When Snow Falls (Whiskey Creek #2)(85)
Author: Brenda Novak

He seemed to be choosing his next words carefully. “You’ve asked her about it, then? What she remembers?”

“Hundreds of times.”

“And she always gave the same answer?”

For some reason, Cheyenne flashed back to the night she’d brought up the Amoses after talking to Dylan in the park. At some point in the conversation, Presley had said, “You should’ve been born in a different era. Or to a Quaker family. Sometimes I wonder where the hell you came from.”

The way she’d acted right after that statement made Cheyenne even more uncomfortable now than it had then. But she wasn’t willing to admit it, wasn’t willing to doubt Presley. Not on this. Presley would know how important this was to her. “Every time.”

“So you trust her completely.”

“I do.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Then I hate to tell you this, but…pursuing the truth might break your heart.”

“You don’t want me to start digging? You’d rather I just left things as they are?”

“I don’t want you to be hurt.” He sat up, too. Sounding reluctant but resolute, he added. “Listen, Chey. I had a long talk with Aaron this afternoon.”

“About Presley?”

“She was top of the list. I grilled him on whether or not she’d said or done anything out of the ordinary in the past couple of weeks. I was looking for details he might’ve forgotten or considered too inconsequential to mention.”

“And?”

“At first, he denied that she’d acted strange in any way. But then he recalled something about a private investigator.”

“Crouch.”

“That’s him. Eugene Crouch.”

Her hands clutched the bedding. “What about him?”

“Aaron said she was afraid of him, afraid of what he might do.”

“Why?”

“He wasn’t clear on that, but one night she was so agitated he was all she could talk about. And the drunker she got, the more worried she became.”

Cheyenne thought she had the answer. “Because my mother was always doing stuff that could get us in trouble. I heard Presley refer to Crouch, too. He approached her, looking for my mother, but he wouldn’t say why.”

“You don’t find that odd?”

“Not necessarily.” She explained about the hit-and-run that had haunted her and Presley ever since it had happened, and their guess that Crouch’s visit had something to do with that.

“But you don’t know. You’ve never talked to him.”

“No.”

“Maybe you should.”

Suddenly, she remembered how secretive Presley had been when Cheyenne had overheard her first talking about Crouch to Anita. She hadn’t even admitted that he was a P.I., not at first. When Cheyenne had asked who Crouch was, Presley had said he was just some guy she’d met at work.

Why hadn’t Presley guessed, from the very beginning, that it was the hit-and-run and come to her instead of Anita?

“Whatever he wanted…it couldn’t be about me,” she said in an attempt to shore up her crumbling confidence.

“Yes, it could,” Dylan insisted.

“She wouldn’t have told Aaron about Crouch if she was afraid it might get back to me.”

“Until very recently, you and I lived in separate worlds. The thought that it could get back to you probably never crossed her mind.”

Cheyenne’s stomach tightened into a hard knot as she considered his implication. Could she really trust Presley as much as she claimed? Or would Eugene Crouch, someone she would’ve overlooked if not for her relationship with Dylan, have the answers she craved about the little girl in the party dress and the black patent leather shoes?

29

Most of the next day was spent picking up Presley’s car. The impound and storage fees added insult to injury after what Cheyenne had already been through. Her bank account was feeling the strain. She still wasn’t sure how she could afford to bury her mother. She’d have to ask the funeral home if she could make monthly payments and put the burial plot on her Visa. That was the only way she could manage it. She’d promised Anita she wouldn’t cremate her, even though that would’ve been cheaper.

At least she had the Mustang. She and Lucky were following Dylan back to Whiskey Creek.

It felt strange to smell the familiar scent of the cigarette smoke that lingered in her sister’s car and to wonder if she’d ever see Presley again. It felt even stranger to have her sister’s purse and cell phone on the passenger seat. Although she’d been more optimistic about Presley’s well-being since that first call from the CHP, her hope was dwindling. She couldn’t imagine any woman leaving her purse and cell behind. How could Presley be getting by without them?

The police had searched the contents of her purse—her phone, too, once they’d had the Mustang towed and were able to track down the right kind of charger, since the battery was dead by then. They said there was nothing to indicate where she’d gone. They’d called everyone on her contact list, even Aaron. No one could tell them a thing. There were no airplane or bus tickets, no travel brochures, no receipts in her car or in her email that gave any clue. The last internet sites she’d visited on her cell had no connection to her absence, either.

She must’ve hitched a ride. That was their best guess.

The question was: With whom? And was Presley safe?

Cheyenne drove as long as she could before pulling over. She hadn’t examined Presley’s belongings herself, because she hadn’t wanted to break down in front of the officers who were handling the transfer of her personal property. She figured there’d be time to see what Presley had abandoned once she’d reached the privacy of her own home.

But she couldn’t wait that long. She wanted her sister back so badly she had to go through those items now, in case she found something the police had missed. They didn’t know Presley the way Cheyenne did.

After easing onto the shoulder of Highway 88, she cut the engine. Dylan was in front of her. She wasn’t sure he’d immediately notice that she’d stopped following him, but that was okay. She could catch up with him later.

“Pres, you’ve really done it this time,” she murmured as she moved Lucky out of the way and picked up her sister’s purse.

Presley’s ID was in her wallet. Tears rolled down Cheyenne’s cheeks as she gazed at it. She wished her efforts to help her sister, to be there for her, had made more of a difference.