Secrets in a Small Town. Kimberly Meter Van

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      Play nice, that was Scott’s advice. Some lawyer he was. Weren’t they all bloodthirsty, bottom-feeders? Apparently, he had the one lawyer on the planet who had a conscience.

      Wasn’t he the lucky one. Yeah…lucky wasn’t what he was feeling right at the moment.

      PIPER FORCED A SMILE AS HER mother dished a healthy portion of bulgur, lentil and tofu casserole onto her plate and tried not to stare at the offending mess as if it were the enemy. She’d been eating this stuff for years; one would think she’d be used to it by now. But once she’d discovered meat, covertly of course, she’d had a hard time appreciating the taste of tofu. Her parents would be devastated if they knew she was no longer a vegetarian, which was why she hid it from them. She imagined if she took up smoking they’d be more understanding than if she told them she had a hankering for a quarter-pounder with cheese.

      “Your article was fantastic,” Coral said, her voice warm with pride. “You’re keeping your clippings, right?”

      “Yes, Coral,” she answered dutifully. That was another thing about her parents, she’d never called them “Mom” and “Dad,” instead always referring to them by their given names as they believed it was unnecessary to cling to archaic traditions. Her friends used to think it was wild that she was treated like an adult when she was ten, but secretly, Piper had wished she had a bit more of that “tradition” her parents shied away from. It wasn’t easy being the only kid in class with parents like Coral and Jasper. She took a bite of the casserole for her mother’s sake. It wasn’t terrible, the spices helped; but it wasn’t beef and that’s what she wanted at the moment. “Actually,” she said around the hot bite, “I had a visitor at the paper earlier this morning and, boy, was he mad.”

      Jasper grinned above his own heaping plateful of casserole. “The owner of Big Trees Logging came down to rail at you, huh? How’d that go?”

      “As well as can be expected,” Piper said with a shrug. Mad was an understatement. If fire could’ve shot from his eyeballs, she’d have been reduced to a smoldering pile of ash. “He’s pretty ticked off. He threatened to sue the paper.”

      “That’s so like a conservative,” Jasper growled, and Coral nodded in agreement. “Censor the press so that the message is muffled. Don’t worry, sweetheart, the truth is on your side.”

      She wasn’t entirely sure of that. She felt a twinge of regret for having to railroad Owen Garrett, but she was playing both sides against the middle for a bigger cause. Sure, she was helping her parents further their own agenda of protecting the marbled murrelet, but in her heart burned a secret desire for bigger things than their little slice of heaven could provide. “Did you know that Big Trees was awarded a green certification for their environmentally sound and sustainable logging practices?” she asked her mother, who only scowled in response.

      “Political designation, kickbacks, there’s all sorts of terrible things that go on at the expense of the environment, honey.” Coral seated herself and dug into her casserole with relish. “Logging disrupts the natural order of things, creates sediment that kills the fish and erosion that causes a landslide hazard. We are stewards of the land, honey, and it’s time people remember that fact.”

      “It also provides lumber that’s used to build homes,” Piper countered, unable to help herself. “And jobs, so that people can feed their families. And Garrett’s company actually improved the Chileaut watershed.”

      Coral blinked in surprise. “Piper, you know there are plenty of alternative building products out there that are just as good, if not better, than timber for building homes. If we don’t make people change, they never will. And who’s to say that the Chileaut watershed was improved?” Piper opened her mouth to answer but Coral continued with a knowing expression that Piper found particularly annoying, saying, “Just because some report by some independent water group claims that the watershed quality has improved, doesn’t make it so. We don’t know if money changed hands.”

      Piper had a difficult time imagining Owen paying someone off just to get what he wanted. There was something…noble about the man, even though he did scare her a little with that intense stare of his. It was as if he could zero in on her most intimate thoughts with unerring accuracy. She suppressed a shiver. Her mother was still ranting. The fleeting thought came to her to try and set Coral straight with some facts, but she realized in her mother’s current frame of mind the effort would be useless.

      She adored her parents, but sometimes they were…well, zealots, and she didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon listening to them tag team her in a one-sided discussion. It was best to nod and agree and then disagree privately. Piper choked down another bite and smiled, ready to switch subjects.

      “Do you remember that case involving the Aryan Coalition?”

      Jasper paused, his next forkful nearly to his mouth. “You mean, the massacre at Red Meadows? Why would you want to know about that? It’s an embarrassing chapter in the town’s history, best left alone.”

      Coral agreed resolutely, her gaze darting. “I was so glad we didn’t have a television. I heard you couldn’t turn the channel without something being on about it. Your father is right, the memory is best forgotten.”

      Oh, Piper heartily disagreed. How something so dark and scandalous could lurk in the shadows of the town’s history without piquing at least some kind of outside interest baffled her. When she’d found the details, she’d nearly fallen from her chair in her shock and excitement. It wasn’t every day you found the ticket to the big time just waiting for you to discover it. The second coup had been when she’d discovered that the local recluse, William Dearborn, had actually been at Red Meadows when it all went down. It’d been like stumbling across a buried treasure, only the loot had been in plain sight the whole time.

      “Well, when I was doing background research on Big Trees Logging, I stumbled across the information that Owen Garrett was at the massacre. In fact, it was his father who was the leader of the Aryan Coalition.”

      “That’s right. I’d forgotten,” Jasper said, returning to his paper. “He was just a kid then, about ten or so?”

      “Eleven, actually,” she corrected her father. “What a terrible thing to have lived through.”

      “Yes,” Coral hastened to agree, but it was plain that the topic unnerved her, which was saying something because Coral wasn’t easily bothered. She often viewed most awkward, volatile or embarrassing situations as an excellent opportunity to study human behavior within the constraints of a working civilized society. “It’s probably a blessing he was sent to live with his aunt on the east coast. No telling how twisted he might’ve grown up to be if he’d remained here after everything he went through with that father of his.”

      “You knew them?” she asked, unable to contain her delight at this unexpected nugget of information.

      Coral looked to Jasper, but quickly shook her head. “Of course not, Piper. It’s not as if we ran in the same circles. I’m just saying, the leader of a racist cult is hardly what I’d call a candidate for Father of the Year. You never know what he was teaching that boy.” Then she added with a mutter, “I’m shocked Owen returned.”

      “Yeah, me, too,” Piper murmured, her mind moving rapidly. Her parents had definitely shared a conspiratorial look. What did that mean? Dare she ask? Would they tell the truth? Piper decided to sit on those questions for the moment.

      “Piper, you’ve hardly touched your tofu СКАЧАТЬ