“We can’t go out,” Carly said at once. “Not now.”
“I had a little whiskey left,” Ella said wistfully. “I don’t know where it is.”
“You’re better off without it,” Carly said. “You have to think of the consequences. Now, of all times, you need to think clearly!”
There was another pause. “Yes. I suppose I do.”
Keely, her head full of what they were saying, felt numb. She didn’t say a word. She only smiled at Carly when she left, and avoided being alone with her mother, who was as quiet as a church. It was so uncharacteristic that Keely felt chilled, as if she’d stepped over her own grave.
* * *
She did try, once, to get her mother to open up about her father. Ella changed the subject and went to watch the news on television. She’d started doing that every day, as if she were waiting for some story to break. It made Keely nervous.
Clark came the next night, Saturday, to get her for one of their dates, and he was glum when they drove away from her mother’s house.
“What’s wrong with you?” Keely asked.
He glanced at her. “I wanted to drive us over to San Antonio for dinner and to take in a play. Boone said we couldn’t go.” He frowned, glancing at her. “He says you’re in some sort of trouble, and you aren’t supposed to go out of the county.”
Her breath stopped in her throat. How had Boone known? What did he know? Then she remembered. Hayes Carson was his best friend. They went out together every week to play poker with Garon Grier and Jon Blackhawk, Officer Kilraven’s half brother.
“What’s going on, Keely?” Clark asked. “What does Boone know that I don’t?”
She ground her teeth together. She didn’t want to talk about it, but it would be nice to get some of her worries off her chest. “My father is in some sort of trouble and Sheriff Carson thinks Mama and I might be in danger. He wants money. Apparently he called my mother and threatened her. She won’t tell me what he said.”
“Good Lord!” Clark exclaimed. He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Would that have anything to do with why we’re being followed?”
“Followed?”
“Yes. By a sheriff’s car when I picked you up, and by a Jacobsville police car now that we’re here in town.”
Keely remembered what Hayes had told her. She clutched her purse in her lap. “Sheriff Carson said they’d look out for me,” she confessed. “They think I might be in danger if I go out at night.”
“With me?”
“You could be in the line of fire, too, Clark,” she said, just realizing it. “Maybe we should stop seeing each other… .”
“No.” His voice was firm. “I’m not giving up Nellie. This is a good plan. We’ll work around your father. After all, a threat is just a threat. How is he going to hurt you when we’re surrounded by uniforms?” he asked, grinning.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll be perfectly safe,” he said. “When Boone said I couldn’t take you to San Antonio, I called Nellie and had her drive down here. I’ll leave you at the local library. It stays open until nine o’clock. That will give me a little time with her, if you’re game. You’ll be safe at the library,” he added.
She knew that. The police would be able to watch her through the many glass windows if she sat at a table. “Okay,” she agreed.
He grinned at her. “You’re the nicest girl I know.”
“Thanks, Clark.”
“I mean it.” He hesitated. “You don’t think your own father would really hurt you?” he added, worried.
“Of course not,” she lied.
“That makes me feel better.”
“Will Nellie be safe, driving down here from San Antonio and back, alone at night?” she added, and she was concerned.
“She drives one of those huge SUVs,” he said. “A tank couldn’t dent it. And she has a cell phone that I pay for. She can call for help if she has to.”
