A Dead Red Cadillac (The Dead Red Mystery Series, Book 1) by RP Dahlke

Author:RP Dahlke [Dahlke, RP]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Dead Bear Publishing
Published: 2011-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen:

At the breakfast table, my dad sat quietly drowning Juanita's pancakes in syrup, Spike pleading for tidbits at his feet. I'd crossed my heart, promising not to reveal to Caleb that not only did we know the intruder, but after catching him shooting at his daughter, Noah let him escape.

It made me ill to watch the recent and fragile trust between Caleb and me go down the tubes with the lies we told him last night. There we were, two artful dodgers, squirming at questions we didn't want to answer. The evidence wasn't in our favor, and our story was too easily dismissed. If I wasn't disappointing my father, I was disappointing Caleb. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

And just a few hours earlier, he was telling me how much he liked me. Well, I could forget about any future with Caleb after that fiasco.

Our housekeeper offered me a plate. Maybe food would help. I demurred at the size of the stack Juanita placed in front of me, but refusing to clean my plate would have offended her, so I ate. They weren't the elephant and teddy bear shapes of my mother's, but they were fluffy and substantial. Before I knew it, the plate was clean and I was left with nothing to do but stare at my dad as he slowly cut each pancake into small squares, forked up two bites, dipped them into the syrup, and ate. At this rate, I could have made it to Paris and back and bought clothes I would never wear living here in bum-luck California. I sighed. With chin in palm, I watched the easterly sunshine fill the big kitchen with a rosy glow. Our kitchen was big enough to accommodate a schoolhouse full of laughing, squabbling children, but the modern white refrigerator was bare of childish artwork. For our own reasons, neither my brother nor I had produced any of the expected grandchildren. I peeked over my coffee cup at the last of the Bains men. The Nordic heritage of blond flyaway hair sat on father's head like gray, watered silk. The long bony face and wide-set eyes easily identified us as relations, though my father carried his long nose in front of his face in a slightly predatory fashion. The hooded folds of skin above his faded blue eyes only added to his hawkish look. I knew he was harmless. Others, meeting him for the first time, weren't so sure.

I nodded my thanks to Juanita, ignored the dog and glowered at my dad. "You didn't see Caleb's face when we stood there and told him it was too dark for us to see the intruder. He saw the bullet hole in the wall on the landing. He didn't believe a word of it, and I'll bet my lunch money he'll be back later today to offer up another embarrassing barrage of questions."

He pushed his plate aside and said, "What's your point?"

I'd spent most of last night worrying the covers off and on with the unanswered questions.

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