by Eryn Scott
Her bike had flown a good five yards away, and the back tire wobbled unnaturally as it spun.
Convertible stopped, Cassie flipped up her sunglasses. Her mouth opened three times as her angry gaze flicked between Hadley and the bike. The fourth time, a string of swears flew out.
Stunned by the teen’s foul language, Hadley just stood there as Cassie got out, rounded the front of the car, and continued to yell.
“What were you thinking?” Cassie combed her fingers roughly through her blond hair, looking back at the dent in her front left fender.
“You didn’t see the cat.” Hadley shrugged, not about to let some stuck-up teenager boss her around. “I tried to warn you, but you weren’t paying attention.”
Blinking, Cassie studied Hadley’s expression. “What cat?”
Hadley dipped her chin. “Exactly. It finally ran off, over there.” She pointed over at the shrubs along the other side of the road.
Cassie’s gaze followed Hadley’s gesture. It was then Hadley noticed how puffy and red her eyes were. She looked like she’d been crying.
Was that why she wasn’t paying attention to where she was driving? Hadley wondered.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, more diplomatically.
Before Hadley could prepare herself, Cassie crumpled into a sobbing mess at her feet in the middle of the road.
“Nothing’s okay,” the girl wailed. “My friend is missing and it’s all my fault. And I just yelled at the person who tried to stop me from killing a cat.” She sniffled and looked up at Hadley. “I’m sorry.”
In the months since the Lees had moved to Stoneybrook from Cascade Ridge, Hadley had never seen the young woman look anything less than the picture of icy beauty.
But all of her cracks were showing at once.
Hadley couldn’t help but latch on to Cassie’s statement. “Why is Miranda missing your fault?” she asked, bending down next to the crying girl.
Cassie’s long eyelashes were sticking together, coated with tears and too much mascara. She looked at Hadley through them as a few more tears dripped down her cheeks then she sniffed.
Hadley hadn’t forgotten what Mickie had told her about Cassie’s neighbors seeing her leave the house so late when she’d sworn to Paul she’d stayed in all night.
Instead of answering, Cassie began to wail even louder, her body wracked with sobs. Hadley glanced around the empty road and wondered if she should try to move Cassie’s car out of the way. This end of Main Street wasn’t too busy, though. Deciding it would be fine, she did go move her mangled bike out of the other lane and clicked on Cassie’s emergency flashers. Her phone beeped, and she saw a text from her brother come through.
Heard anything new about Miranda?
Hadley cringed. If Paul was asking her, it meant they were running out of leads. She sent back a sad-face emoji before returning to the still-weeping teen, feeling bad for leaving her alone.
But Hadley stopped short as she rounded the car. The girl was no longer alone.
The road cat sat mere inches from the whimpering Cassie. Its pink nose twitched, and it stretched its neck forward toward the person who’d almost flattened it.
Cassie had stopped crying and stared at the cat instead. “Are you the one I almost hit?” she cooed.
To Hadley’s amazement, the cat meowed in response, a purr rumbling in its throat. It reminded her of the almost conversational chats she often had with her cats.
“I’m so sorry.” Cassie held her hand out. The road cat blinked lovingly at her and even rubbed its head against Cassie’s fingers.
Hadley suppressed a grin. “It hasn’t let anyone get close, but seems absolutely smitten with you.”
As if to prove her point, the road cat glared at Hadley, a small growl rumbling in its throat. She put her hands up and took a step back.
“Okay, okay. Sorry,” she said with a laugh.
Cassie wrapped an arm around the cat and pulled it into her lap. Hadley hadn’t ever seen a cat take to one person so intensely and be so sour toward everyone else.
“So you don’t belong to anyone?” Cassie asked the cat.
“Not that anyone local knows of,” Hadley answered.
This time, Cassie directed her question at Hadley. “Do you think I could keep him … her?”
Shrugging, Hadley said, “I don’t see why not. Louise was going to ask around for me, but if it’s truly a stray, yeah. You’d be doing it a favor giving it a warm home before the temperature drops.”
Cassie stood, giving one decisive nod. The cat hung in her arms as if it had been carried around by her all its life. “No more roads for you, Bailey. You’re going to be an inside cat from now on.”
Hadley’s eyebrows rose. “Bailey?”
“Yeah.” Cassie put a hand on one hip. “Its fur looks like Bailey’s Irish Cream. And it works whether it’s a girl or a boy.”
Not wanting to ask how Cassie, a minor, would know anything about the liquor, Hadley focused on the next steps.
“The local veterinarian will be able to tell you the gender, as well as figure out if it has any medical issues you’ll want to take care of before bringing it into your house.” Hadley could just picture the cat jumping onto a pristine, white couch in the Lee household that probably cost more than all of Hadley’s furniture combined.
Cassie snapped her fingers, then pointed at Hadley. “You can help me! You’re a total crazy cat lady. I have no idea what to do or buy, but people are always talking about how you have a ton of cats.”
Hadley frowned. She didn’t know in which universe two cats qualified as a ton—and she also didn’t appreciate the word crazy being tacked on to the term cat lady—but she also saw an opportunity. Her frown morphed into a smile.
“On one condition. You have to tell me what you were talking about earlier. Why are you the reason for Miranda’s disappearance?” Her hand moved to her hip as if by its own free will.
The teenager’s gaze dropped to the cat in her arms. She scrunched her fingers into the tea-with-cream colored fur, but conceded. “Okay.”
“Let’s get your car out of the road first.” Hadley moved toward her bike, grimacing when she saw the warped shape of the back wheel.
Cassie waved her over. “Put your bike in the back seat. There’s no way you’re going to be able to ride it now. I’ll drive.”
Hadley gulped, remembering all of the times she’d seen Cassie speeding through town.
“I’ll drive slower. I promise,” the girl added, rolling her eyes a bit, as if she were arguing with her mother.
Pulling in a fortifying breath, Hadley agreed and climbed in to the passenger seat. She pulled out her phone and texted Paul a second time.
Actually, I might have just stumbled onto a lead. More to come. Fingers crossed.
She didn’t get a response from Paul, but figured her brother was operating in a perfect storm of fatigue, frustration, and faltering hope, so she didn’t blame him if he wasn’t encouraged by her text.
Cassie tried to hand the cat over to Hadley, but it began growling again. The teen chewed on her bottom lip, holding the feline in between them indecisively. The closer she pulled it toward herself, the quieter the cat became. The more she moved it in Hadley’s direction, the louder, just like the other day when Hadley had tried to reach out for it while it was sitting in the middle of her road.
“Hmmm …” Cassie huffed. “I can’t very well drive and hold on to you, Bailey.”
A lightbulb of an idea illuminated Hadley’s thoughts, solving two problems at once. “I could always drive. That would free you up to hold Bailey.” She held her breath as Cassie considered the idea. She held up a hand as if to swear in a court of law. “I’m fully insured.”
Cassie narrowed her eyes for an instant, then opened the driver’s side door. “Okay. The car’s already banged up.”
Choosing to ignore the insinuation she might do any damage to the car—especially any more than the speedy teen could’ve do
ne racing around town—Hadley got out of the car and swapped with Cassie. After a quick safety check of mirrors and seat positioning, they were buckled and on their way to the vet’s clinic.
Air whooshed past Hadley, causing her hair to sweep back out of her face luckily, since she wasn’t sure how she would’ve been able to see if her long, dark locks had been directed forward. She glanced over at Cassie.
“So …” she said cautiously. “Ready to talk about Miranda?” Hadley kept her eyes on the road, but kept tabs on the teen in her peripheral vision. She’d apparently already lied to Paul, and Hadley wasn’t going to put it past her to lie again.
Cassie hugged Bailey tighter to her body.
“Why did you say you were the reason she was gone?” Hadley asked.
A sigh escaped the teenager. “I introduced her to Jaxon.”
Hadley waited for more, but quickly realized this conversation was going to take a lot of prodding. “And you think Jaxon is the reason she’s missing?”
Cassie nodded.
“Why’s that?” Hadley gripped the steering wheel as she rounded the last bend before they were back downtown.
“Jaxon and I were friends when I lived up in Cascade Ridge. He was always kind of wild, but a nice enough guy. Since I moved here, he’s changed. He has a huge party each summer and still wanted me to come, even though I’d moved down here. I brought Miranda with me and introduced them, but that was before I realized how much Jaxon had changed in the months since I’d moved away.”
“In what way?” Hadley asked, remembering how Kelsey had mentioned the guy being bad news.
Cassie wet her lips. “He’d gotten into drugs.” She swung to face Hadley. “I never would’ve introduced him to Miranda if I’d known.”
Hadley pulled into the vet’s clinic and parked the car. She turned to look at Cassie, a pit forming in her stomach as she thought about the teen who had been killed just last week, about his connections to a local drug ring.
“Is that why they fought? Did Miranda find out he was into drugs and threaten to break up with him?” Hadley imagined a teenager in a drug-induced rage, overreacting to his girlfriend trying to leave him. It was definitely the best motive she’d come across yet, especially if Miranda had threatened to tell the police about his extracurricular activities.
Cassie gulped. “No, the reason they got in a fight that night was because Jaxon accused her of using him for drugs.”
Breath caught in Hadley’s throat. “Wait … what?”
Cassie met Hadley’s wild eyes and nodded. “Miranda was buying drugs from Jaxon.”
12
Cassie’s statement about Miranda buying drugs punched Hadley in the gut. It couldn’t possibly be true.
She shook her head. “Sweet, kind Miranda? She would never—”
Holding up a hand, Cassie said, “I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but you’ve got to trust me.”
Says the girl who’s lied multiple times to the police, Hadley thought incredulously.
As much as she wished it wasn’t true, she could see a pain behind Cassie’s eyes she’d never noticed before. She couldn’t read the teenager like she could Paul or Suze or even Luke, but there was something about the earnestness in her voice and the way the whole thing made her tear up all over again, that increased her doubt that Cassie was fabricating this.
Still, she wasn’t ruling it out.
“Why did you keep this to yourself?” Hadley asked, the words wrapped in frustration as she sat back in to the plush leather seats of Cassie’s convertible.
Cassie raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, completing a perfect caricature of an exhausted teenager. “Seriously? It’s drugs. I’m not going to get my friends in trouble.” Her clipped tone sounded like the Cassie Hadley had gotten to know over the past year again, highlighting the change in the way she’d been conversing up until that point.
“Your friends are already in trouble, Cassie. Major trouble. Miranda most of all.” Hadley stopped herself before she said something mean. She inhaled slowly. “Every hour we don’t find Miranda is an hour it’s more likely that we won’t.”
Cassie’s shoulders sagged. “I know. It’s why I was crying in the car, why I didn’t see Bailey.” The cat purred in her lap, either none the wiser or fast to forgive. “I knew I’d made a mistake, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I thought she would show up, like she was just playing a game.”
Between the way she’d collapsed into a crying heap minutes ago and the way her voice shook now, Hadley finally began to see Cassie for the seventeen-year-old she was, not the adult she constantly pretended to be. Hadley softened slightly.
“If I call my brother, will you tell him the truth, finally?” she asked.
Cassie frowned. “That big mountain-man sheriff is your brother?” She scanned Hadley up and down.
“Twin, actually.” Hadley wasn’t used to people not knowing she and Paul were related, though she couldn’t quite blame Cassie. “He’s a great listener and a good deputy. If anyone can find Miranda, it’s Paul.”
After a moment of hesitation, Cassie agreed. “Sure. I’ll talk with him. You sure he’s not going to throw me in jail for lying?”
“He’s not nearly as scary as he looks, I promise.” She pulled out her phone and dialed Paul’s number. He picked up on the fourth ring, right when Hadley was about to hang up.
“Hey.” His voice was sharp, blunt. The cacophony of voices in the background made it almost impossible to hear him.
“I’m with Cassie Lee right now, and she has something she’d like to talk with you about. Can I bring her by the station in about half an hour?”
Paul cleared his throat. “Cassie’s the lead you texted me about?” He exhaled. “Uh … I’ll come to you. I’m at Wendy’s grabbing a quad-shot Americano so I don’t fall asleep. Where are you?” The sound of people chatting in the background ebbed slightly, but she still had to strain to hear him.
“We’re at the vet,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she realized there were none of the regular sounds of steaming milk or banging spent grounds into the compost bin.
It was possible Paul had stepped outside to take her call, but then why were the voices just as loud? Was he lying to her about where he was?
“Gotcha. I’ll be there in fifteen,” he said quickly.
Biting her bottom lip, Hadley pressed the screen even though she knew he’d already hung up. She felt awful for doubting her brother. Even if he wasn’t being honest with her, it was most likely because of the case, not because he was with Suzanne. But the possibly it was another lie made her heart sink.
“You okay?” Cassie’s voice broke through the mental fog that had descended onto Hadley during the phone call.
She blinked. “Yeah … fine.” Forcing a smile, she took the keys out of the ignition and said, “Ready to go inside?”
Cassie cocked her head to the side and shot Hadley a skeptical look that made her feel sorry for Cassie’s parents, and her teachers.
“That’s a lie,” Cassie said flatly. “Look I’ve had enough friend drama in my life to recognize it from a mile away.” She gestured to Hadley’s face. “That is the face of someone who’s just been lied to and knows it.”
Surprised at how right she’d gotten it, Hadley sat speechless for a moment. “He’s been off lately, different. He’s my best friend and we usually tell each other everything, but … let’s just say it’s not the case anymore. I’m trying to give him a break, since I know he’s working so hard on this case, but I can’t shake the feeling something else might be going on,” she said, not about to spill to Cassie about her suspicion Paul and Suze were getting together behind her back.
The girl nodded, regardless of the lack of facts. “Drama’s the worst,” she said, finally. “Can I give you some advice?”
Hadley didn’t answer. Cassie must’ve taken her silence as a yes.
“You seem smart, good at reading people.” She
shrugged. “I’d listen to your gut. If you think something’s going on, it probably is.”
Hadley thought back to seeing the order for Suze in Mickie’s bakery. She could’ve sworn it had been for a German chocolate cake. A cake in Paul’s favorite flavor that she’d kept from Hadley. Was her gut right on that one too?
Without another word, Cassie scooped Bailey out of her lap and got out of the car, looking back at Hadley to see if she was coming.
Hadley sat in a white-and-cream examination room, unsure if the strong ammonia smell was from cleaning supplies or cat pee.
The vet, Danielle Murphy, was able to identify Bailey as a male and confirm Cassie really was the only person he would tolerate. Hadley didn’t envy Dr. Murphy the scratches and bites she gained during the examination, but also felt vindicated it wasn’t just her the cat hated.
“He sure found his person.” Dr. Murphy chuckled as Bailey cozied up to Cassie after the exam was finished. “Now, Cassie, he’s got a lot of fleas, worms, and a bad cut on his back leg that’s infected.”
Hadley turned her attention to the teen’s face, waiting for her to back away in disgust from the mangy feline. But Cassie only hugged Bailey tighter. Hadley decided right then how greatly she’d misjudged the girl.
She didn’t have time to think on that fact because there was a knock on the exam room door and Paul walked in.
Dr. Murphy looked up. “I’ll go get some things together for Bailey while you three chat.” Hadley had warned both the doctor and the receptionist about Paul coming by, and they’d assured her it would be fine for them to use an exam room for a few minutes.
Hadley was tempted to follow Dr. Murphy’s lead and leave the exam room as well, to give Paul and Cassie privacy, but the teen had lied too many times, and she wanted to make sure her story was the same as it had been earlier.
Paul perched on the small barstool the doctor used during her appointments. He pulled out his notepad and clicked his pen before looking directly at Cassie.
