Secret Agent Father by Laura Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

father’s worried sick. He’s been trying to call you for hours. What is wrong with you? You should be here with him. Don’t you care about him at all? Where are you?”
    Shelby winced at her shrill voice. “Please, Marilyn, stop yelling at me. Just put Dad on, would you?”
    “Fine. Be that way.”
    Marilyn dropped the phone with a clatter makingShelby pull the instrument away from her ear. After a few minutes, her father’s booming voice came over the line.
    “Shelby? Where have you been? I’ve been calling your place all day.”
    “Sorry, Dad.” Shelby tried not to back down from his accusatory tone, but it wasn’t easy. Her relationship with her father wasn’t great. When her mother was still alive, they’d been a close-knit family. Every Sunday, after church, they’d have family game night. She’d cherished those times. But things had gotten worse after her mother died. Her father had changed. Ever since her mother’s death he’d been trying to toughen her up, trying to make her into something she wasn’t. Someone like Trina. Most of the time she avoided her family, preferring her friends from church to the rowdy crowd who hung around at the marina. Her father never hesitated to vocalize his disapproval.
    “I’ve been worried about you. Do you have Cody?”
    “Yes, Cody’s with me. We’re safe. Everything is fine,” she hastened to reassure him.
    “So you haven’t seen Trina, then?”
    She hesitated, not wanting to lie, but not wanting to break her promise to Alex, either. “Not in a while,” she hedged. To the best of her knowledge, no one had known that she was meeting Trina down by the marina. Cody had often stayed with her when her sister was working.
    “Then you don’t know.” He let out a heavy sigh. “There’s been a terrible accident, Shel.” For a moment, he sounded like the father she used to know. The one who taught his young daughters how to sail on the waters of Lake Michigan. “Your sister…” He struggled to get the words out. “Someone shot her. She’s dead.”
    Shelby closed her eyes against a wave of grief, even though she’d suspected the worst all along. To hear her father state the truth so bluntly was harder than she’d anticipated. “What—what happened?”
    “I don’t know.” The helplessness in his tone was so uncharacteristic that Shelby wished she were with him. “I can’t think of anyone who’d want to kill her. Of course I called the mayor, asking him to make Trina’s murder a priority. It pays to have friends in high places. So far, Lieutenant Holden thinks it’s a robbery, since all of the jewelry Trina had been wearing was stolen, including her wedding ring.”
    Her father sounded lost and forlorn, reinforcing what Shelby had known all along. He couldn’t possibly be involved in something so heinous as drug smuggling, and he certainly played no part in Trina’s death. A part of her wanted to blurt out the truth, how she’d seen the dark figure shoot Trina, but she held her tongue. For Cody’s sake. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
    “Where are you? You said you have Cody with you? Because Stephan has been wondering where he is.”
    “I have Cody and we’re staying with a friend.” She frowned. “I know Stephan and Trina were having problems, and that Trina had moved out, but I’m sure this is still very hard on him.”
    “Yes. I was hoping they’d work things out.” He sighed heavily. “Why don’t you come home? I need you, Shelby. Trina—the police haven’t released her body yet, so we haven’t scheduled the funeral.”
    The funeral? A fresh wave of tears threatened and Shelby blinked them back with an effort and rubbed the scar at her temple.
    Of course she and Cody would be expected to attend the funeral. But would that be good for Cody? Was it safe enough for him to attend? She honestly didn’t know. “I’m sorry, but I can’t come home right now, Dad. Please don’t worry, we’re fine. And I promise I’ll stay in