Read Online Time and Trouble by Gillian Roberts - Free Book Online Page B

heart, ” Alicia said.
    “ Or identify the killer. ” Kathryn ’ s cheeks looked like they ’ d been stained with beet juice. Crime turned her on. “ Like Alicia said before, what if the murderer was a woman, and she lost that charm in the struggle? ”
    “ It isn ’ t yours to keep, ” Alicia said without a smile.
    Penny had released the charm and now stopped her hand from automatically returning to it. Her amulet. Luke hadn ’ t treated her this way before she moved in with him. It was because of the others, and how he wanted to look big to them. “ You don ’ t know everything, ” Penny said, clenching both hands at her side. “ You don ’ t know anything about me. ” She flashed a hard glance at Luke. “ It ’ s more complicated than you could possibly know, ” she said.
    Now everybody stared at Penny like she was a convict or contagious. “ It was there, on the grass, ” she said. “ All by itself. It has nothing to do with those bodies. It was a joke, poking around for more. Looking for Drake ’ s treasure. I wish we hadn ’ t, but Luke kept —”
    “ That isn ’ t his name, ” Alicia said sternly. “ Not here. ”
    Penny shrugged. “ That ’ s how we found the bones. The heart wasn ’ t attached to anything, just sitting on the grass. ”
    “ Yeah, but it was probably near that other body, ” Toto said.
    “ No. Because where we dug was right near the baby, ” Penny said. Why wasn ’ t Luke helping her?
    “ Skeleton, ” Alicia corrected her. “ It sounds disgusting to call it a baby. ”
    “ All the same, ” Gary began. “ Pushed up by the storms, the mud. It probably had migrated. Maybe. ”
    “ I need it! ” It was all she had in the way of hope — didn ’ t anybody understand that? It was an amulet, no matter what its real worth. She realized too late, saw by their annoyed expressions that she ’ d shout-screamed her words, her voice loud, high and sharp. Like her mother, like her mother when she was unbearably crazy.
    And really, if only they ’ d talk to her directly, act like she had a brain, she could explain. The amulet had been found on the one pure and perfect day in a stormy season when there was magic in a cow pasture, and the found thing, full of meaning, signified possibility instead of a dead end. A new life, a new start.
    It hadn ’ t happened that way. This rambly house wouldn ’ t let her be anything but herself. Only difference was that now she had no place else to run. She had nothing, except the necklace, and now they wanted that, too.
    *
    She hadn ’ t seemed particularly childish when he met her or he never would have spent time with her. The five-year difference in their ages hadn ’ t felt like a generation ’ s worth. He couldn ’ t figure what had happened since the day she ’ d raced out of her house and, as if he ’ d broken a spell she ’ d been under, dissolved into a pouty, irrational little girl.
    And she was wreaking havoc. Nobody would be put out by his sharing his room with somebody normal. Not that he ’ d meant for her to live with him. He ’ d told her so a dozen times, but she didn ’ t want to hear it.
    All he ’ d done was feel sorry for her and said she could crash at his place as long as she needed, till she found out what to do next. She was so unhappy, so trapped between caring about her own life and future — and whether she was abandoning her younger brother. Probably all hyperinflated teenage junk, but he ’ d remembered how it felt to be an alien in your own family. She shouldn ’ t have to make such big decisions at that age. What he was doing had seemed the right, the chivalrous thing.
    A Penny saved, he ’ d told himself, and thought it sounded just right.
    But even so, he regretted the “ as long as you need, ” because she had deliberately misinterpreted the whole thing as an invitation to live with him. He thought she was cute, entertaining, bright, a little wild yet still vulnerable. She was good