Shadow Notes by Laurel Peterson (cool books to read txt) 📗

“Right.” She smacked the table, startling me. “How do we separate her from the herd?”

“I’m a sheep dog now?” I began putting my boots on, distracted.

She rolled her eyes. “Stay with the program. What’s the next campaign party sort of thingy?” She drummed her fingers against the wood, red nails clicking. “New Year’s Eve. Right. I’ll get a couple of invites.”

“If they hold it with Mary Ellen in jail.”

She waved her long fingers in the air. “She’ll be out in a couple of hours. No way John lets her stay there. Can’t have the sister of a Senate candidate locked up. And this time, there’s no convenient photo of her at a crime scene, as there was with your mother.”

“Right. And since the police have likely told Mary Ellen that I reported her death threat, she’ll throw me out of her party on my butt.” I shoved my arms into a sweater I’d grabbed off the hook by the door.

“What are you doing?”

“Mother’s been outside in her bathrobe for, I don’t know, ten minutes? It’s really cold out there, and the chief said to stay in the house. Pete Samuels could be on our property for all I know. I’m going out to make sure she’s okay.”

I yanked open the broom closet, looking for a weapon. Buried behind the mops was an old shovel, something the gardener probably disdained in favor of a new, less rusty version. It would do.

Bailey looked alarmed. “I’ll come with you.”

“Stay here, please. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, call the chief.” I dropped my cell phone into my pocket. “I’ll call if I find her. Arm the house after I’m out. He got in twice before because I forgot.” I gave her the code.

I opened the door and followed Mother’s footprints in the snow across the kitchen garden to the gate in the wall. It was propped open with a sturdy stick, which I appropriated as an easier weapon to wield than the shovel. To the left a hill sloped toward the pond and, to the right, the back meadow abutted the road. The grounds spread across three acres, and my father’s garden, its graceful shrubs, sculptures, and carefully designed private nooks, created enough quirky hiding spots that she could be anywhere, as could anyone who wanted to harm her.

Her footprints led toward the right. I stepped through the open gate and walked quickly, hugging the wall to its end, where a hedge screened the driveway. I paused, listening, but heard nothing except the whisper of car tires on the road. I closed my eyes, letting the silence soak in, hoping the intuition would tell me if I were out here alone or not. Nothing concrete, but something didn’t feel right.

I took a deep breath and ran across the open expanse, following Mother’s footsteps. I was the perfect target against all that white. A red shadow flitted at the edge of my vision and I snapped my head to look. A hawk, above me, cruised for small prey. As I looked ahead again, I heard a high-pitched whine by my ear. I dove for the gazebo, landing by Mother’s feet and dropping my stick. It was useless against a gun. She fell to her knees next to me, and I yanked her to the floor. “Get down!”

“Clara, what is the matter?”

“Someone just shot at me.” Staying below the benches, I scrabbled out of sight of the meadow, dragging her with me. Surrounded by trees on three sides, the gazebo made a cool spot on a warm summer day. Now, those three sides of trees protected us from the shooter. He could only come from one direction if he wanted to aim with any accuracy. I dialed the chief.

“Sit tight,” he said. “We’ll be there in five.”

Five minutes was a long time. Another bullet pinged off the metal roof of the gazebo. I said, “Probably Pete and Mary Ellen think killing us will eliminate the evidence against them. Maybe they think the police will conclude you killed Hugh, and then killed yourself.”

I listened, hard. Was that a footstep, crunching in the snow?

I looked at Mother. She huddled, shivering, tears running down her face. “So many lives I’ve destroyed, Clara—all for a stupid principle. If I’d just told Andrew what he wanted, anything, I could have made it up—how would he have known?—none of this would have happened.”

I didn’t believe that, but I had come to understand regret. I shrugged out of the sweater and draped it around her shoulders. “He wouldn’t have let you stop—and if you lied, or your predictions weren’t true, he would have harmed you—as he did.” Besides, if anyone should sacrifice, it should be me. If the only way to save my remaining parent was to give Andrew Winters what he wanted, then I would do that. The gazebo seemed to tip, as if in a storm.

A crackle startled me. A foot stepping on leaves under the snow? I peered around the corner of the bench, but I couldn’t see anything, except another sudden rush of red.

“Oh, Clara, we’ve wasted so many years. I didn’t know how to love you when your life had started in such a…terrible way. Your father was so gentle and kind. I wanted to be like him but I couldn’t let go of the rage and fear I felt every time I looked at you. If I let go, if I loved you, Andrew would have a wedge to use against me, so I drove you away.” Her shivering intensified.

We had to have this conversation now? My tension rippled out into my fingers, and my grip tightened on her arm. She winced.

This reconciliation business was hard. She was vulnerable, something she’d so rarely been with me, and I could respond from my anger or from the intent behind her words to reconnect, to make what was wrong between us right again. If she got shot or froze to death, that would be a bad