Page 68 of Strangers She Knows

Daddy shot out from under the truck. He stood and wiped his hands on the grease rag. “He’s drunk somewhere. Worthless!” Then he said something Rae didn’t completely understand. “We don’t need this now.”

That got her mom’s attention, made her calm down right away. She walked to him, slid her arms around his waist, and her voice got softer and calmer. “Max, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Daddy’s jaw was squared, his brown eyes flat and almost black, the way they were when he was really angry. “We weren’t supposed to deal with this kind of challenge. This was supposed to be us taking it easy while everyone else dealt with the details of—”

Mommy cleared her throat and hugged him very hard. “Max. Stop. Stop.”

Rae got it. Her mom didn’t want her dad scaring her. Rae couldn’t imagine what worse could happen than starving to death, but her parents had been acting weird for weeks. Maybe…maybe something was going on she didn’t understand. Her parents looked worried, and she felt guilty about talking to Miranda Phillips and not telling her parents, so she shouted, “I’ll go. I’ll find our basket!” Before her mom could object, get all weird like yesterday, she said, “I can do it. Really, let me.”

The garage was quiet.

Rae remembered that time Jamie had chased her out of the greenhouse, and felt a twinge of fear.

Then Mommy said, “I know you can. Thank you, Rae.”

Rae stiffened her spine. Mommy trusted her, so she would stand her ground, no matter what Jamie said. She yelled, “C’mon, Luna!”

Dog and child bounded out the door and toward the bicycle resting on its side on the lawn.

Kellen followed, concerned, preoccupied with all her niggling fears.

“It’s okay, she’ll be safe.” Max followed and pulled her back into his arms. “Luna is with her.”

Kellen watched the dog gallop after Rae. “Poor Luna and her paws.”

“Hopefully they’ll meet Dylan or probably Jamie coming up the path.”

“Yes, but—” Kellen struggled for a reason to explain her fears. “Olympia had a nervous breakdown.”

“Which has nothing to do with Rae.”

“Rae has her nightmares.”

“You’ve told me that’s part ofbecoming a woman.” He sounded like the announcer on a tampon commercial.

She punched him in the gut. “Oh, shut up.”

“Did you hurt your hand?” he asked with fake concern.

“No!”

“Must be all that clobbering of the mattress. Listen, nobody made Olympia have a nervous breakdown. When Olympia got here, she must have been hovering on the edge. My mistake.” He took responsibility without complaint. “When I picked out a cook, I should have been more careful.”

“How?” Kellen was logical and sensible—when she wasn’t worrying about Mara. “Like you said, you didn’t have a lot of time to get someone, and Olympia seemed… I mean, she’s mean, but I never thought she was going to see ghosts.”

“The dead dancing in the ballroom to old records? That was about as weird as it gets.” Max drifted over to the truck. “I know you’re worried, but we’ve seen no sign of Mara. Even the devil needs some kind of shelter. The island’s basically flat. There’s a few trees.”

“The redwoods!”

“Not a lot of those. A few rocks. I can’t see Jamie Conkle letting Mara move in.”

“I can’t see that, either. You’re right.”

He leaned into the engine compartment.

She’d lost his attention. He was back making love to the truck. With a sigh, she poured herself a cup of coffee. “As soon as we get that basket, we’ll have vegetables and fruits and maybe some fish. You did well with the fish the other night.”

“I didn’t do much of a job of fileting.” He sounded absentminded.

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