The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,36

whole summer, don’t you?”

She did want to stay. She would hate to be taken away from her new friends, especially Sierra. “But I can’t just...abandon her to whatever’s happening.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he leaned up against the wall. “Did she cry out for help?”

“No. She just told me to leave. But a good friend would get help anyway, wouldn’t she?”

He rubbed his chin as he considered the question. “Not if it would only make things worse.”

Exactly her dilemma. “What about the police?” she asked. “If I call them, Mom won’t have to get involved.”

“But you’ll feel pretty silly if you send the police over there and it was just an argument. Has he ever hit her before?”

She quickly sifted through the comments she could remember Sierra making about her father. Sierra had called him a jerk and an angry drunk, but she’d never indicated he physically abused her. “Not that she’s told me about.”

“She’s almost eighteen, Tay.”

“Which means...what?” Hearing the irritation in her own voice, she feared it would start a fight with her brother but, fortunately, he didn’t snap at her in return.

“She’s made it this long living with him. She must know how to get by. And she has only one more year of school. I wouldn’t want to screw anything up for her. What if she gets kicked out of the house or something? Where will she go? How will she earn her diploma?”

Taylor twisted her hair into a knot. “I have no idea. But Mr. Jamison in English class said that so many bad things could be avoided if only someone would speak up or step in.” She dropped her hair. “I can’t ignore what I saw.”

He shoved off the wall as he pulled out his phone and came closer to her. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll block my number. Then we can call the police and ask them to check on things.”

She looked down at her own phone, hoping to see a text or a missed call from Sierra—anything that might reassure her.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t there. “But blocking your number won’t help,” Taylor said. “Sierra and her father will both know it was me. Who else could it be?”

“So what if they know it’s you? It’s a reasonable response, after what you saw. I’d still do it.”

Taylor wanted to talk to her mother about it, but she didn’t want to drag Autumn into something they might all regret. She wouldn’t be any happier than Caden if they had to leave Sable Beach before the end of summer. And she certainly didn’t want to make things worse for Sierra. In trying to help her friend, she could lose her instead.

In the end, she couldn’t bear the thought of what might be going on at Sierra’s house.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s call.”

* * *

Laurie was watching her closely. Mary could tell. No matter how hard she tried to pretend that everything was fine, her friend could always sense when it wasn’t.

“What is it?” she asked, a worried expression on her face.

Autumn, who’d grabbed her purse and was digging out her keys to go home and start dinner, looked up in surprise, and Mary nearly groaned aloud. Couldn’t Laurie have waited just five minutes, until Autumn was gone, to ask that question?

To avoid looking at either one of them, she remained focused on closing out the register. “What’s what?”

“You’ve been quiet since you got back from the drugstore,” Laurie replied. “Is something wrong?”

Mary spent so much time with her best friend. She should’ve expected Laurie to notice that she wasn’t quite herself, should’ve alerted Laurie while they were in the parking lot that something had come up and not to say anything in front of Autumn. But she was still mulling it over, hadn’t decided how, exactly, to handle this latest development. And she didn’t want Laurie to start pressing her again to tell Autumn. “Nothing,” she insisted.

“Did you have another nightmare last night?” Autumn sounded concerned, too.

Mary lifted one hand. “No, I’ve been sleeping great. I just have a little headache, that’s all.”

“Maybe it’ll help to eat,” Laurie suggested. “Go home with Autumn. I’ll close up.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I don’t mind,” Laurie said. “Why not go take care of yourself?”

Mary wanted to give her a pointed look to let her know to drop the subject, but Autumn was now watching her closely, too. “Because it’s not a big deal, like I said. I can finish up.” She caught a glimpse of the sack Autumn had