Read Online Exposure by Susan Andersen - Free Book Online

feel.' " Hugging herself, she stared up at her husband. "I didn't get that poor-Clare-we'd-better-walk-on-eggshells-around-her look, or the 'There, there, I know just how you feel' speech, or the burst of whispers after I've walked away. I mean, I'm an adult, I know not everybody acts like that. But sometimes it feels like it. She's so refreshing, Sam. I like it that she doesn't know everything there is to know about me. I like it that she hasn't already heard my entire life history through the ever-efficient, ever-biased grapevine."
    She arose and crossed to the stove to pour herself some coffee. Holding the mug in both hands, she turned to face her silent husband. "Most of the time I really love Port Flannery, and I do realize that small towns like this have a lot of positive things to say for themselves," she said. "But the lack of privacy is a drawback, Sam. It's a definite drawback."
    * * * * *
    The lack of privacy on this island is a pain in the ass. Elvis dwelled on the thought more than once as he went about his business. It seemed to him that everybody and his brother had heard about Emma Sands and just had to know more. What did they think he was, her personal chamber of commerce?
    In the morning he pulled Evert Dowdy over for speeding. Evert sat in his pickup truck working a plug of chewing tobacco between his cheek and gum while Elvis wrote up the ticket.
    "Goddam cops," he grumbled. "Why don'tcha spend your time arrestin' real criminals? Go bust a couple a dope-heads. Wouldn't that make a nice change of pace from costin' law-abidin' citizens their hard-earned wages?"
    Elvis refused to respond, but he did raise his head to pin the older man in place with a level look. Evert shifted uncomfortably. Deciding a change of subject would perhaps be prudent, he said in a slightly friendlier tone, "Heard tell there's a new woman in town name of Sands."
    "Uh-huh." Elvis handed the ticket book through the window. "Sign here, sir."
    Evert signed but didn't immediately pass the book back out. "So's it true what I heard, that she's some kinda ace mechanic?"
    "Yeah. She knows her stuff all right."
    "And she backed ol' Bill down over a piece of carbon on the piston?"
    "Yep."
    "If that don't beat all." Evert let fly with a stream of tobacco juice, expertly aimed out the window for the most distance with the least amount of fuss. He handed back the ticket book. "So," he demanded.
    "Ya reckon she's a dyke?"
    Elvis snorted. Tearing out Dowdy's copy of the ticket, he passed it to the man. "You haven't met Mrs. Sands yet, I take it."
    "Nah."
    "Trust me. A lesbian she's not."
    "Humph." Evert worked his chaw. "I guess I did hear she's got herself a kid."
    * * * * *
    In the afternoon Elvis knocked on the door of a neatly tended but run-down house out in his old neck of the woods. The woman who answered his summons was probably in her mid forties. She looked older.
    "Afternoon, ma'am," he said. "I'm Sheriff Donnelly. You're Mrs. Steadman, aren't you?"
    "Oh, dear God." Color drained from her face and she grasped the doorframe with white knuckled hands. "Is it one of my boys?"
    "No, ma'am, it's okay," he hastily assured her. "As far as I know your kids are just fine." Watching her sag against the doorframe, Elvis added contritely, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Steadman, it wasn't my intention to frighten you." Relieved to see the color return to her cheeks, lie gently informed her, "I'm here about the trash I found tossed over a bank. Off Emerson Road out by the old Bailey place."
    The look she directed at him suggested he'd lost his wits. "What on earth has that got to do with me?"
    Elvis handed her the old issue of Good Housekeeping he'd found among the garbage. "I found this smack-dab in the middle of it, ma'am."
    She pulled her gaze away from the scar on his cheek and looked down at the magazine in her hand. On the front cover, faded but clearly marked, was an address label bearing her name. "What on earth . . . ?" Then she snapped upright. "Damn