Read Online You've Got Tail by Renee George - Free Book Online Page B

always stressing and hiding.”
    A young Babel had pivoted away from his brother, unable or unwilling to respond. Tears formed in his deep-blue eyes and I staggered back, breaking the small thread linking me to Babel’s past.
    â€œWhat we are,” I mumbled.
    â€œWhat?” Babel asked.
    I realized he had a hold on my upper arms, keeping me upright. “What?” I said back as the fog cleared from my head.
    â€œYou going to pass out again?”
    â€œNo.” At least I didn’t think so. But something else nagged at me hard. I’d had several visions in one day. All very clear. Bizarre, but exhilarating at the same time.
    I hugged my upper arms. I would find Chav. I believed it now more than ever. I was exactly where I was meant to be. The shift in frequency of my ability since I’d arrived was all the proof I needed. I would find Chav, even if I had to turn over every rock and expose every skeleton in this town.

Chapter 4
    M iddle of the night, I woke up sticky with perspiration. I couldn’t believe how unbearably hot Missouri nights were. California got hot, it was California after all, but Missouri added an intense humidity that could only be called sweltering. I felt like I’d melted into the bed. I’d left the windows closed at Babel’s urging. Something about “critters” crawling into open spaces at night, and after the whole dog incident, I believed it. But the ceiling fan didn’t work and I couldn’t take the heat one minute longer.
    Sliding the window up, I vowed to bring central air-conditioning to this backwoods town.
    A gut-wrenching scream pierced through the sound of crickets and tree frogs.
    Quickly, I slid the window back down and did the heebie-jeebie dance. It had sounded like a child being tortured, if I could even imagine such a thing. Horrified, I was nearly too immobilized to act. Then I thought about Ruth’s little boy, and I didn’t think I could live with myself if I did nothing and some poor kid got hurt out there.
    I peeked out the window, hoping someone else had heard and gone to investigate. But nope, the street looked pretty damn deserted from what I could see. I’d read that mothers have a predisposition to instantly waking upon hearing a crying child. Where were all the freaking mothers?
    I knew I should go check to see if someone was hurt—after all, it was the civic-minded thing to do—but I was scared. What if something big and bad waited in the darkness, perched and ready to kill the next unsuspecting victim who crossed its path?
    I mean, I’d begun to feel a bit like an unsuspecting victim. Not a great feeling.
    While my head was trying to talk myself out of investigating, my body had other ideas and before I knew it, I was completely dressed. I think my head was the smarter of the two. Not wanting to be completely TSTL (too stupid to live), I called the sheriff.
    â€œWhat’d it sound like again, Ms. Haddock?”
    I sighed, rolling my eyes. I mimicked the noise once more. This was the third time he’d asked, and with the muffled grunts of laughter in the background, I was pretty damn sure he’d put me on speakerphone.
    The bastard.
    â€œSheriff Taylor, are you going to investigate or not?”
    â€œNot.”
    â€œWhat? Someone could be really injured or worse.”
    â€œDoubt that. What you heard there, little lady, was what we like to call in these parts, a barn owl. Nothing more than that. And while the sound they make is gawd-awful, we don’t usually have anybody die over it.”
    The whole barn-owl scenario sounded convenient, but much better than my theory of a child-murdering psychopath. For a moment I missed the ex-asshole. Sure, he was a lying, cheating whore of a man, but at least he’d been present. At least I hadn’t been alone to face potential critters crawling through my windows and barn owls mimicking children being tortured by whack-job