Sinister by Lisa Jackson, Nancy Bush, Rosalind Noonan Read Free Book Online Page A

“whatever” as she’d tapped in another text message.
    Unlike Ricki, Brook did not want to be here.
    “It was only supposed to be temporary . . . a visit,” she’d reminded Ricki over and over again. “You lied!” The accusation was usually accompanied by the slamming of a door and furious text messaging to her father, decrying her horrid situation out here in the middle of nowhere.
    “Someday, you’ll thank me for this,” Ricki said as she stomped the snow off her boots on the front porch. Inside she found her daughter lounging on the couch.
    Rudolph, the white kitten Brook had adopted two weeks earlier, was curled on the back of the couch, while a quilt was tossed over Brook’s legs. She was splitting her attention between the Real Housewives of Somewhere and her cell phone, where she texted with lightning speed.
    “Homework done?” Ricki asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “All of it?”
    “I said yeah.” She sounded bored rather than irritated, as if she’d expected to be interrogated.
    “Okay.” Ricki was opening a Visa bill when Brook started up.
    “I want to go home,” she said with a sad little sigh.
    “You are home.”
    “I mean to New York.” Her voice, for the first time in a week, held some passion, some hope.
    “That’s not going to happen right now, honey.”
    “Mom! You don’t get it. I hate it here! I hate everybody here. They’re all weird.”
    “No, they’re not.”
    “I told you I bumped into that old Kincaid lady, and she looked like she wanted to kill me!”
    “You knocked her purse down when she was coming out of her daughter’s dress shop,” Ricki said with forced patience. Georgina Kincaid wasn’t a forgiving sort on the best of days. She could just imagine how she felt after Brook barreled into her.
    “And she had drugs and a gun, Mom,” Brook reminded her. “They fell out on the sidewalk.”
    “And I told you her husband is really ill. Stop arguing, Brook. The Major isn’t well and Georgina’s taking care of him.”
    “Aren’t we supposed to hate the Kincaids?” Brook lifted her brows.
    “Where do you get this? Never mind.” As soon as she said the words she wished she hadn’t because prolonging an argument with her daughter was exhausting and a waste of time. Besides, she knew who Brook had been listening to. Ira used every opportunity to bad-mouth his neighbors.
    “I don’t have any friends here,” Brook said morosely. “Not real friends, not like Sophie.”
    “Give it time,” Ricki said. “You’ll make some friends.”
    “How much time? We’ve been here like ... an eternity already!”
    “Maybe Sophie can come for a visit.”
    “Why would she want to? There’s nothing to do here, and ... and Dad said it would be okay for me to move in with him and Oona. When he said I could come for Christmas, I asked if I could move back and he said he’d like that.”
    Oh, Jesus. Ari, you bastard! “You talked to him? Tonight?”
    “Texted. He was at some gig. Taking a break between sets.”
    And probably getting high. With Oona.
    “He must have forgotten about Grandpa’s wedding. You need to stick around for that.”
    Brook rolled her eyes in a classic save-me expression as the cat hopped onto the windowsill to stare outside. “Why?”
    “Because Grandpa wants everyone there.”
    “Big effin’ deal.”
    “Watch it, Brook.” Seeing the set of her daughter’s jaw, that Dillinger jaw, Ricki added, “Look, if your dad and I can work something out, after the wedding you can probably visit him.” She hated herself for the lie. Ari Vakalian didn’t want his daughter living with him. Ari could not handle his daughter, and after a few days, Brook would not be able to cope with her childlike father. Ricki knew it. Ari knew it. And, though she wasn’t showing it, Brook probably knew it as well.
    Denial. It was a family trait that ran through the Dillinger clan gene pool as much as red hair and obstinacy.
    As she walked toward her bedroom, Ricki glanced at a