Page 35 of Bad Intentions

“But your family has the most bizarre past around here.”

“You are a little too interested in my past. What’s your deal?”

“Again, there’s nothing much to do in this town. Maybe I’ll write a book one day.” Rika wiggles her eyebrows. “So that guy, on the news, the one they are looking for, he was in town right before the fire and the murder twenty-five years ago.”

Huh.

Rika is clearly roping me in for something. More information? She doesn’t realize I probably know less than local amateur sleuths. And now all my attention is on what exactly she knows.

“He’s had some bad run-ins with the locals,” she says. “Your grandmother, especially.”

That’s the part I don’t know much about, and it makes me burn with curiosity as much as it bothers me that this girl knows more about my grandmother than I do.

Her eyes shift to the TV screen hanging above the milkshake machines. My eyes follow—it’s a news update about the Burnville kidnapping. The TV is on silent, but the picture of the stranger fills the screen, and when I turn to Rika, I run right into her stare.

She taps her palm on the counter. “I’ll take the check. Hey, wanna come hang at my place tonight? We can have drinks, whatever you’re into. Smoke some. I’ll get Trevor to come over. Maybe he’ll have new intel from the precinct. The cops don’t tell you much, do they?”

I hate to admit it, but she’s right about everything.

This might be a trap. And I’m so tired of traps and secrets. But then, it’s a weekday. There’s nothing to do after work. Though I don’t know Rika well, barely actually, I do want to hang out with her, see where she lives, how she lives. Maybe meet that Trevor guy. Anticipation starts to rise inside me, the excitement when you meet a person who right away feels like an old friend. It’s unexplainable. It’s rare. A person you can’t stop thinking about. Can’t wait to see again.

Without hesitation, I pass Rika my phone. “Put your number in,” I prompt and wait till she does.

“I sent a text to my number so I have yours. My check?”

That’s for one coffee. “On the house,” I say.

She chuckles. “Sure, Bootsie. Thanks.”

I’m about to tell her to watch her mouth, but she’s already walking away. I hate the nickname Bootsie. They used to tease me with it at school. Especially high school, when everyone was old enough to judge, to gossip, to inflict pain, bring up my family’s past.

But Rika is out the door, and in a minute, I get a text with her address.

Too many strangers have invited me to their homes this week, promising to tell me about my past. But I bite again.

At least maybe tonight, I’ll learn more about the guy who’s become breaking news.

21

KAREN

I never meant to hurt anyone. I didn’t. Unless you count an attempt to desecrate a human body. Mind you, that’s what the town decided, not the jury.

For what I did, I got a witch hunt. And the locals were ready to burn their witch.

But I stood my ground. In small towns, you either do that or you get burned at the stake.

I didn’t care what they all thought. Still don’t. Any mother would’ve done what I did to protect her child. Many would’ve done worse. Mothers’ instincts often override logic, morals, and law, regardless of whether their children are saints or sinners.

Children are a lottery. It might not be a nice way to put it, but, hell, raising a good human is a hit or miss.

Every threat I got from my mom growing up was, “Wait till your father gets home.” I never wanted that for my daughter. I was a single mom. Alysha was a good girl. Or so I thought, until I saw signs, those subtle signs no parent wants to acknowledge. We want our kids to grow up kind, strong, respectful. How can they not? When you love someone so much from the day they come into this world, you think surely that love will mold them into their best.

But then, the thorns start poking out here and there. The little acts of cruelty. The selfishness. The not quite what we wanted.

“Oh, that’s his daddy,” we say when we want to blame someone else. Or “I don’t know who she got that from.” There are thousands of strangers in our gene pools. When you plant the seeds, you want them to grow into the beautiful image on the package you got them in. In reality, it’s up to the soil, weather, and fertilizer. And that's if they don’t get smothered by weeds before their time.

Children are more complicated than that.