Read Online Trail of Lies by Margaret Daley - Free Book Online

by the pet door. Her mouth dipped in a frown. “Patches still hasn’t returned. Should I put his food in his bowl?”
    â€œGo ahead, honey. He may come back while we’re eating dinner and want his own.”
    â€œOkay.” With one last look at the pet door, Kaitlyn trudged toward the utility room, her shoulders slumped.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Uncle Tyler asked as he watched his niece disappear.
    â€œPatches hasn’t come home. She’s worried.”
    â€œDoes he often stay out this late?”
    â€œNot usually. But you know cats are independent, especially male ones.”
    Kaitlyn reentered the kitchen as Juanita placed the sliced roast on a serving platter. “Dinner is served. Kaitlyn, you need to wash up.”
    Melora held out her hand to her daughter, saying, “Let’s go do it together,” and made her way toward the mudroom.
    Inside it she looked at the entrance that Daniel used to bust into the house two days ago. There were no signs of forced entry now because the door had been replaced with a steel-reinforced one—not one easily kicked in. As she turned on the water for her daughter, she wished she could forget that day, but she couldn’t. The young man she’d seen watching her today only supported that.
    Â 
    The next morning after Juanita left to take Kaitlyn to school, Melora sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea and trying to decide what she should do. Uncle Tyler again told her right before he’d left last night that he didn’t want tosee her sell the restaurant chain, but if she was determined to, that he would buy it. She didn’t want her uncle caught up in Axle’s illegal activities. She had to protect him.
    Lord, I know I haven’t talked to You in a while, but I need Your help. What do I do? I know this is cliché, but I feel like I’m drowning and going down for the third time. Please help me.
    Melora closed her eyes and savored the quiet, wishing it brought her the peace she so wanted. Something hit the tiled floor and her eyes bolted open. She scanned the kitchen and saw nothing until her gaze fell on to Patches’s black collar at the bottom of the pet door.
    â€œPatches?”
    Silence returned.
    She surged to her feet, nearly knocking over her chair in her haste. Covering the few feet to the bay window that overlooked the back yard, she peered outside. A flash at the side of her house secured her attention. Patches? Something else? Or someone else?
    The idea that a person had come up to her back door and pushed something through the small pet door knotted her stomach into a hard ball. She moved to the collar and picked it up, examining it for any hints of how it came to be on her floor. That was when she saw a red X across Patches’s tag. The collar tumbled from her grasp and struck the tiles again with a clunk.

FIVE
    A n hour later Melora prowled the kitchen, not able to sit, not able to think clearly. Was Patches dead? The red hadn’t been blood but a Magic Marker. She’d hidden the collar in a drawer. She didn’t want Kaitlyn to see it. She felt helpless.
    Continuing to pace, she passed the wall phone and glanced at it. Call Daniel. Tell him what was going on. Maybe he could protect her, help her.
    No, his presence would only make it worse. Hadn’t she been warned enough? Wasn’t Patches’s disappearance a clear threat?
    She again circled the room, too restless to sit, her nerve endings on fire. She needed to figure out how she was going to tell Kaitlyn that Patches might…
    A cry pierced the air, twisting Melora toward the back door. Patches shot through the pet opening and raced across the room. He hurled himself into her arms, his whines beautiful music to her ears. Burying her face in his fur, she breathed in the scent of the outdoors and smoke.
    The memory of the man watching her at the Riverwalk, a cigarette in his hand, made her tremble. Had he taken