Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot) (22 page)

“Sheriff,” I called over my shoulder, “I think I’m going to have to handle this one on my own.”

“I don’t like it,” he said.

Neither did I, but I wouldn’t say so in front of David.
Show no weakness
. “I can handle it.” With that, I let the door slide closed behind me and stepped further into the store.

“You’re walking into the lion’s den, you know,” David McClellan said. “Do you think you can get out?”

“I’m sure of it,” I said, “I just came to ask a few questions. There was a report of a gold locket having been stolen.”

“Why should I talk to you?” He shrugged. “Last year when you came poking around I couldn’t hurt you because you were under your parents’ protection. That doesn’t seem to be true anymore, so if I were you, I’d watch my step.”

What a jerk. “I’m trying to help you.”

David laughed. “I don’t need help from someone like you. If anything, it’s the other way around. How about it, Cassie, are you in the market for a new protector? Rumor had it that Evan Blackwood took an interest, but since he would never have let you come here alone, my sources must have been mistaken.”

This was getting me nowhere, so instead of asking him further questions, I went to peer inside his jewelry case to see what kinds of gold lockets he sold. There were nearly a dozen in a display case near the back wall, each claiming to be able to do something extraordinary: protection, herbalism, minor healing, and magical detection, just to name a few. There were no prices.

“I guess if you have to ask, you can’t afford them?” I said.

“Usually,” David said, “but I’m open to accepting trades.” When I glanced up at him, I saw his eyes roam the length of my body.

I turned away, disgusted, but I couldn’t deny that the objects in that case intrigued me. “Can anyone use these?”

“Mostly, yes. That’s why I don’t let certain people inside in the first place.” He looked at the door, where the sheriff still stood, an anxious expression on his face.

“I see.” I swallowed, backing up a step. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you alone.”

David withdrew a key from his pocket and unlocked the case to the lockets I’d been admiring. “Wait, don’t go yet. You are interested in these, aren’t you?”

“No.” The lie may have slipped easily to my lips, but neither of us were fooled.

He withdrew one of the magical detection lockets and held the heart-shaped pendant between his thumb and forefinger. For a second, he smiled, the taunting grin sending shivers down my spine as he held the locket out for me to inspect.

I reached for it. My fingers nearly touched the locket when he suddenly snatched it away, a scowl replacing his grin. I blinked in confusion.

“Damn wards,” David muttered. “I guess Evan really has staked his claim. Go on, get out of here.”

I didn’t make him tell me twice. As I fled from the shop, I realized what he’d said. Evan had put some kind of ward on me, apparently for protection.

So much for proving that I could handle practitioners on my own. Scott may have stood outside, but Evan had been inside with me all along.

T
O SAY THAT KAITLIN DOESN’T HAVE
good taste in men is an understatement. I think there’s something in her past that she hasn’t been willing to share, even though we mostly share everything. Whatever it is, I haven’t pushed her. When she’s ready, she’ll tell me.

As far as I know, her first boyfriend was Jeff Conway, who she saw off and on during our freshman year of high school. That year she sometimes came to school with a black eye. We didn’t really become friends until later in the year, after we both made the cheerleading team. Sometime that spring, I got up the nerve to get real with her.

“Is your boyfriend beating you up?” I asked, bluntly.

“What?” Kaitlin looked ready to bolt.

“You have black eyes all the time,” I told her. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

“Oh that, it’s just–”

“Don’t even try to lie. I’ll know.” I used my mysterious background to full effect when I said that. I still hadn’t really told anyone that I had no magic, though rumors were flying by that point. When I made my voice ominous, I could still convince people to doubt the rumors.

“It was just a few times,” Kaitlin said. “He gets jealous when I look at other guys. And I do look at other guys.”

That was true. Kaitlin was a notorious flirt. But that didn’t give anyone the right to hit her. “You don’t deserve to be hit.”

She looked up at me with tears shining in her eyes. “I-I don’t know. He can be very sweet and–”

“You don’t deserve to be hit,” I repeated, more firmly.

“I tried to break up with him,” Kaitlin admitted. “He got mad and hit me.”

At that, I lifted my eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder what Jeff will think of painful boils,” I said.

She gave me a strange half-grimace. “Um, are you serious?”

Oh yes. I was serious. But I only smiled mysteriously and walked away.

The next day, I brought the potion to school with me. Boils are one of many potions that require only knowledge, not magic, to produce. So I brewed it myself, put it in an empty soda bottle, and headed off to confront my prey. I found him before school, eating breakfast with Kaitlin. He had his hands around her – on her – in entirely inappropriate ways and his stare defied anyone to approach. No wonder Kaitlin had been having trouble keeping friends this year.

“Jeff, I need a moment,” I told him.

“What?” he said.

“Alone.” I didn’t want to splash the potion on Kaitlin.

He stood and moved a few feet away, then he turned and asked, “Well?”

I already had the bottle open. I tossed the contents at him, covering his hair, head, and chest.

“What the–?” Jeff let out an expletive and danced away from me.

“Leave Kaitlin alone,” I hissed. “If she says good-bye, she means it.”

“What do you care?” Jeff asked. I could see the boils beginning to bubble up on his face. He winced, raising his hands to investigate the boils.

A few people in the cafeteria were staring, but I ignored them.

“She’s my friend,” I said. “You may want to stay home for a few days.”

His eyes were beginning to swell shut. With dawning horror, he made a run for the bathroom, but he wouldn’t be able to wash the boils off. It would take days for them to heal unless he knew an antidote, which I doubted.

I didn’t cure Kaitlin of her bad taste in men that day. She stayed away from physical abuse, but she kept stumbling into relationships with cheaters and emotionally unavailable men. I wished I could protect her from all of them. In the end, I couldn’t even protect her from the heartache of a one-night-stand with my cousin, Jason.

* * *

Evan called that evening long enough to say that he and his father were in Texarkana, and would probably be heading into Texas tomorrow. They still had Mackenzie’s trail, or so he claimed (I was beginning to doubt it). I wanted to ask him about the ward he had put on me, but I could tell from his voice that he was exhausted, so I left it alone.

Worries kept me from easily falling asleep that night. Why hadn’t Evan found Mackenzie yet? And why was he so exhausted? I needed to have a longer conversation with him in the morning, when we were both rested.

Then there was Kaitlin. She had gone to work, so she couldn’t be very sick, could she?

I could not make myself fall asleep until I found my quiet place, pushing my concerns aside so my mind could rest.

I woke the next morning to the sound of retching coming from the bathroom.

I quickly climbed out of my makeshift bed and put on a bathrobe. “Are you okay?” I asked through the bathroom door.

“Fine,” Kaitlin said weakly.

I knew she shouldn’t have gone in to work the day before. “Kaitlin, you don’t sound fine. Please tell me you’re not going to work today.” She didn’t usually work on Saturdays, but lately she had been picking up extra shifts. Since I’d moved in, I thought guiltily, due to the expense of the added groceries.

“I have to,” Kaitlin said. “Dinner was especially slow last night, and I need to at least pick up a lunch shift today.”

“No,” I told her firmly. “I forbid it.”

Kaitlin came out of the bathroom, blonde hair hanging limply around her pale face. “You
forbid
it?”

“You look awful. You’ll probably feel better if you just rest for the day, and I know an herbal concoction or two.”

“I-don’t know. I’m not sure if I’m sick or not.”

I stared at her blankly. “You were just hanging over the toilet but you’re not sure if you’re sick?”

She closed her eyes and turned away from me. “The thing is. I’m also late.”

“For what?”

She looked back at me, somewhat exasperated. “Aunt Flo is late.”

I sucked in my breath, sudden understanding dawning. “Oh.” After that, words utterly failed me.

“And before you say anything, I was on the Pill. I haven’t missed a single pill in five years. I even take the placebo pills just to make sure I don’t miss a day.”

I hadn’t been about to question her on her birth control efforts, since that part wasn’t really any of my business. I may have wondered, but she didn’t need judgment from me right now. She needed the kind of friendship she had offered to me three weeks ago when I’d gotten into trouble and she’d welcomed me into her home.

Right around the time she’d slept with my cousin. “Um, so have you taken a pregnancy test?”

She shook her head and sank onto a bean bag chair. “I’m afraid to. If I don’t take the test, then it might not be true, but if I take it...”

“If you take it, you’ll have nine months to prepare. It’s not like the test is going to make you pregnant.”

She sighed, but didn’t answer.

I walked into the living room and took the bean bag next to her. “Would it make it easier if I bought the test for you?”

“Would you?” Kaitlin asked.

“Absolutely. I’ll be back in an hour.”

* * *

Normally, I’m not shy about making purchases of a certain personal nature. I’ve seen girls hide packages of tampons underneath a pile of other items, as if the cashier won’t notice them amidst the clutter. I saw a girl turn around and leave one time when there were no female cashiers available to check her out.

But a pregnancy test isn’t exactly like a box of tampons. In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite. And let’s face it – Eagle Rock is a small town. It wasn’t just that people talked in a small town, it was more that people tended to visit the Wal-Mart on a Saturday morning in a small town.

Lots of people.

So for once, I found myself taking my shopping basket up and down several aisles, choosing groceries almost at random to pile on top of the pregnancy test. Only then did I head to the pharmacy.

I had tunnel vision as I made my way past the drugs and herbs to the shelf in the back which offered a selection of condoms and, beneath those, pregnancy tests. Maybe I figured if I didn’t see anyone else, they wouldn’t see me, but life isn’t that kind. Most unfortunately, someone did see me, and it was the last person I wanted to see at Wal-Mart when I was trying to decide which pregnancy test to buy.

It was my father. Or the man who had been my father, up until a few weeks ago.

He had been stocking up on a few common herbs when he’d seen me walk past. He caught up with me as I tried to work out the difference between the high-cost name brand tests that promised “results as early as three days before your missed period,” and cheaper off-brand tests that pretty much made the same claims, but without the flashy packaging.

“Cassandra.”

Yelping, I spun and dropped both boxes. For a minute, I forgot that I hated him, forgot that I wasn’t speaking to him, and forgot that I didn’t owe him any explanations. My words came out, tripping over one another in their desperation to be heard and understood. “It’s not for me, it’s for Kaitlin. She’s – well, she asked me to help her and I...” I realized what I was saying, and stopped trying to justify myself.

My father looked from me to the boxes on the floor, then up again. His face slowly drained of color.

I reached down to grab the boxes and shove them in my basket.

“It’s not too late,” he said. “Did your brother tell you we wanted you to move back in with us? I thought it might come easier from him.”

“Yeah, he told me.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this, with the whole town learning about it within weeks and the Blackwoods...” He trailed off, his eyes glued to my abdomen, as if looking for telltale signs.

“I’m not pregnant,” I said, not sure why I bothered to try to put him at ease.

“Your mother is sick.”

“So?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. I was just trying to protect my family.”

“You told me that. You wanted to protect your family so badly, you practically threw me at Evan.”