Saltwater Secrets - Amelia Addler Page 0,27

say about that was, “He doesn’t deserve to have you as a friend!”

Eventually, Morgan settled on at least looking in Laura’s direction when she spoke. She still didn’t really respond to Laura, but that was probably for the best; it was certainly better than her making snarky comments. That was the best she could do and Jade could only hope that Laura didn’t feel unwelcome.

Morgan was definitely angrier at Matthew than Jade was. Jade wasn’t angry at all – mostly she found the entire thing embarrassing. Seeing Laura more often made it worse, too. Laura was a beautiful woman, so put together and so…unlike Jade.

Laura and Matthew were a great pair – but it made it even more obvious that Matthew couldn’t possibly have had any feelings for her.

She just wished that Morgan would drop it. What if Matthew caught wind of it? He’d think she was so…pathetic. If he didn’t already, with her paranoia and her crazy ex-husband.

At least the project gave her something else to focus on. And she was appreciative of Matthew’s help – whatever he could offer.

The meeting went well and by Friday night, Jade was spent. Morgan and Luke had to go to the mainland for a two day shoot, so Jade had the house to herself. She considered bringing dinner over to her mom, but she was so tired that all she could manage was to microwave a frozen burrito and watch half of a romance movie on TV.

By nine, she crawled into bed, rewarding her hard week of work with an early bedtime.

Chapter 10

The last light in the house went out.

Huh. That was easy.

When he’d gotten to the house and saw that someone was inside, he thought he’d have to hide in the backyard for hours before they went to sleep. It was a Friday night after all, but apparently this girl didn’t have an active social life.

She was a strange girl, this Jade. No wonder she had so much time to harp on and on about Proposition 16. The girl lived like a grandma. She was always home. Never went out, never even went to work. Didn’t have a boyfriend – nothing. At least the other girl that lived there – the loud one – left every once in a while. The only time granny Jade went out was to cause trouble about the vote.

Whatever, it didn’t matter. If she wanted to go to bed early, then it made life a lot easier for him. He was supposed to step it up – increase the pressure on her. Turn up the heat.

Nothing he’d done so far worked in scaring her, and people were starting to get angry. Was this girl stupid or something? Was she not connecting the dots? Or did she just not care?

There was no way to tell. But the message he’d left at the barn wasn’t enough. A normal person would’ve stopped – a normal person wouldn’t have gone to the news to get their video on TV.

This Jade obviously wasn’t normal, though. Not right in the head. That’s how all of these young kids were – they thought they were invincible. Thought they should do something to change the world, even when they had no idea how the real world worked.

He looked around to make sure that nobody was watching. It was completely dark and it didn’t seem like there was another soul within earshot. Even the street was quiet – no cars. This was a nice little neighborhood. No wonder these girls felt safe living here. It wouldn’t take much to wake them up.

He had a pretty good plan that wouldn’t leave behind any evidence. Not that the police could piece anything together – they hadn’t so far.

He opened up the bundle of firewood that he’d brought and untied it, hoping that the logs wouldn’t make too much noise as they settled onto the ground; they didn’t cooperate, though, clumsily and loudly falling in all directions.

For a moment he paused – had anyone heard?

Didn’t seem like it.

Carefully, he picked up a few pieces and laid them out in the shape of an S. Next was the T, then the letter O, and finally the P.

It didn’t have to be as long as the message at the barn – thankfully. She should know what “STOP” meant by now. For effect, he added two exclamation points, using piles of dry leaves to serve as the dots.

He stood back for a moment and admired his work – it was big,