Erica Spindler - Shocking Pink

“Gross,” Julie said, screwing up her face. “I sure wouldn’t do that for anybody.”

“No kidding.” Raven looked thoughtful. “What do we do now? We could drop it, but it was just so weird … so wrong.”

“Do you think …” Andie hesitated a moment, knowing what she was about to suggest was far-fetched, but feeling as if she had to say it. “I know that the woman … that she showed up alone and all, but do you think she could have been … that maybe she wasn’t there of her own free will?”

Julie widened her eyes. “What do you mean, like she was kidnapped?”

“Or being blackmailed.”

The other two said nothing, just gazed at Andie, their expressions troubled.

“I don’t know,” Julie murmured after a moment, her cheeks pink. “Maybe. But why would she do that? What could be so bad that she would get in a car and drive someplace she didn’t want to be and do something like that? ”

“Something really bad,” Raven answered softly. “Life-and-death.”

Andie glanced down at her hands, realizing that she had them clasped in front of her so tightly her knuckles stood out white in the darkness. She lifted her gaze to her friends’, suddenly thinking of something that hadn’t occurred to her before. “Guys? Why two scarves?”

The question landed heavily between the girls. They looked at each other.

“He brought two,” Andie prodded. “Remember?”

For a moment nobody said a thing, they didn’t even seem to breathe. Julie jumped as a creature scurried in the branches above them, then she rubbed her arms, as if chilled.

Raven swore softly. “This guy’s a freak. We can’t let it go. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on. Agreed?”

Julie hesitated, then nodded. “I’m with you, Rave. We can’t let it go.”

They turned to her. Andie squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could stop thinking about the woman, about what she had seen. Wishing she could go back to an hour before she had peeked through that window. If she could, she wouldn’t look through it.

But she couldn’t go back, as much as she longed to.

Releasing a breath she hadn’t even realized she held, she inclined her head. “Agreed.”

Raven sat in her dark kitchen, awaiting her father’s return. She waited up for him even though it was nearly 1:00 a.m., because he expected it, expected it from a daughter to whom her father, her family, was everything.

Absolute loyalty. Complete devotion. Those were the things that mattered.

She hated his guts.

Raven brought a hand to her right temple and massaged the spot, the tiny fist of pain that had settled there. She had headaches often, some blinding in their intensity, but she had learned to live with them. They were a part of her life, of who she was, just as the scar that curved down her right cheek was.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose, the events of the night, the events she and her friends had witnessed, whirling in her head. Something important had happened tonight. Something important to her, though she didn’t know why she was so certain of that.

Her exhilaration, her excitement, hadn’t been sexual. She had been spellbound, but not by the woman and what she had been doing. By him, the man.

Raven rested her head against the chair’s high back. Who was he? she wondered. What gave him such power over that woman?

And why couldn’t she put him out of her head?

She hadn’t been able to since that first night, when they’d all been in the house together. Contrary to what she’d told Andie, she had screwed up her courage and peeked around the corner from her hiding place—and seen his face. He had the features of a hawk, she thought, picturing him, all sharp angles and intense. He was older, not like her dad, but older than any of the guys she knew, probably in his twenties.

Raven frowned and rubbed her temple again, guilt plucking at her. She didn’t know why she had lied to her friends, she hadn’t planned to. The words, the lie, had simply slipped past her lips.

Andie and Julie were her best friends. They were her family. It was wrong to have lied to them. She had never kept anything from them.

Until now. Until this.

It was for their own good, she told herself. She was protecting them. The way a parent did a child.

But protecting them from what? she wondered. From who?

Raven thought of the man again. He knew many secrets, she was certain of it. Secrets that gave him power—over other people, over life and death. Tonight had been proof of that.

She wanted to learn his secrets.

From outside she heard the sound of a car door slamming. Her father. She straightened and turned toward the kitchen door, pasting on an expectant and welcoming smile.

The door opened. Her father stepped through.

“Hi, Daddy. How was your date?”

“Raven, honey.” He beamed at her. “You waited up.”

“Of course I did.” She smiled and stood. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you a cup of sleepy-time tea.”

“Thanks, honey. That sounds good.”

He took a seat and she busied herself putting on the kettle and getting out the mugs and tea. “So,” she asked, her back to him, “how was it? Do you like her?”

“It was good. She’s a nice woman. Did you like her?”

Raven didn’t turn. She feared he would read in her eyes what she really thought—that he was a son of a bitch and she wished he was dead. “Yes, Daddy,” she said. “She did seem very nice.”

For a moment he was silent. She sensed his gaze on her back, sensed him assessing her every movement, her every word and its inflection. She had played this game with him so long it had become second nature, yet still she lived in fear that he might someday see through her.

And then she might end up as her mother had, trying to run away in the dead of night.

He cleared his throat. “I know what you’re thinking, Raven,” he said softly. “You can’t hide your thoughts from me.”

Her fingers froze on the tea bags, and she forced a stiff laugh. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. Look at me, please.”

Schooling her features to what she hoped portrayed a look of innocence, she did as he asked, turning slowly to face him.

“I know what you’re worried about,” he said. “You’re worried I’ll get involved with Marion and things will change.”

“No, I’m not.” She shook her head. “Really, Dad.”

He frowned. “You know I like you to call me Daddy.”

“I’m sorry.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “Thank you for reminding me.”

He stood and crossed to her. He caught her hands, and gooseflesh raced up her arms. She walked a very fine line with him, she knew. If he ever discovered her disloyalty, if he ever even suspected it, he would take care of her. The way he had taken care of her mother.

She swallowed her fear. That wasn’t going to happen. She wouldn’t allow it to happen.

She was smarter than he was.

He squeezed her fingers and looked her straight in the eyes, demanding that she do the same. “You’re worried it will be the way it was with your mother. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” she lied. “Maybe I’m a little worried about that.”

He smiled tenderly, and she wanted to retch. “It won’t be that way, sweetheart. I promise you. Marion’s not the way your mother was. She’s loyal. And honest.” His eyes filled with tears. “I loved your mother more than anything, Raven. It broke my heart when she left us. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she whispered, understanding that he had loved her mother that much. Love, it seemed, took many forms. “I know that.”