Sorrow Road (Bell Elkins #5) - Julia Keller Page 0,8
not-quite-official errand. Rhonda’s roots in the region ran so deep that when she asked questions, people just assumed she was collecting contact information for a family reunion. It was easy to forget that she worked in the Raythune County prosecutor’s office.
Didn’t Rhonda have a cousin or two up in Muth County? Bell was almost sure of it. She recalled Rhonda talking about a branch of the Lovejoy clan that had shifted northward, following a rumor of jobs, as prospects in Acker’s Gap had steadily dwindled. Maybe Rhonda could, under the guise of visiting her relatives, stop in at Thornapple Terrace and have a look around. Nothing overt. No big deal. And then maybe, if the opportunity presented itself, Rhonda could find a chatty employee and hang out long enough to ask about Harmon Strayer’s fate.
A cell ring tone sliced into Bell’s thoughts. It was the ring assigned to her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Carla—Adele’s “Hello”—and so, with fingers that felt paralyzed with cold despite the protection of gloves, Bell fished the phone out of her purse with extra urgency.
“Sweetie?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Is everything all—”
“Fine. It’s fine. Why do you always ask me that, first thing? It’s like you’re expecting to hear that I’ve screwed up.”
“No, I…” The conversation needed a reset. Bell changed directions. “It’s snowing like crazy here.”
“Here, too. Has been for hours. CNN says they might shut down Reagan National. Dulles, too.”
Carla lived with five roommates—and an untold number of mice and other anonymous freeloaders—in a tilting, fraying three-story house in Arlington, Virginia. Before that, she had lived with her father, Bell’s ex-husband, Sam Elkins, in a condo in Alexandria. She’d spent her senior year at a private school, transferring from Acker’s Gap High School after the terrifying night when she almost died at the hands of a killer whose real target was Bell. Carla had decided to postpone college for a few years, a decision that Bell found keenly disappointing, but she capitulated after sensing Carla’s resolve. Pick your battles, was the advice everyone had given her. Made sense—for moms as well as for prosecutors.
“Are you home?” Bell asked.
“Yeah. Just watching the snow from my bedroom window. Can’t even see the pavement anymore. How about you?”
“Actually, I’m standing in the parking lot of a bar in Blythesburg. Getting ready to head home. Met an old friend for a drink.”
“Mom, come on—hang up and start driving. That’s what you’d be saying to me.”
“You’re right. I would.” Bell turned around and opened the Explorer’s door. “Kind of nice, though. Being out in it. Peaceful.” She scooted in and pulled the door shut.
“Peaceful, my ass. Go home, Mom. It’s a long way from there back to Acker’s Gap. With the snow, you’re looking at an hour or more.”
“Surprised you remember.” Bell started the engine, wanting to warm it up before she headed out. She’d have to wait, anyway, for the wipers to shove aside the snow that had congregated on the windshield.
“Oh, I remember all right. And I also remember almost skidding down the mountain when I was driving back home once with Kayleigh Crocker,” Carla said, naming one of her best friends from Acker’s Gap High School, a young woman whose wildness had continued into adulthood. Bell knew that because, as a prosecutor, she’d had several encounters in court with Kayleigh Crocker and a revolving cast of worthless boyfriends clearly bound for much more significant trouble. “Trash magnet” was the category in which Bell placed Kayleigh Crocker.
“We went to a party in Blythesburg,” Carla added. “Winter of junior year.”
“Stop right there. Retroactive worry is a mother’s prerogative—even though it’s totally pointless.”
She waited. There had to be more. Her daughter didn’t need a specific reason to reach out—Bell loved their casual, spontaneous conversations, and had told Carla so, many times—but she could feel the looming weight of whatever it was that Carla had called her to talk about.
“Sweetie?” Bell said. “What’s going on?”
A pause, a brief throat-clearing, and then a flying wedge of words: “I need to come home, Mom. Right away. To Acker’s Gap. For good. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“But this weather—can’t you wait until Monday or Tuesday?”
“You’re not listening to me. I have to come now. Roads will be clear by late morning. Promise I’ll be careful.”
“One day can’t make that much diff—”
“See you tomorrow, Mom.”
Chapter Two
Snow fell throughout the night. Behind it came a ferocious cold. The cold set in with a vengeance, sealing the snow in place like quick-drying mortar.