Read Online Hush Hush by Laura Lippman - Free Book Online Page B

either at RPCS. But being Melisandre’s daughter—that had its advantages. Alanna got away with a lot. Leaving school in her car, for example. She’d be in a lot of trouble when she got caught, but her father would make a call and say whatever he said—Alanna’s so troubled, blah, blah, blah, let’s just get her to graduation whatever it takes and how about a big donation for the latest capital project—and the trouble would go away.
    Except the trouble never went away. And now her dad was double-dealing, pretending one thing to Ruby, telling Alanna something else. You’re old enough to handle the truth. Ruby isn’t . She could live to be ninety and she might not be old enough to handle the stuff her father had been laying on her.
    Why had she never made this particular drive before? She wasn’t a scaredy-cat suburban kid. She was a city kid, a real one, who had grown up in Bolton Hill. She could parallel-park, a skill she kept polished by visiting the old house, which she did all the time. Yet she had never before considered heading to the foot of the highway and making five simple turns toward her own past.
    But when she turned on Waterview Avenue and saw theboathouse—for the first time in her life, actually saw the place where everything had begun and everything had ended—she panicked. No, she couldn’t go down there, look at the water, that fucking tree. Instead of pulling into the parking lot, she drove on, blindly. Before she knew it, she was lost in a worn-down neighborhood of check-cashing stores and “lake trout” restaurants and what even Alanna could tell were drug corners. She drove slowly, looking for someone—a middle-aged woman or even a really old man would be okay—to ask for directions. She could feel the weight of strangers’ gazes. Not menacing, but definitely curious about the girl in the red Mercedes.
    She was about to pull over and activate the GPS in her phone when she heard a woop-woop and saw a whirl of red-and-blue lights. She hadn’t noticed the cop. If she had, she would have asked him for help. But surely she hadn’t been going over the speed limit? Had she failed to signal, run a stop sign?
    She offered her license and registration to the officer, giving him her best smile, but he was no Gilman boy.
    “What are you doing in this neighborhood, Miss Dawes?”
    “I got lost.”
    “Going where?”
    What business was it of his? Could police officers ask such questions? It was a free country, right? He should write the ticket and get on with it. But a ticket—no, she couldn’t afford a ticket. A ticket would tell her father where she had been today. She could get away with cutting school, leaving campus. But she didn’t want her father to know she had gone to the boathouse, that she was searching for answers to questions she wasn’t supposed to ask.
    “I—I—” She was too slow, she could not come up with a lie that sounded plausible. “Officer, the truth is, I wanted to see the place where my mother intended to kill me.”
    “Funny.”
    In all seriousness, without thinking how it sounded: “Do you know who I am? It’s right there on my license. Alanna Dawes. DAWES.”
    Perhaps the family name was not as well known as she thought.
    They impounded her car and took her to the Southern District police headquarters. Hours later, when her father came to get her at the station house, no charges were filed, and Alanna was elated to find out the cop thought she was just a stupid suburban kid, trying to score drugs; that was pretty cool in a way, and a better cover story for her dad—the officer apologized to her .
    “I just, you know, thought you were mouthing off,” he said. “I didn’t know—I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
    Felicia had driven Alanna’s father into town and he drove Alanna’s car back to their house, making threats all the way. He said she was going to be grounded, and she assumed she would—for three or four days, tops. Besides, she still needed