Page 38 of Paranoid

“Would it help if I loaned you the money?” she asked, immediately thinking this wasn’t the right way to handle the situation. He needed to learn this lesson. Fast. She couldn’t enable him. And yet . . . “And I mean loaned. I’m ser

ious. You would have to pay me back. ASAP. Summer is coming, so I’ll expect you to do yard work and help with cleaning the basement, whatever.”

His eyes brightened a little. “You’d do that?”

“Maybe.” She couldn’t let him off too easily. “But you’ll have to let your dad know. And if this kid gives you any more trouble—”

“He won’t, Mom. Really.”

She glanced at Harper. “Yeah,” Harper agreed, “Schmidt is a bully, but he wouldn’t do anything to, like, mess up because he could lose his scholarship.”

“He’d lose it if I made trouble?”

“Don’t, Mom, just don’t!” Dylan said, shooting his sister a dark look. “And please, can we just keep Dad out of this?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, man, really?” Dylan groaned and rolled his eyes. His whole body slumped. “Why?”

“Because he’s your dad.”

“But . . .” Was he really going to argue about it?

“Hey—what is this?” Harper said as she picked up the newspaper still open on the table. The article about Luke Hollander’s death was front and center. “Does Lucas know about this?”

“I don’t know. Probably,” Rachel said. The whole damned town would have read it by now.

“Wow. Oh, wow.” Harper was scanning the article. “He’s gonna freak. It’s online, right?”

“Everything’s online now.”

“Yeah, then he’ll see it.” She shot her brother a look.

“What?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just that he doesn’t like to talk about it, y’know. It makes him feel weird. Different.”

Even though Lila had mentioned how difficult it was for her son in the article, Rachel hadn’t dwelled on how the newspaper piece might affect her nephew, the boy who’d never gotten the chance to meet his father. But she knew how it was when someone felt different. Hadn’t she witnessed Luke’s own emotional response when anyone asked about his father, his “real” father, meaning Bruce Hollander? Luke had always tried to hide the fact that his biological father had been serving time in prison. Whenever anyone had questioned him about Hollander or whenever his father had tried to get in touch, Luke had become angry and sullen, horrible to live with.

It had been a weird dynamic for their little family.

It was probably just as difficult for Lucas. Possibly worse.

Harper finished reading and glanced up to meet Rachel’s eyes. “It’s hard for you, too, huh?”

“For all of us.” Rachel nodded, then fought the tightness in her throat when she caught a bit of empathy in her daughter’s eyes. Over the years the subject had come up; the kids knew the sketchy details and Rachel had left it at that. Now, compliments of Mercedes Pope, they might learn a helluva lot more.

Today, it seemed, was a turning point.

For all of them.

And worst of all, Violet Sperry had been murdered.

CHAPTER 9

By the time Rachel was ready to leave for the meeting, Violet’s murder was all over the news.

Flanked by her kids as they stood in the living room in front of the flat-screen, Rachel felt her keys dig into her tightly clenched hand as she watched the press conference where the sheriff himself spoke first into the camera.