Linda Lael - Holiday In Stone Creek

The only message was from Ashley. “Where were you?” her younger sister demanded. “Today was Thanksgiving!”

Olivia sighed, waited out the diatribe, then hit the bullet and pressed the eight key twice to connect with Ashley.

“Mountain View Bed-and-Breakfast,” Ashley answered tersely. She already knew who was calling, then. Hence the tone.

“Any openings?” Olivia asked, hoping to introduce a light note.

Ashley wasn’t biting. She repeated her voice mail message, almost verbatim, ending with another “Where were you?”

“There was an emergency,” Olivia said. What else could she say? I was in bed with Tanner Quinn and I had myself a hell of a fine time, thank you very much.

Suspicion, tempered by the knowledge that emergencies were a way of life with Olivia. “What kind of emergency?”

Olivia sighed. “You don’t want to know,” she said. It was true, after all. Ashley was a normal, healthy woman, but that didn’t mean she’d want a blow-by-blow description—so to speak—of what she and Tanner had done in his bed.

“Another cow appendectomy?” Ashley asked, half sarcastic, half uncertain.

“A clandestine operation,” she said, remembering the black helicopter. That would give the local conspiracy theorists something to chew on for a while, if they’d seen it.

“Really? There was an operation?”

Tanner was certainly an operator, Olivia thought, so she said yes.

“And here I thought you were probably having sex with that contractor Brad hired to build the shelter,” Ashley said with an exasperated little sigh.

Olivia swallowed a giggle. Spoke seriously. “Ashley O’Ballivan, why would you think a thing like that?”

“Because I saw you leave with him,” Ashley answered. Her tone turned huffy again. “I wanted to tell Brad and Melissa that I’ve decided to look for Mom,” she complained. “And I couldn’t do it without you there.”

Olivia sobered. “Pretty heavy stuff, when Brad and Meg had a houseful of guests, wouldn’t you say?”

Ashley went quiet again.

“Ash?” Olivia prompted. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“So why the sudden silence?”

Another pause. A long one that gave Olivia plenty of time to worry. Then, finally, the bomb dropped. “I think I’ve already found her.”

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