archives, just to read about all the weird shit that’s passed through here since before we were alive. You know me. Business gets slow, I get bored. But then you come back. You become sheriff after the Harper incident. And then not long after, we get Cassandra’s prophecy. Suddenly, certain pages of the archive files are always checked out. By our sheriff herself. I didn’t guess why at the time. Just thought it was strange.

“But then about two months ago, talking to your wife, she said something that bugged me.” Theresa leans back in her chair. “She was laughing about how upset her parents were that you’d said no to their holiday invitation again. Said that it wasn’t your fault you were allergic to the cats.” She snorts. “Funny. I remember a little Christie Jones who played with the feral cats in the high school parking lot. Don’t worry, though. I didn’t tell her that.”

“And what was that to you, exactly?” The question drops the temperature a few degrees.

“Nothing,” Theresa says. “I just started to think that you’ve disappeared, like clockwork, to spend the holidays doing ‘charity work.’ Right after Cassandra started living with you.”

Cassie’s gone rigid. Her grip has started to hurt.

“And I thought, if Cassandra’s involved, there’s only one thing it could be about. But her prophecy never said when this flood was meant to come. So why the same time, every