A Keeper's Truth Read Online Free Page B

taps her fingernails on the glass
showcase, directing the barista to the pastry she wants. He pulls out a
chocolate donut oozing orange gel from various holes and places it on a plate,
handing it to Karen.
    I snicker
with distaste.
    “The
neighbor farther down, to the right,” she says. “The house around the bend. The
ugly one with puce siding.” Her eyes bug out: puce siding . “Sonia
has been missing since Wednesday.”
    “Shit,” I
say, a sudden knot in my gut. “I hope she’s okay.”
    “She works
at the restaurant next door, the Olive Twist. Cops found her car out back, but
she never came home from work.”
    We move
down the line, waiting for Karen’s latte.
    “Her
parents must be freaking.”
    That has
to be every parent’s worst nightmare, without question, no matter the age.
    Karen
hums. “That girl has always been trouble; heavy drugs, drinking, a revolving
door of men. Her mother isn’t much better. The woman spews profanities like a
trucker. Sonia probably ran off with some badass biker. They’re always gunning
it up her driveway, shooting rocks.”
    I take a
bite out of my muffin and look away.
    That was
me. When I was thirteen, we landed in Toronto and I fell in with the wrong
crowd. I had good marks and went to school enough to fly under the radar, but
nights were spent drinking, smoking anything I could roll, swiping necessities,
and having sex. My mother never brought men home, but her suicide only made
things worse, and by eighteen I was out of control. It took an unexpected
pregnancy to set me straight. That and a school counselor who insisted I had
talent and should enroll in art school. The baby didn’t survive past the first
trimester, but by then I’d gotten my head straight, straight enough to know
what I wanted when I met Meyer two years later.
    Maybe
Sonia wasn’t so lucky.
    “If I was
twenty-one and having the time of my life, I wouldn’t call home either,” says
Karen. “She’ll turn up. Someone must know where she’s run off to, and they’ll
tell the police.” A sly smile lights her face. “Secrets are hard to keep in a
small town like this.”
    “Every
day, Karen, every day I thank my lucky stars you and I get along.”
    Karen
bursts into laughter. “We’d get along better if you’d come to the party with
me.” She waves a ten-dollar bill in my face. “ Gotta pee. Grab Frank a caramel brownie to go.” Her laugh tapers off as she heads to
the bathroom.
    The café
is busy so I organize our stuff on a tray. I turn around to find a seat and
instantly my body goes into shock, my mind fighting to rationalize what it’s
viewing. The entire room falls away, the hum of chatter gone. The sensation of
nausea rises in my throat. Somewhere in the depths my gut instinct screams run ,
but I can’t move.
    It’s a
man. He sits, one cheek on a stool, leaning slightly forward, his weight
supported by a foot firmly planted on the floor. His other foot casually rests
on the bar around the stool base. Every muscle on his perfectly chiseled body
stirs with flourishing, almost elegant movements. I can see every
detail—he’s naked. Not a no shirt, no shoes, no service kind of naked,
but a run from the place screaming exhibitionist naked. In his arms is a woman.
She’s nude, wearing only a pair of high-heeled black leather boots and tiny
black lace panties. She’d be beautiful if she didn’t look
so . . . stoned, drunk, drugged. He is fixated on her, his hands
ravaging her ass and back. His face is buried deep in her neck, her head tilted
back like a ragdoll’s.
    He moans
and she shudders, her face turning toward me.
    Holy shit!
Sonia! My intuition screams this is Sonia, the missing girl. She looks
familiar, I think, until she shimmers like her form is a hologram, and I
squeeze my eyes shut and try to focus. My hands are shaking, the tray held
tight in my grip.
    He moves,
slowly, running his fingertips over her stomach. She drops back, her body
falling into a dramatic arch.