A Killing in the Hills - By Julia Keller Page 0,37

party with drugs.

And that would be it.

No more parties. No more social life. No more life, period. Her mother would probably restrict her after-school activities to, like, the chess club. Or, God forbid, 4-H. She couldn’t hang out with her friends anymore.

She’d already lost her car. Now she’d lose everything else.

Carla checked the clock on the mantel. Almost noon, but she had barely moved from the couch. She was mired here, stalled here, pinned here, by the thought of what a freakin’ mess her life had suddenly become. She’d gotten up once to pee, but that was it; that was the only move she’d made. All of her energy was fueling the desperation of her thinking.

I gotta tell her. I mean, it’s the right thing to do. I gotta tell my mom about that guy.

Don’t I?

Carla pulled at the cuff of her long-sleeved T-shirt. She yanked restlessly at the blankets that were bunched around her hips. God, she thought. I hate my life. Hate it, hate it, HATE it. She wondered, as she always did when things got complicated, about maybe going to live with her dad in D.C. He’d made the offer. He repeated it in just about every phone call: You know, honey, Sam Elkins had said, this is a big city. A big, beautiful, exciting city. If you come and live here, you’ve seen your last plate of biscuits and gravy. Promise. Carla had laughed at his little dig against West Virginia, as he had intended her to, and then she’d felt guilty about laughing.

Truth was, her father had grown up here, too. So when he made his cracks, his jokes, Carla always wondered how you could make fun of where you’d come from, and she wondered if she’d end up doing that, too, one day, and if people would see through her as easily as she saw through him. Maybe he picked on West Virginia not because he was certain he’d left it behind – but because he was afraid he hadn’t.

When her parents had divorced five years ago, Carla returned with her mom to live in Acker’s Gap. She had no choice. She was only twelve. But her mom had promised her that once she turned sixteen, the decision would be hers. Carla could stay in West Virginia with Bell, or she could go back to live with her father in D.C.

The summer before, when she was visiting him, Sam Elkins had pressed her. The spare room in his condo? It could be her bedroom. And his latest girlfriend, Glenna St Pierre, would be like a big sister, he explained, not like a mom who’d be nagging her all the time, telling her what time she had to come home at night or which friends she could hang out with. And he could probably get Carla a great summer job before she went off to college, he added, at his lobbying firm. All you gotta do, honey, he’d said, smiling, waggling his eyebrows, is figure out how the CEO likes her Starbucks every morning. Then you’re a rock star around that place.

She’d only talked to her father briefly so far about the terrible events at the Salty Dawg. Her mother had insisted she phone him right away, right when she’d gotten home yesterday. First thing. ‘If he hears about it on the news,’ Bell had said, ‘he’ll be frantic.’

Carla had given him only a few details during that call: I’m fine. Really.

But she wasn’t fine. She was in a hell of a mess. She could probably help her mom and Sheriff Fogelsong track down a killer. But if she did that, she’d be grounded for life. Her mom would forbid her to see her friends, the friends who’d taken her to a party with drugs.

She’d be spending every Saturday night from now on right here on this stupid couch watching stupid TV. She’d never get out of the house again.

Carla reached for her cell on the coffee table and, thumbs flying, quickly texted her dad:

Need 2 talk

Maybe her life didn’t have to be over, after all.

Maybe there was a way out.

12

Bell felt the jolt. The gray compact had rammed her rear bumper, backed off, then rammed it again.

Startled, she slapped the horn three times – not polite little toots, but sustained and angry blasts – and her meaning was clear:

Cut it out, asshole.

She couldn’t look over her shoulder to make eye contact with the other driver; she couldn’t risk taking her eyes off the road.