Read Shadow Creek for Free Online Page B

asked.
    “Good.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “Thinking about the other night?”
    “Yes.”
    “It was pretty intense.”
    “Yes.”
    “So, are we on for this weekend?” he asked.
    It was at that moment Brianne heard a click on the line and realized someone had picked up the extension. “Just a minute,” she warned. “Hello? Hello? Mom? Is that you?”
    “Sorry,” Val answered immediately. “I thought it might be your grandmother.”
    “I’ve got to go. Text me later,” Brianne said, hanging up thephone in a panic. How long had her mother been listening? How much had she heard? “Shit.”
    Sasha was instantly on her feet. “Your mother was listening in on the extension? Shit.”
    “What did I say? What did I say?”
    “Nothing,” Sasha told her. “I swear.
Good. Yes. Yes. Yes
. Honestly. It was very frustrating. You’d make a great secret agent.”
    “Shit,” Brianne said again, hearing her mother’s footsteps approaching her bedroom door.
    “Brianne,” her mother said, knocking gently. “Can I come in?” She opened the door before Brianne had time to object.
    “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” her mother apologized immediately. “I …”
    “… thought it was Grandma. It’s okay.”
    “Who was it?”
    “Just some guy I know from school.”
    “I thought I heard him say something about the weekend … My God, would you look at this room,” Val exclaimed. “How can you bring anybody in here? It’s a mess. And you haven’t finished packing. You’re still in your underwear.” She looked helplessly around the room, her eyes moving from the bed to the floor to the dresser. “Is that my perfume?”
    “I’m going to be late for work,” Sasha interjected quickly, already halfway to the door. “Don’t worry. I can find my own way out. Be sure to call me as soon as you get back. Bye, Valerie. Nice seeing you again.” She blew Brianne a kiss, then left the room.
    “Aren’t you embarrassed to bring friends up here?” Val was asking as Brianne watched from the window while Sasha climbed into the front seat of her orange Mustang and sped past the silver sports car idling down the street.
    “They don’t care about stuff like that.”
    “There are clothes all over the floor. This nice blouse,” Valsaid, bending down to scoop it up. “The one you
had
to have. The one you begged me to buy. And these shoes …”
    “Okay, okay, I get it. I’m a slob. I’ll clean it up.”
    “And these jeans. These three-hundred-dollar designer jeans.”
    “I was going to pack those.”
    “And this T-shirt …” Val stopped suddenly, turned the T-shirt over in her hands, the color quickly draining from her cheeks. “My God, what happened to this shirt?”
    “What are you talking about? Nothing happened.”
    “What is this? Is this blood?”
    Brianne tried grabbing the once white T-shirt from her mother’s hands. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “It looks like blood,” her mother said, sniffing at the large stains. “My God, what did you do? Did you fall? Did you cut yourself?”
    “No.” Brianne spun around. “See? No cuts. No bruises. I’m fine. Don’t be crazy. It’s not blood.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “I don’t know. I must have brushed up against something. Wet paint, maybe.”
    “Brianne …”
    “Did you know you have a visitor?” Brianne looked back out the window, hoping to distract her mother.
    “What? Who?” Valerie approached the window, stared down at the street below.
    Brianne used the moment to snatch the T-shirt from her mother’s hands. How could she have been so stupid to leave it lying around? First her BlackBerry. Now this. Her mother was right. She couldn’t afford to be so careless. “The silver sports car. Halfway down the street.” She watched her mother’s shoulders slump. “Is that who I think it is?”
    “Shit.”
    “What are we going to do?”
    “
You
are going to get dressed and then