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

But what did he think of her now?

“How do we solve a problem like Moira?” Taylor asked.

In another time and place, Hayley might have teased her sister with singing some corrupted lyrics from their mother’s all-time favorite movie, The Sound of Music.

How do you crush a reporter with your hands?

But not then. She resisted the temptation. She kept her mouth shut.

“Let’s go talk to her,” Colton said, looking first at his mother before turning to face the girls.

Shania didn’t answer. She merely looked at her son and nodded. Her eyes were focused and free of the shock of the others in the car.

“When?” Taylor asked.

“Now,” he said.

“Now? It’s literally the middle of the night,” Hayley said, looking at her phone, grateful that their parents hadn’t discovered they’d slipped out of the house.

Shania put the car in gear—the wrong gear—and it lurched forward into the fringy bank of cedar boughs.

“Sorry,” she said, releasing a small laugh, a laugh that was almost a therapeutic exhale. “A little bit harder than riding a bike. I agree with Colton. We need to get to the reporter’s house.”

“We don’t know where she lives,” Taylor said.

Colton held up another Google Maps printout. “Oh, yes we do,” Colton said. “Moira must have left this at Savannah’s. We just have to follow it from here to her place in Paradise Bay.”

“We have to reason with her and tell her to back off,” Hayley said.

“That’s right,” Shania said.

The Camry headed up the highway, on its way to the seemingly wrongly named Paradise Bay.

Valerie Ryan’s eyelids popped open at 3:21 a.m. No sudden noise. No flash of light preceded it. Just the gentle and predictable unshuttering of her sleeping eyes as they had done countless times over the past decade.

Valerie lay in bed looking at the big, fat digital numbers on her bedside clock: 3:21. March 21. The first day of spring, the day when her daughters and the others from the Daisy Troop plunged over the side of the bridge into the choppy waters of Hood Canal.

Without waking Kevin, she got up and slipped on her bathrobe, a Christmas gift from her daughters the year before. That night, she felt a compulsion to check on the girls. It was as if she was being called to do so, quietly, maybe in the way that dogs can only hear certain whistles.

Valerie crept up the stairs and turned the low knob on Hayley’s door. Moonlight flooded the room, and it was clear that the bed was empty. Racing to Taylor’s room across the narrow landing of the staircase, she saw that Taylor’s bed was empty too.

Where on earth were they?

Her brown eyes puddled, but Valerie Ryan didn’t cry. And then she felt it: a mother’s intuition. She touched Taylor’s pillow, still molded with an imprint of her head.

Are my babies okay?

Lights from a distant neighbor’s house sparkled against the black water of Paradise Bay as the tide slowly, sluggishly shifted in the stillness of the night. Shania cut the headlights and pulled into the driveway. No one in the car spoke—partly because there was no making real sense of what they’d seen, but also because they’d wanted to catch Moira off guard.

“I’m calling her,” Taylor said, as she pressed her ear to her phone. “Ringing now.”

“Moira Windsor? I know this is late. It’s Taylor Ryan,” she said.

“Taylor Ryan? Really?”

“Yes,” Taylor said. “You’ve been calling.”

“Yes, I have. I want to talk to you.”

Taylor delivered the understatement of her life. “You’ve really been a pain—like some kind of stalker. Stalking us! Leaving annoying messages! Bothering our friends. We’re kind of pissed off. But, yeah, my sister and I will talk to you.”

“That’s great,” Moira said, indifferent to anything other than what she’d wanted. “When?”

“How about now?”

“Okay,” Moira said. “I’d rather do it in person, but fine. I’ll put you on speaker so I can take notes.”

Taylor smiled; as nervous and tired as she was, she loved every moment of this.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “We’re here. At your house. Right now.”

A curtain in the window by the front door parted a sliver, then widened. Moira peered out over the gravel driveway toward the idling Camry.

“So you are,” she said. “Hang on. I’ll let you inside.”

Colton got out, but his mom stayed in the car. A trail of exhaust curled from its tailpipe into the cold air.

Moira, fully dressed even at that ridiculous hour, opened the door and came down the steps, squinting into the light from the car. She could see the teenagers silhouetted in the light. The scene was eerie and beautiful.

Hayley immediately recognized Moira as the young woman who’d been arguing with their father at the pizza place.

“I’ve seen you,” she said. “You were yelling at my dad.”

“Actually, he was doing the yelling,” Moira said.

Why hadn’t their father said something about Moira that night? What had she said to him if she wasn’t a fan wanting a free book?

“Who’s that?” Moira said, indicating Colton.

“My sister’s boyfriend,” Taylor said. For the first time, the words felt good instead of acid-reflux inducing. “His mom is here too.”

She looked over at the car, still running. Shania had rolled down the window and moved her hand. It wasn’t a wave—just an indicator that a person was there.

There was no need to be friendly. This wasn’t about that at all.

“Just what do you want with them?” Colton asked, now standing slightly in front of both girls. He was clearly on their side of things.

“This is between us,” Moira said, looking at the girls, bypassing Colton’s glaring stare. “And they know what I’m after.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, his warm, angry breath leaving puffs of white vapor in the air.

“Do you mind? This has nothing to do with you.” She looked at Colton and then turned back to Hayley and Taylor. “I saw the tape,” she said.

“So what?” Taylor said. “Tape’s gone.”

Moira looked puzzled. “Gone? How so?”

“I burned it up,” Colton said.

“You’re a lot of trouble, aren’t you?” Moira stared