Page 19 of Found By You
Standing there was Bill Hanks, another cop who had been assigned this duty. He was in his mid-fifties, and his usual expression made it look like the past couple years had soured him against people in general. It was how most cops looked, really.
“How’s it going, Bill?”
He grunted. “Great, if you want to babysit.”
I nodded and sipped on my water. “Well, I’ll take a quiet night, that’s for sure.”
Bill turned to me. “The woman from the car wreck still in town?”
Of course he knew. Everyone knew about Sky. “For the time being.” I didn’t want to give him the whole story, because I was suspicious of everyone right now.
He nodded. “Do you think she’s in trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
Bill stared me in the eye. “I heard she’s staying with you.”
In response, I said nothing. I didn’t feel like everyone in town should know about that. But why wouldn’t they? This was Refuge Falls.
He grunted again. “Just be careful. That’s all I have to say.”
I hesitated. “What do you mean? I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about.”
“You should just be careful. It’s such a suspicious situation. And how do you know that she really doesn’t remember anything?”
I was mystified by this. “What, you think she’s faking?”
“She could be agrifter. She could be trying to get in people’s good graces for a reason. You never know. Haven’t you learned that from being a cop? Don’t trust people.”
There was some kind of dispute happening across the gym. People were yelling; I recognized the two offenders—two brothers with a girl in the middle. That’s usually how those things happened.
Bill stood and stalked off to intervene. “I’ll go check on that.”
On impulse, I pulled out my phone and called Kayla.
She answered with a light laugh. “We are fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Unrest settled in the pit of my gut. “I know, but this town talks,” I said quietly. “Why don’t you head to Mom and Dad’s? It’s a little bit safer there.”
Kayla didn’t speak for a minute. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I get. Everyone knows everything. Just go to Mom and Dad’s. They have good security.”
“Okay. We’ll head that way.”
Chapter 8
Sky
I was confused as to why Kayla was moving me from her house. She told me we were going to their parents’ house, which I knew was currently empty. She had seemed a little bit uneasy, though previously we’d been laughing and joking and popping popcorn, and I’d sort of felt normal—at least as normal as a person could feel when they didn’t know anything about themselves. Yet now, as we got in the car and headed back towards the lake, past the road that we would turn on to go to McCrae’s house, I felt the tension return.
We climbed up a hillside and eventually arrived at a gate. Kayla typed in a code and the gate opened. I could see a large beautiful, home with exposed wooden beams and large windows.
“Wow,” I said, feeling a bit of my breath go out of me. The home stood majestically against the backdrop of tall pines, with flower boxes under the windows.
She smiled. “My parents have lived here a long time. My dad actually won this land in a poker game, and then he got into developing land and buying land.”
I suddenly understood. “That’s why you’re the realtor.”
