You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,79
long dressing gown cinched tightly around a wasp-thin waist, house slippers, and a pained expression that said it all.
“You’re trespassing,” the guard rebuked Charity loudly enough for Lenora to hear. She could tell he wanted to prove that he was in control. More softly, into Charity’s ear, he singsonged, “Come on. Just get in your car and drive away. Before I have to call the cops.”
“You mean the real police? You’d actually call them?” Charity demanded.
The security guard made another reach for her arm, this time catching an elbow, his beefy fingers clamping over the sleeve of her raincoat.
“Let me go!” she hissed. “I just wanted to ask her some questions.”
“Yeah, well, Ms. Travers, here, she don’t want to answer any. You got that?”
Oh, Lenora Travers’s attitude was all too clear. Arms crossed imperiously over her chest and backlit by the interior lights, Megan’s mother hoisted her chin toward the sky. Eyeing Charity as if she were little more than a cockroach, she announced, “You’re not an invited guest.”
“I told you I’m with the press.”
Lenora’s gaze moved to the pseudo-cop. “If you’ve got this, Hank, I’m going inside.” She was already turning away.
“You do that, Ms. Travers. We’re cool here.” Hank’s breath clouded in the air and smelled of his last cigarette mixed with some kind of mint flavoring. Ugh!
Charity called after Lenora, “Wait! I just want to ask you some questions about your daughter. Come on, Ms. Travers. Don’t you want to find out what happened to her?”
Lenora stiffened, then looked over her shoulder. “I’m sure the police are doing everything they can.”
“But maybe I can help. The power of the press and all,” Charity insisted, frantic. She’d come all this way and didn’t intend to be tossed aside.
“Oh, I seriously doubt that.” Lenora walked into her house and pulled the door shut with a soft but definitive thud while Hank practically pushed Charity off the porch.
“Damn it,” Charity grumbled and only then noticed the other people, curious neighbors who had come out to stand on their small covered porches and watch the show. A seventy-ish woman in a long coat holding a tiny dog under one arm stood on one stoop, and a couple in their sixties, the wife clinging nervously onto the husband’s arm, watched from another. The little dog—a miniature dachshund—was growling and yapping its head off, while they all stared at her as if she were some kind of lowlife criminal.
“I’m a reporter, okay?” she yelled at them.
“Come on. You’re outta here.” The guard pointed her back to her van.
“I’m doing my job!”
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave. If you don’t, it’s my duty to call the local PD, as I said before.” He glanced at the house, where Lenora was peeking through the blinds. “Or Ms. Travers will do the honors herself. Trust me, she’s done it in the past when that little neighbor dog over there”—he hitched a thumb toward the crazed barker—“took to using Ms. Travers’s azalea garden as his own personal bathroom. It doesn’t take a whole lot to set her off.”
“I’m only trying to help.”
“Tell that to the officers.”
“Shit, shit, shit.”
He moved toward her, and she edged closer to her van.
“You’ve got two minutes to drive outta here,” he warned her, and after she reluctantly climbed into the driver’s seat, he stepped forward, slammed her door shut, and then all too obviously checked his watch. “Now a minute and fifty-two seconds.”
Oh, ha, ha! He was gonna count backward! Very funny.
Asshole.
Charity started the van. She knew it was no use arguing or making more of a stink in this gated community, so she hit the gas and pulled away from the curb just as Hank took a step back. Even so, she nearly clipped him and thought for a vengeful second how good that would feel, then pushed that troublesome thought away. She didn’t need to maim anyone or get herself into any kind of trouble or even draw attention to herself. The outburst in front of the neighbors had been a mistake. She still had business here in California, and she obviously would have to use a less-than-direct approach. Not let her emotions get the better of her.
As she drove past the town houses, their identical windows glowing from interior lights, she flipped on the wipers. As the blades swatted away the accumulation of raindrops on the windshield, she plotted her next move. She’d already done as much as she could through the Internet. Next up, she