Page 98 of Whispers

“Did anyone call a tow truck?”

“The cops will

.”

From the coffee and their breath, the windows of the sedan misted up and Claire was grateful for the privacy it offered, a fragile, dripping screen that protected them from curious eyes.

A siren screamed through the night. Red, white, and blue lights strobed the area. Claire jumped, sloshing her coffee on the Indian blanket that surrounded her.

She glanced at Miranda, and Claire’s heart sank, because Miranda, for all her planning, was scared. Her face was the color of chalk and streaked with mud, her hair hung lankly and dripped and as she met her middle sister’s eyes, she swallowed hard. “Remember,” she said, as a cruiser from the sheriff’s department arrived.

Two deputies emerged from the car. Shadowy figures through the foggy windows. One of the officers stayed near the road, using his flashlight to direct traffic and keep it moving as the other approached the car.

He paused and talked with some of the crowd for just a few seconds, asking questions that Claire could only partially hear, then he opened the door of the backseat and the interior light flickered on. Tall and bulky, he wore some kind of waterproof gear and rain dripped from the broad brim of his hat. “Hi, girls, I’m Deputy Hancock. First I want to find out if any of you are hurt and how seriously. Paramedics are on their way to help out. Next, we’ll have to sort out what happened for my report.” He offered a reassuring smile that scared Claire to her bones. She braced herself for her first confrontation with the law.

“It’s my fault,” Miranda said, meeting Hancock’s eyes. “I—I lost control of my car. I guess I must’ve fallen asleep at the wheel.”

“Anybody hurt?”

Claire shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” Miranda said.

“What about you, honey?” The deputy stared at Tessa. She lifted her eyes and shuddered.

“Dirty Harry.”

“Pardon?” he asked, his eyebrows pulling together.

“We were at the drive-in,” Miranda cut in. “Dirty Harry, that’s the movie we missed because we decided to come home early once the storm broke.”

“Oh.” He rubbed his jaw and eyed the sky. “Bad night for a drive-in.”

“Yes . . . it . . . it was a mistake.”

He tapped his flashlight on the side of the car. “Well, you can tell me all about it once we find out that you don’t need medical attention. I’ve called for an ambulance and a tow truck.”

“We don’t need to go to the hospital,” Miranda protested. “We’re fine.”

“We’ll let the paramedics determine that.” Another siren cut through the night, and the cup of coffee Claire had been holding slipped through her fingers. It didn’t matter. Nothing did. Harley was dead, and she was sitting in a pool of lake water in the back of a stranger’s car. She was too tired to think, too sick to her stomach to try and figure out the truth—why Miranda had insisted they lie, but as she looked at the fear etched on her older sister’s face and the shock registered on Tessa’s features, Claire told herself that she’d lie through her teeth for them. Her sisters were all she had left in the world.

What about Kane?

He was leaving.

Joining the army tomorrow.

She heard the sound of booted feet approach. The footsteps crunching on gravel echoed through her brain. If only she could see Kane right now, talk to him, hold him . . . Tears began to flow from her eyes as she and her sisters were helped from the car, while a dozen pair of eyes stared at them. Shepherded through the crowd, they were examined by paramedics as more deputies arrived.

Claire was vaguely aware of someone stretching yellow tape around the area, saw, as if from a distance, a huge tow truck appear, but above the noise, she heard the steady drone of a motorcycle.

She turned toward the road, but the solitary rider sped by, the huge machine barely slowing as a deputy waved him on.

Was it Kane? Claire’s hands twisted in the wet blanket.

“What a night,” one of the deputies said to the other. “First the Taggert kid, and now this!”

Claire jolted inwardly as she was jerked back to the here and now, away from her fantasies about Kane Moran.