Return (Coming Home #1) by Meli Raine Read Free Book Online

I hiss.
    “I know. And I’m making sure you know. I’m being open and honest with you, Carrie,” she explains.  
    That makes my eyes fill with tears and I squeeze her hand. “I know,” I murmur .
    “No, you d on’t.” She says this with a sad smile. “I know you think you trust me, but after what you’ve been through I couldn’t blame you if you never let anyone in at all.”
    My throat ma kes a strange choking noise after she sa ys that. I wash away the gagging with some coffee. Almost too hot to swallow, it ma kes a different k ind of eye watering happen. I am grateful.
    Pain can distr a ct me so easily from confusionand overwhelm.
    But pain can’t last forever. Just like love.
    A television, attached to the wall above a corner near the front window, flickers with a bunch of changing images. It catches my eye as Amy pops the top off her to-go cup and blows on her hot drink.
    “Another missing woman,” I say under my breath. There have been a rash of missing woman cases for a while . I’m reading the words beneaththe images. This is the third one. The missing woman is named Dina. Twenty-three. About my height. The woman has brown eyes and black hair.
    She looks kind of like Amy looks now, with her hair this dark color and the same style. I shiver at the thought and open my mouth to say so, but Amy speaks first.
    “How’s camping?” she asks with a big grin. She knows I’m living in Elaine and Brian’s trailer. I shake off the crazy feeling from the news report and give her a wry smile.  
    “It’s more fun than I thought, and no roommates,” I confess. “Those assholes back in Oklahoma did give me a gift, though.”
    “A gift?” Amy makes an inelegant snort. It turns a few male heads, all curious. “What’d they do, pass on an infectious disease? Get herpes from the toilet seat?”
    Now onlookers were openly gaping.

    I burst out laughing, and then say, “You can take the girl out of the hair dye and piercings, but...”
    Amy’s giggle joins mine and the air feels a thousand times lighter, just long enough for me to take a big sip of coffee.
    Ding! Ding! The jingle of the front door interrupts our laughter. Amy’s face goes from full-on happy to a bitchy glare in two seconds. My skin grows cold.
    Without turning,I ask her through gritted teeth. “Who just walked in ?”
    “It’s the dean’s daughter,” Amy says, looking away from the door and playing with the edge of a napkin. Her skirt is a lovely heathered grey and her shirt is a nice lilac that works with her brown eyes and black hair. She looks like she got an Oprah makeover.
    I shrug. “Don’t know her.”
    “Oh, you know her, all right . Claudia Landau.” Amy’seyes watch me, narrowed and focused. “ Speaking of claws...”  
    “ Claudia —oh, God!” I drop my cup, which is only a few inches from the coffee table. Luckily, I’ve finished two thirds of the delicious drink , so nothing spills. Picking the cup back up, I take a long, slow drink and mouth the words, Is she gone ?
    Amy’s head shake is hard to see, but I see it. I know my best friend’s signals.
    “How canshe be the dean’s daughter? She’s the chemistry chair’s daughter,” I whisper. The chemistry chair man at the college i s the man who set my father up. Ignatio Landau, the famous almost-Nobel prize winner. He looks like that old dude from the Most Interesting Man in the World beer commercials. If only he acted that way in real life.  
    Coming back home to work in the dean’s office isn’t just a smartmove to get my student loans and debt under control.
    I’m here to learn more about what happened at the university three years ago. The chemistry department wasn’t going to hire me, but the offer from the dean’s office meant I had an in.
    An in that means I can investigate what really happened with my father’s arrest three years ago.
    “Oh, Carrie,” Amy says quietly. And then she goes silent andpulls on my arm. “Do not turn around.”