Shadow Creek by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online

finish … 
start
 … packing,” Valerie said, checking the mirror over the dresser to make sure she’d put her lipstick on straight. “I’m going to find out what the hell is going on.”

THREE
    T HIS DAY IS GOING downhill faster than a skier in Aspen, Valerie was thinking as she ran down her front steps toward the street, the July heat instantly closing around her. Damn this humidity, she thought, taking a slow, painful breath as she approached the car door and knocked on the window.
    The driver peered over at Val from behind the glass, then smiled. The smile was one of trepidation rather than joy, more “Oh, God, what happens now?” than “It’s so nice to see you.” Perfectly normal under the circumstances, Val thought. Although nothing was really normal about these circumstances.
    “You don’t have to wait out here,” she said without any preamble as the window slowly lowered.
    “That’s all right,” came the soft reply. “I have the air-conditioning on.”
    “Good way to run down the battery.”
    “Really, I’m fine. Thank you.”
    “I take it Evan asked you to meet him here,” Val stated.
    “He said he was running a bit late and it would save time if I could just meet him at your place.”
    Val nodded. “Well, then. You might as well come inside. It might be a while.”
    “I’m sure he’ll be here any minute.”
    Val gave the young woman a look that said, Are you kidding me?
    Her soon-to-be ex-husband’s new fiancée sighed deeply. The sigh said, You’re probably right. “You really don’t have to do this.”
    “I know,” Val agreed. Why
am
I doing this? she asked herself as Jennifer opened the car door, long bare legs extending into the open air, siren-red toenails peeking out from the open toes of her ridiculously high platform sandals. The last time I saw those legs they were wrapped around my husband’s neck, Val thought. “I believe you know the way,” she couldn’t resist adding as she extended her right arm toward the glass and stone house down the street.
    Val wiped the sweat from her upper lip with the backs of her fingers, noting that in spite of the heat and humidity, Jennifer looked as fresh and as lovely in her yellow T-shirt and white shorts as the proverbial daisy. She found herself studying her replacement as the young woman walked ahead. Why can’t I walk like that? she wondered, ruing that she’d never mastered the art of the subtle wiggle. Or the subtle anything, she conceded.
    “You don’t just walk,” her friend Melissa had once told her. “You
stride
.”
    “I think ‘lope’ is a better description,” her friend James had quickly corrected.
    “I lope?”
    “Like a newborn colt,” James said.
    “I walk like a horse?”
    “It’s very charming,” Melissa had assured her.
    Charming. Yeah, right, Val thought now, already regretting her act of impetuous altruism as she watched Jennifer gracefully ascend the half-dozen concrete steps to her front door. How does she even move in those sky-high platforms? she wondered, picturing Jennifer tripping over a large boulder in the Adirondacks and tumbling into Shadow Creek. The image made her smile, and then frown. So much for altruism, she thought.
    Jennifer opened the front door, then stepped inside the air-conditioned house, stopping just inside the gray-and-gold-flecked marble foyer.
    Val motioned toward the living room to her left. “Make yourself at home,” she said, getting more than a slight degree of satisfaction when she saw Jennifer wince.
    “Maybe I should wait outside,” Jennifer said, not moving.
    “Don’t be silly. I’m not going to bite you.”
    Jennifer nodded, although she looked far from convinced.
    “Would you like some iced tea?”
    “No, thank you.”
    “You’re sure? I’m going to have some.”
    “Why are you being so nice to me?” Jennifer asked.
    Val shrugged. Why
was
she being so nice? “It’s just a cold glass of tea. Take it or leave it.”
    “Well, okay. Iced