Page 17 of Risk It All
That made Cara laugh out loud. “That’s a very healthy attitude.”
Norah shrugged as she headed for the door. “It’s been like this my whole life, so I’ve had twenty-three years to get used to it.”
“Well, tell POS I said hi.”
“I will. Text me if you find out anything interesting.” Norah had opened the door, but she wasn’t leaving. From the longing in her expression, Cara knew that she was dying to dig in and do some research, rather than eating wilted iceberg lettuce and lukewarm canned corn at the buffet. Knowing POS as they did, Norah would end up paying.
“You know it. Do you have some money?”
Norah nodded as she patted her pocket. “Mind if I take your car?”
“Of course not.” Cara held up one hedgehog-covered leg. “As you can see, I’m not planning on going anywhere tonight, except maybe to the kitchen to get me and Warrant a snack.” At his name—or possibly at the wordsnack—Warrant thumped his tail a few times. “Have as much fun as you can. Hopefully, your visit will be quick and painless, like pulling out a splinter.”
From Norah’s expression, she wasn’t holding out much hope of that. “Thanks,” she said a little hollowly. She finally left, calling out just before she pulled the door shut, “Turn the alarm on.”
“Right.” The rule was that the alarm was always on at night, if the house was empty, or if only one person was home. Putting her laptop and the file on the coffee table, Cara pulled her toes out from underneath Warrant and moved over to the alarm controls. Setting one to Occupied, she moved to lock the two dead bolts securing the front door.
Once she was fully alarmed and locked inside, she looked over at the dog, who’d stretched out to cover the entire couch. “Since I’m up, I might as well get some research snacks, right?”
Warrant’s tail thumped against the cushion again, making Cara more certain that he’d learned the wordsnacks. It made sense. Snacks were his very favorite thing in the world.
She made some microwave popcorn and filled her water bottle before returning to claim her spot. It took some battling with Warrant, but she finally wedged her way back into her corner on the couch. Grabbing a handful of popcorn, she flipped up her laptop screen. “All right, Warrant. Let’s see what Geoffrey-with-a-G did to get shipped off to military school.”
Pulling up the Aspen Times police blotter, she quickly found that the paper’s archives didn’t go back far enough for her needs.
“Guess we’re doing this the hard way.” Cara typed in the year Abbott had transferred, along with Anchor Academy and Aspen. When hundreds of thousands of search results came back, she tried adding various other words, including arrested, theft, and—feeling especially morbid—murdered. Nothing incriminating popped up. She scrolled through the disappointing results with one hand while popping a few popcorn kernels into her mouth with the other. Deleting murdered, she tried adding died to the other keywords in the search bar and hit Enter.
“That’s it,” she murmured, clicking on the second result listed. It was an old newspaper article about the memorial service for an Anchor Academy student, Doug Lear. In late January, just a few weeks before Abbott had transferred schools, Lear had died of alcohol poisoning. Two students, one male and one female, had been questioned by the police about their involvement, but only the male student had been charged with hazing and expelled.
The doorbell rang, and Cara groaned. “Please go away,” she said under her breath, dropping a forgotten handful of popcorn kernels back in the bowl. In response, the doorbell rang again. Warrant lifted his head and gave her a pained look. “Normal dogs would bark a warning at visitors—especially unwanted ones.” When Warrant just stared at her with liquid eyes and his ears pressed back, she sighed.
The bell rang for the third time, and he slunk off the couch and up the stairs. She assumed he was going to jam himself under Molly’s bed, the place he usually hid during thunderstorms and July Fourth fireworks. The doorbell pealed again, making her swear. She huffed, carefully placing her popcorn, computer, and water bottle down.
She didn’t want to answer, didn’t want to deal with anyone rude enough to show up at someone’s house at seven thirty in the evening without being asked—not to mention someone who repeatedly rang the doorbell, hurting poor Warrant’s ears, rather than taking the hint and leaving. Only the thought that it might be someone needing help was enough to leverage Cara off the couch. She stomped to the door and peered through the peephole. The person she saw on the porch just enraged her more.
“Go away, Stuart!” she called through the door, leaving the alarm and dead bolts engaged. There was no way in heck she was going to open the door for Stuart Powers.
“I have to talk to you!” Stuart shouted back, louder than he needed to be heard through the door.
Cara winced. All the neighbors had to be listening to this. The Pax sisters were already the pariahs of the neighborhood, so this would be one of many, many transgressions for the neighborhood association to gossip over. “Go away, Stuart! I’m not going to talk to you!”
“I’m not leaving until we talk!” He rang the doorbell several times in a row, and Cara shot a worried look toward the ceiling, hoping that Warrant wasn’t freaking out too much.
“I’m calling the cops, then!” She made a face as she shouted the threat. She really didn’t want to have to call the police. Although most local law-enforcement officers would handle the situation well, there were a few—especially a certain detective—who would take pleasure in making everything a thousand times worse. The way her luck was going, she was almost certain to have Detective Mill show up at her door. Ever since Molly and John had gotten his crooked partner arrested, Mill had been keeping an uncomfortably close eye on all the Paxes. He’d jump at the opportunity to take this call.
Stuart laughed loudly as if he could read her thoughts. “Do it! They’d love to get another chance to look around Jane Pax’s house!”
Swallowing a groan, Cara squeezed her eyes closed and tried to think. Molly would rush home if she knew what was happening, but Cara didn’t want her sister to have to deal with Stuart, either. Charlie and Felicity—both of whom would’ve had a ball tossing Stuart into the street—were chasing after Jane. John Carmondy would’ve been her next choice, but he was out of town, too.
“Ugh,” she muttered as softly as possible. “Now would be a good time to jump out of the bushes, Kavenski!” Since the doorbell continued to chime, she assumed he hadn’t heard her almost-silent call for help. She decided to just wait Stuart out, pressing her hands over her ears when the constant dinging of the doorbell grew insanity-inducing. Her head was starting to throb, and she knew that poor Warrant had to be in the middle of a doggie meltdown.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. “I’ll take my chances with the cops.” Pivoting toward her phone, she started to take one step and then froze. A guy dressed all in black—from his knit face mask to his military-style boots—stood just a few feet away. He jerked to a stop, obviously not expecting her movement, and they stared at each other. Her first oddly calm thought was that their new alarm system had betrayed her, and she flicked the quickest of glances toward the alarm controls. The screen was blank and lifeless. The intruder must’ve disabled the security system.
Quit obsessing about the alarm and move!her brain screamed, breaking her paralysis, and her legs obeyed. She dove sideways, toward her phone, and yelled to the idiot who was still poking rhythmically at the doorbell. “Stuart! Call the cops! Someone’s in my house!”
The chiming paused but then picked up tempo, and she knew that either Stuart was the most evil little woodchuck in Colorado, or he was in on this—whateverthiswas.
She’d almost made it to the coffee table, her hand extended toward her phone, when a burly arm wrapped around her middle, jerking her back before her fingers could close around the device. Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear the doorbell. Cara started screaming, the tiny, practical part of her brain that wasn’t blind with panic hoping for once that her nosy and judgmental neighborswerelistening. Anything to bring the cops to the house to help.
