Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 02 - Riptide by Michaela Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

“Nosy, aren’t you?”
    Stiles grinned, but Isabel didn’t think he was amused. “Yes, I’m real nosy.”
    Isabel said, “My aunt had a serious accident. The doctor thinks she fell and hit her head. Kimmie Dee found her wandering on the beach.”
    “You don’t say,” Stiles said. “When was this, exactly?”
    “About two weeks ago.”
    “She in the hospital?”
    “She is now. She’s going to be released before long, I think.”
    Kimmie Dee’s head turned quickly toward Isabel as Joy said, “Really? She’s coming home?”
    Isabel shook her head. “She isn’t well enough to come home right now. She’s going to stay with a nurse in town. A woman named Bernice Chatham.”
    “Poor thing,” said Joy.
    Stiles picked at his bottom lip as if removing tobacco, although he was smoking a filter tip. “You never told me this, Joy.”
    Joy simpered, “I don’t tell you every little thing.” To Isabel she said, “Miss Merriam was off her head, hollering and all. It was terrible.”
    Ted Stiles seemed fascinated. “Hollering what?”
    “Oh, craziness.”
    “What craziness?” Stiles persisted.
    “I don’t remember, Teddy! A bunch of words like
Help
and
Don’t.”
    “She said,
‘Help me, Isabel’
to me,” Kimmie Dee offered.
    “Huh,” Stiles said. He took a long drag on his cigarette.
    “I don’t really remember,” Joy said. She yawned and stretched. The tops of her tanned breasts strained at the halter.
    Isabel said she had to leave, and Joy Burke did not urge her to stay. She started up the driveway toward the road, but before she got there a voice cried, “Isabel!” She turned to see Kimmie Dee running after her, bare feet slapping the pavement.
    “I want to tell you,” the girl gasped, out of breath.
    So there was more, after all. “Tell me what?”
    “That Mr. Stiles? Ted Stiles?”
    “Yes?”
    “He is
not
my daddy.” Kimmie Dee shook her head adamantly. She repeated, “He is
not
my daddy.”
    “I understand,” said Isabel, but there was a lot she didn’t understand at all.

SEVEN
    Peering through a torn window shade in an upstairs bedroom of the old Anders house, Harry Mercer watched Isabel walk toward the trailer. From this distance, she looked just the way she used to— tall, almost gawky-looking. Flyaway dark hair that was always coming loose from the elastic band or barrette.
    So now he’d seen her. Big deal.
    “Who is she?” Scooter asked, his voice pitched low.
    Barely moving his lips, Harry said, “Her name’s Isabel Anders. She’s the old woman’s niece.”
    “Fabulous.”
Scooter’s hiss seemed to fill every corner of the room.
    Isabel glanced up at the house, and Harry’s stomach lurched. He stepped back from the window. Although he was sure she hadn’t seen him, he felt as if their eyes had met. She used to know when he was looking at her, feel it all the way across the school lunchroom, but that was a long time ago.
    “What’s she doing here?” Scooter asked.
    “She must have come to see about the old lady.”
    Scooter made a sound of disgust. Harry looked out again. He watched Isabel continue to the trailer and go inside.
    The air was stifling and only murky light penetrated the shades. The room was unfurnished. Scattered around the floor were an ice chest, a plastic tackle box closed with a combination lock, a red gasoline can, and a wadded-up sleeping bag. Along one wall makeshift shelves, constructed from concrete blocks and unfinished boards, held an assortment of objects: bottles of chemicals, a collection of brass nails, a length of corroded chain, a battered pewter pitcher, several small rust-encrusted cannonballs, a white enamel dishpan.
    Harry hated to admit it, but when he and Scooter first got into the house, he had walked around the whole place, running his hand over the banister rail, opening the kitchen cabinets. As many times as he had made love to Isabel, he had never been in the house where she lived. Miss Merriam wouldn’t let her have