RaeAnne Thayne - Raeanne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One - Blackberry Summer

His mouth tightened even more. “I’m sorry, Claire. So damn sorry.”

The words seemed to vibrate through the room, much more intense than just casual sympathy for an injured acquaintance. She frowned and studied him more closely.

Through those signs of exhaustion, she saw something else. Something that looked oddly like guilt. “Why do you say it like that?”

He was silent for a moment. “Do you know what caused your accident?”

“Yes. I remember that much. Some joker coming down the canyon took a curve too fast for conditions and veered into my lane. I swerved away to avoid him and went off the road.”

“Right. That joker was a suspect trying to get away from me.”

She blinked, aware of the machines beeping and the low buzz of activity outside, probably doctors beginning their rounds.

“A suspect? In what?”

He sighed. “Burglary. Multiple burglaries.”

In all the craziness of the past few days, it had seemed natural to focus on the accident than on what had come before. “Of my store?”

“Yours and the others hit that night. I had a call about suspicious activity at a house that was supposed to be vacant. The suspect vehicle matched the description of the one seen outside the downtown businesses that were burglarized. I thought I could catch the suspects, maybe with stolen property. When I decided conditions weren’t ideal for pursuit, I pulled back but it was too late. They were already spooked. If I hadn’t been chasing him, that idiot Charlie Beaumont wouldn’t have come around that corner like a bat out of hell and you wouldn’t have had to swerve to avoid him and we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.”

She stared at him. “Charlie Beaumont?”

She pictured Genevieve’s younger brother, small for his age and cocky and, like Riley had been, often in trouble.

“He was driving?”

Riley nodded and something bleak and cold swept across his features.

Her brain didn’t seem to be working right. She couldn’t seem to make the connections click together. “You’re saying Charlie robbed my store and all the others in town?”

“He and…a few others.”

That bleakness sharpened and she again wondered what she was missing.

“That’s the theory we’re going with,” he went on. “So far the evidence seems to back it up. Charlie’s not talking on advice from his attorney.”

“Mayor Beaumont,” she guessed.

He nodded. “But we have confessions from a couple of the other teens involved and they’ve led us to some of the stolen items.”

“There must be a mistake. I know Charlie has had some trouble, but this is…crazy.”

“No mistake,” he said.

“But the Beaumonts are rolling in money. Why would Charlie need to take a computer and some spare change from my till? Why would he destroy his sister’s wedding dress?”

“Who knows? The thrill of it, maybe? Whatever the reason, Charlie and the others are in serious, serious trouble. I’m sorry you were tangled up in it. One of those wrong place, wrong time kind of things.”

She thought of the weird confluence of events that had led her to the canyon at that moment, of Jordie’s parents falling ill, of her spontaneous offer to take him home from the Spring Fling, of the late-spring snowstorm that hit so fast and so hard.

“You probably thought Hope’s Crossing would be tame compared to what you left in Oakland.”

His jaw tightened. “I certainly didn’t expect this.”

“Okay,” she finally said, exasperated with all the layers of subtext that seemed more treacherous than the imaginary tendrils of seaweed in her nightmares. “What aren’t you and everyone else telling me?”

His features turned wary. “Why would you think I’m keeping something from you?”

“I have two children, Riley. I’ve got a built-in lie detector. It’s part of the mom job description.”

He looked surprised. Good. That was better than that bleak sadness in his eyes. “You’re comparing the behavior of your two children trying to get out of trouble to a cop who spent the last five years undercover, lying to keep from being stabbed in his sleep?”

She didn’t like thinking about his life before he came home, but that still didn’t keep her from picking up on his tactics. “My children also seem to think that if they distract me by changing the subject, I’ll forget my train of thought. What aren’t you telling me?”

He studied her for a long moment and then released a long, slow breath and looked away. “After he ran you off the road, Charlie Beaumont crashed his pickup a little way down the canyon. Rolled it and hit the trees.”

She gasped and the movement hurt her head. “Oh, no. Tell me everyone is okay.”

He didn’t answer and she shifted on the bed, pulling the blankets higher against the sudden chill.

“They’re not okay,” she said when his silence stretched on and she didn’t need to see the confirmation in his eyes to know she was right.

“A few of them had only minor injuries.”

“But?”

For a long moment, she didn’t think he would answer her. When he did, his voice was weary and his eyes held a deep sorrow. “Two girls were thrown from the vehicle. One sustained severe head trauma and had to be airlifted to the children’s hospital in Denver. And…another one didn’t make it.”

Claire’s hand clenched convulsively on the blanket. How could she lie here feeling sorry for herself, worrying about her store—about her vanity for heaven’s sake—when a mother somewhere had lost a child?

“Who?” she whispered.

“You don’t need to worry about this, Claire. You just need to focus on yourself.”

“Who?” she demanded more forcefully.

He sighed. “Taryn Thorne is the girl with the head injuries.”

“Oh, poor Katherine!”

Her friend adored her only granddaughter, fifteen and slender and turning into a beauty with her big dark eyes and long dark hair.

Taryn sometimes came into the store. Just the week before, Claire had helped her make a pair of custom earrings for a school dance.

What was Katherine going through? Claire suddenly hated that she couldn’t help her friend through this, that she was stuck here in a stupid hospital bed instead of offering solace and aid to Katherine when she needed it.

“And the other girl?” she finally asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Riley didn’t answer for a long time, that bleakness turning his eyes a wintry green.

“You don’t need to worry about this right now.”

“Stop saying that. Tell me. Please, Riley.”

He finally spoke in a voice so low that she almost didn’t hear him. “Layla.”

When the name finally registered, icy disbelief crackled through her. Layla. Maura’s daughter. Riley and Alex’s niece. Mary Ella’s granddaughter.

Layla, who had worked in her store sometimes in exchange for beads to make the funky Goth jewelry she adored.

“No. Oh, no. Oh, poor Maura.”

Her throat was heavy and tears spilled over and she was only vaguely aware of Riley reaching for her uncasted hand.

“I shouldn’t have told you. I’m sorry, Claire. You need your strength to recover, not to worry about Maura and the rest of us left to grieve with her.”

She wept then, noisy, painful tears that clogged her throat and burned her eyes and hurt her heart. Through it all, Riley held her hand in both of his, looking tortured. She wanted him to hug her as he’d done that day in the store, but she knew he couldn’t, not with her casted arm awkward and heavy between them.

He handed her the box of tissues and she must have used half of them before the storm of tears gave way to a deep, primal ache.

“How is your family?” she finally asked.