Someone Must Die by Sharon Potts

Author:Sharon Potts
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781503936676
Published: 2016-06-27T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Two blond children around Ethan’s age were splashing each other at the shallow end of the hotel pool. Aubrey watched their parents put water wings on their arms and set out a pail with an assortment of plastic animals on the steps.

If only we could always be around to watch over our children. To forever be like the untouched family in her snow globe. She was glad Kevin had gone back up to his room and didn’t have to see this happy family. He had left abruptly after their talk, clearly upset. She had hoped to comfort him, but had only succeeded in bringing his feelings of guilt to the surface.

Given what she knew of family relationships, she shouldn’t have been surprised that she and Kevin had viewed that awful period in their childhood so differently, but she had been. For Kev, it had been the “War of the Lynds,” something he blamed himself for, while she had always associated the change in her parents with the kidnapping of Jimmy Ryce. Regardless of what had caused it, their parents’ subsequent coldness toward each other had left its mark on both her and Kev. They had spent much of their childhood careful not to do anything that might upset either parent.

They had been a dysfunctional family, but she and Kev had both believed that was better than a broken family. Considering the scars she could see in herself and her brother, maybe it would have been better if they had just let go.

But “what ifs” didn’t matter right now, not with Ethan missing. She got up and went back inside the hotel. She would check on whether there were any new developments, then head home so she could get back to her own research.

The command center was as busy as when she had left nearly an hour earlier. Prudence and Ernest were still at a table in the midst of their investigators. Her father and Star had arrived while she was with Kevin and were standing by themselves in a corner of the room. They were agitated, as though in the midst of a disagreement. Her father’s face was flushed, and Star stood stiffly, her short white hair standing on end like the crest of a cockatoo. Star turned and walked quickly toward the main door, silky-blue pants and top flowing behind her, a huge Louis Vuitton tote over her shoulder. She caught Aubrey watching her, changed direction as subtly as a navigator adjusting her course, and came toward her. The muscles in Star’s face shifted from tense to concerned.

“Well, hello, Aubrey,” she said, in her slow southern drawl. “I didn’t see you before. Is your mother here, too?”

“No. Just me.”

She brushed nonexistent hair back from her face with her jeweled fingers in what seemed to be a nervous or distracted gesture. There were dark circles under her blue eyes and a web of fine lines beneath her makeup that Aubrey hadn’t noticed the night before in the time-share apartment.

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