Read Online The Broken Lake by Shelena Shorts - Free Book Online Page B

when my mother freaked out over the incident. By morning, she was actually considering moving. I had no choice but to fully engage in the conversation because she waited until I sat at the breakfast table with a bowl of cereal. No quick escape.
    “You know, Sophie,” she began, “I’m not sure living in this area suits us anymore.”
    “What? Are you kidding, Mom?”
    “Well, no. Think about it. Danger never followed you like it seems to be doing since we moved here.”
    “Danger did not follow me. Ms. Mary is the one dead, remember? It followed her to her house. Not to mine.”
    “But, Sophie, how many young girls your age can say they almost…” She elected not to finish that sentence. Instead, she shook off the thought. “I just think you’ve been too close to too many incidents involving crazy people for my taste. We wouldn’t move far. Maybe closer to the coast. Just somewhere new and fresh.”
    This was so like her. She’d always had the itch to try new places whenever she got bored, or didn’t like something about where we were living. Now that we had moved back to the place where I was born, where I had found Wes, I was not about to move again. Not a chance. Plus, I was eighteen. She couldn’t make me move, even if she wanted to.
    “Mom, I’m not moving anywhere. I like it here. And so do you, for that matter. And what about Tom? What happened to Ms. Mary was crazy, but it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
    Which it didn’t. Danny had given Dawn and me details. The police said there had been a few reported break-ins in her neighborhood in the past few months. That was why Ms. Mary had installed the alarm system that alerted the police to the intruder. It was an unfortunate situation, and Ms. Mary would probably still be alive if she hadn’t been downstairs when the intruder broke in.
    I had heard all the “if onlys,” so I knew them well. If only Ms. Mary had been upstairs when the alarm sounded, she could’ve locked herself in her room until the police arrived, and maybe the intruder would’ve taken what he wanted and fled without ever knowing she was there. If only it had been five or ten minutes later, Ms. Mary would have already left for work. But since she was downstairs, in the house, the police believed that the intruder panicked and strangled her. It was simply a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    My mom took a deep breath and a sip of her coffee. “It just makes me nervous. It’s been one thing after another. I don’t like it.”
    “Me either, but I like it here. I don’t want to move.”
    “Maybe you’re right. But I think we need to be more careful, pay attention to what we do. I’m seeing how crazy this world really is.” She took a few more sips of her coffee and then her eyes went wide. “You know, I might get us an alarm too. I’d feel safer.”
    I finished my last bite of cereal, put my bowl in the sink, and quickly came up with an alternative. “Maybe. Or we could get a dog.”
    She pondered a minute. “A dog? That might not be a bad idea.”
    I knew she would probably forget about a dog or an alarm in a few days. This was just her typical whim. At least I hoped. An alarm would put a kink in Wes’ late-night visits. I wasn’t sure how I’d get around that. If she kept pressing the issue, I’d push for a dog for sure.
    The following Monday was Ms. Mary’s funeral. It was a small service at a little white church on a hillside overlooking the bay. At 9:00 a.m, I arrived with my mom and Tom, and Wes met us there. The high temperature was expected to be in the mid- to upper-60s, but the morning air felt even cooler. It was chilly enough for Wes that he wore a long black coat over his suit.
    Although the atmosphere was somber, I couldn’t help but smile at his handsome appearance. His coat was far enough open to reveal a black suit jacket and pale blue dress shirt, with no tie, peeking out at the center. His hair was back to normal,