Missing with Bonus Material: The Secrets of Crittenden County, Book One by Shelley Shepard Gray Read Free Book Online

with Perry’s death and he was lying?
    She really didn’t know all that much about him.
    Shaking her head, she got to her feet. “Well, thank you for the warning.”
    His jaw looked set as he reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a ballpoint pen. “Give me your hand.”
    She did as he asked. Cradling her hand in his right, he wrote a series of numbers on her palm with his left hand. When he was finished, he curved her fingers over, making a fist.
    Hiding the numbers from view.
    “That’s my cell phone number. When you’re ready to talk to me about what you really know . . . or about what we saw in December . . . don’t come to the store or call my house. Call this number.”
    She didn’t need to ask why he wanted any conversation between them to be kept secret. She felt the same way. Their town was too small to be able to count on privacy. It didn’t matter if he was English and she was Amish.
    Someone in their circles would notice them talking together and comment on it. “And then?”
    “And then, we’ll figure out a way to talk. Without the detective finding out.”
    She couldn’t help but touch his arm with her unmarked hand. “I think if we do talk it should be out in the open,” she said, changing her mind about meeting. “Otherwise, we’ll raise suspicions.”
    “Fine, we’ll meet in the open.”
    His voice was so clipped, yet another wave of unease filtered through her. “Walker, do you think, really think, we need to be so worried?”
    Instead of moving away from her hand, he stepped closer, making her full palm curve around his bicep. “Lydia, I think if the detective realizes that all of us knew Perry better than we’re saying, things are going to get really complicated. More complicated than either of us can imagine. And that makes me really worried.”
    Walker turned and walked away before Lydia could think of any retort that made sense.
    Instead, she sat back down on the bench and tried to calm her shaking nerves. She had known things were going to get discovered sooner than later. She’d known it as certainly as she had known Perry wasn’t the right man for her.
    She’d just hoped the truth would come out at a far later date.
    “Lydia, is everything all right?” her mother called out from behind the screen door.
    “It’s fine.” Thinking quickly, she said, “That was just my friend Walker. He stopped by to say hello, that’s all.”
    Her mother leaned closer to the screen door—so close that her nose was pressed up against it. “I didn’t know you were friends with any Englischer boys.”
    “I’m not. I mean I’m not friends with very many. But Walker is nice.”
    “Is he now? And how old might he be?”
    “I don’t know, Mamm.” And because it was yet another thing that she didn’t know about in her life, her voice turned sharper. “Truly, muddah . He only came by to see how I was doing. See, he knew Perry, too. And the detective has spoken to him also.”
    “Well, unlike that Englischer, you had nothing to do with Perry’s disappearance.”
    So that was how they were going to refer to Perry’s death. “Walker did not, either.”
    “But you can’t be sure, can you?”
    “I can be sure that I trust him as much as anyone else. He’s a nice man, Mamm.” And she could also be sure that he was hiding information. Just like she was.
    “Perhaps,” her mother said before turning away in an uncharacteristically quiet fashion.
    Ten minutes later, after she heard her mother leave the kitchen, Lydia hurried to her room. She carefully wrote down the phone number on the back of an old Christmas card, then locked herself in the bathroom and scrubbed her hand until it was raw.
    At least the numbers were gone.
    If only the memories could be erased as easily.
    When they’d first started courting, Perry had been sweet and had brought her daisies and had blushed when he talked to her. He’d had a faint Kentucky drawl that had mixed with his Amish accent,