Page 24 of A River of Crows

“Mom won’t let me. Not two nights in a row. I don’t see why it matters. Not like she notices when I’m there.”

Noah didn’t appear to be listening. His eyes passed Sloan to a petite woman with strawberry blonde hair standing outside her car, staring at them.

“A reporter,” Sloan said. She could smell them now. “Wait here.” Sloan stomped over to the car. “You can’t be here!” She made her voice boom. “What station do you work for?”

The woman’s brows crinkled. “I’m not a reporter.” Her voice was polished with a hint of a Southern drawl.

“Who are you then? Why are you staring?” Sloan asked.

“Your father asked me to come.”

Sloan swallowed hard. “He what?”

The woman rubbed at her arms as if she were cold. “Jay made a lot of mistakes, but he loved Ridge; he loves you.”

Sloan noticed a little girl in the backseat changing the tape in her Walkman. She looked like a first or second grader, but Sloan had never seen her at Golden Oak Elementary. And with the poofy red hair, she’d be hard to miss. Sloan turned her attention back to the woman. “How do you know my dad?”

“It’s best you ask your mom if she’ll take you to visit,” the woman said, rifling through her purse. “But if she says no, here’s my number.” She handed Sloan a folded piece of paper.

“Sloan, come on!” Noah yelled, running toward the bus lane. “They’ll leave without us!”

“Think about it,” the stranger said. “Think about seeing your dad. You have every right not to, but you can’t imagine how sorry he is.”

Sloan took the paper. “I need to go, or I’ll miss the bus.”

The woman smoothed down her dress. “I’m sorry. I can drive you home.”

Sloan looked into the backseat. The red-headed girl made eye contact and lifted her hand in a wave.

Who were these strange people? Friends of her father’s or not, there was no way Sloan was getting into the car. She sprinted for the bus, making it just in time.

“What the heck, Lo? Who was that?” Noah asked as she plopped in the thinly padded seat beside him.

While Sloan caught her breath, she glanced out the bus window. The woman was still standing there, still watching her.

“And what is that?” Noah pointed to the paper in Sloan’s hand.

“Nothing.” Sloan wadded the phone number into a ball and shoved it into her backpack. “Just another reporter trying to get a story.”

Chapter 9

Mallowater, TX, 2008

Three days later, Sloan still couldn’t shake her phone call with Felicity. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, a million questions jostling in her brain. Had Felicity already met with Dylan Lawrence? Did she learn anything about the crimes of Eddie Daughtry that could make him a suspect in Ridge’s disappearance? Would she even call Sloan if she had?

Sloan pushed the covers off and turned on the bedside lamp. Her copy of the final Harry Potter book sat on her nightstand, dogeared at chapter twelve. She just hadn’t been in the mood for magic since being home. But that was okay. She had one more piece of reading material tucked away in the bottom drawer of her nightstand.

Sloan had taken little from the house when she and Liam split up, packing only the necessities and burning the rest in an epic backyard bonfire. Well, not everything. She’d kept the Keith Whitley tape, the 4X6 picture of her once happy family, and the People magazine article from 2000. Each of these items made her feel like shit. They should have been the first to burn, but she couldn’t toss them into the flames. That would be like letting go of a part of herself. It was as if each item were a Horcrux in which she’d hidden a fragment of her soul. Destroy them, and what would be left of her?

Sloan opened the bottom drawer and stared at the magazine’s cover. The picture still punched her in the gut, just as it had eight years ago in that checkout line. She was still a newlywed in 2000, with a nice house and a handsome husband who loved her. She’d worked so hard to bury her past, but there it was, rising up from the magazine display like a four-headed- snake.

Sloan had grabbed the magazine and slammed it face down on the conveyor belt. Her heart was racing, and her hands were sweaty as the cashier took her time swiping each item. People had reached out to Sloan for an interview. She turned them down. She’d turned down every interview request, and so had they. What had changed their minds? Money, she figured.

Sloan had sat in her car for half an hour reading every word of the five-page spread. She knew she should be used to making headlines. Her family had been tabloid fodder before. But now the story was old news, or it had been before this hit the shelves.

Sloan hated remembering that day at the grocery store, but here she was again tonight, clenching that same magazine in her hand, staring at Anna, Brad, Kyle, and Felicity on the cover.

Anna wore a plain white dress and sat, prim and proper, on a chair. Khaki-clad Brad and Kyle stood behind her, strong hands on their mother’s delicate shoulders. And sitting on the ground in front of Anna’s chair was Felicity, looking underdressed in her floral tank top, flared jeans, and chunky platforms. Her hair was burnished copper in the photo, not the clown wig red Sloan remembered when she was a girl. Her bangs were pulled back with butterfly clips, like she’d just stepped out of a Delila’s catalog. None of them were smiling.

---