Read The Girls She Left Behind for Free Online

ride along, Lizzie knew, and she’d probably have accepted. Now, though, his gaze met hers communicatively:
What the hell are you still doing with this joker, anyway?
    It was a good question, one that she’d also been known to ask herself. And she didn’t have a decent answer for either one of them.
    “Nice seeing you again,” Dylan said stiffly as Trey turned to go.
    Damn,
she thought again as his sturdy frame bulked in the truck’s dashboard glow. But she didn’t know what she could have done differently about this and anyway it was too late, she knew, as Trey pulled away with his truck’s big tires spewing slush.
    Outside, Dylan walked with her to her vehicle, him clomping in his old-fashioned black rubber galoshes while she picked her way cautiously, not wanting to wreck her boots. The night’s sleet-washed air tasted good, cleansed for the moment of the stench of burning, not like Boston, where the air was full of exhaust fumes year-round.
    “Trey is not,” she said firmly, “a farmer.”
    Dylan shrugged. “Hey, he works with farm animals. Goes home with manure on his boots. No difference.”
    She beeped open the Blazer’s doors, having not yet gotten out of the Boston habit of locking everything she couldn’t nail shut. People around here left their cars running, keys hanging in the ignition, even, when they went into the store.
    “He’s been a good friend. I don’t,” she added, glancing back at her office once more, “let him bad-mouth you, either.”
    The office phone’s light was still stubbornly not blinking.
Tara Wylie, where the hell are you?
Lizzie wondered.
And why do I have such a bad feeling about you?
    “Sure,” Dylan replied skeptically, as down the block a small movement caught Lizzie’s eye.
    It was the woman who’d passed by her window minutes earlier, ducking fast back into a doorway. And that
was
the same as it had been in Boston: the quick glance, the indecisive lingering.
    “You go on,” she told Dylan. The topcoat he wore, she was acutely aware, was the same one she used to bury her face in each time they parted.
    “Go on, now,” she repeated, “somebody wants to talk to me.”
    Starting back toward her office, she couldn’t help feeling a familiar quiver of anticipation. Here in Bearkill she might not see quite the same high level of criminal romping and stomping as she’d been accustomed to back in the city. She might not need her weapon as often up here, either, and even the standard tan deputy sheriff’s uniform was mostly optional, much to her relief.
    But she was still a cop. “Lizzie,” Dylan called after her. “Lookin’ good.”
    “Yeah, sure.” She caught her own reflection in the window: short, spiky black hair, smoky eye makeup expertly applied, red lipstick. It was not at all a style that was common around here—switchblade-slim, emphatically female, and with a tight, nervy way of moving that suggested she would deck you, no problem, if you gave her half an excuse.
    She carried herself, as she was perfectly well aware, as if begging for a fight. But that suited her, too.
Because let’s face it, most of the time, I am.
    Inside, she switched the lights back on, noting that Dylan had left his black-and-white-striped scarf on the coat tree and that there were still no calls, then turned to the visitor who’d followed her silently in.
    Late twenties or early thirties, five foot four and a hundred pounds or so, short dark hair, dark eyes, and pale complexion. Both hands were visible, Lizzie noted automatically, even though it was already clear there was nothing threatening about the woman. Her face was a little too thin and her nose too bony, with high, sharp cheekbones and a too-wide mouth. But her plainness was the kind that came almost all the way around to beauty again: simple, serene.
    Only right now she looked grim.
Like she’s getting ready to face the music. Like she’s done something bad.
    Which didn’t seem likely, either: that face, those