Faultlines Read Online Free

thought. Was that what she sensed? But maybe it was only that he was at the end of his shift and exhausted. Or maybe he was sick of his job. Sick of scraping kids up off the concrete. Who could blame him?
    He said, “If the driver makes it, he could face charges.”
    “I haven’t been drinking,” Libby said.
    “If I suspected you had, we’d be having a different conversation.” Huckabee’s smile was fleeting.
    Libby didn’t return the gesture.
    “Let me give you some advice, ma’am.” Huckabee bent his face toward her. “It’s as dangerous driving out here as it is back in the big city. Maybe more dangerous. We’ve posted speed limits for a reason, you understand? Because going faster on these rural roads is hazardous, what with the blind curves and steep hills and drop-offs. Then the lack of regular traffic can lull you into a false sense of security. You get to thinking you’re the only vehicle on the road.” He lightly tapped the lower edge of her window. “I don’t want to have to write up an accident report on you, too, you know what I mean?”
    Libby looked into her lap. I’m not some kid you can intimidate. The words cut a hot trail across her brain. Nothing but a badge and an ego. The thought came and went. She waited for Huckabee to whip out his pad and write her a ticket.
    “Tell you what,” Huckabee said. “I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, being as how you’re new to the area.”
    Libby looked up, startled. Was he patronizing her now? “Thank you,” she said, and wondered why. Had she asked for his favor? She’d almost rather have the ticket.
    “You said you were building out here. Whereabouts?”
    “The Little B Ranch. Do you know it?”
    “Yep. You’re going the right way. When you hit 1620 on the other side of Wyatt, take a right. It’ll be around eighteen miles farther west on your left.”
    Libby thanked him.
    He tipped his hat. “Not a problem. I know that ranch well. The Scroggins family has been around here a hundred years at least. Folks in town were surprised when Fran decided to sell the land off piecemeal.”
    “She couldn’t find a buyer willing to take on the whole thing. Two hundred forty acres is a lot of land.”
    “Yeah, it’s a shame, though, busting it up.”
    Libby smiled nicely and said she couldn’t agree. “My husband and I might not have found other suitable property out here.”
    “Well, I don’t think Fran’s folks left her much of a choice, anyway.”
    “No.” Fran Keller had told Libby her mom and dad were in their nineties. Can you imagine? she’d asked. Fran had said she felt old at seventy-one, certainly way too old to make the drive from Austin, where she lived, to the Little B every time a neighbor, or the Wyatt police, or the Madrone County sheriff, called her to report one of her folks had left the stove on or was out wandering the roadside in their pj’s.
    “I’m curious—how did you hear about the property, that it was for sale, all the way down there in Houston?”
    “Ruth Crandall. Maybe you know her. She’s a real estate agent in Wyatt.”
    Huckabee frowned. “You know Ruth?”
    “Since college,” Libby said. They’d met as freshmen at Southern Methodist University, where they’d shared a suite and everything else—from lipstick to tampons to the heartbreak of that horrible day when Helen, their third suite mate, had died. There was something about sharing grief like that . . . it had bonded Libby and Ruth for life. “Do you know her?” Libby asked the sergeant. “Have you pulled her over for speeding, or did she break some other law?”
    Huckabee cracked a smile, but it was brief. “I heard she was handling the sale. You got, what? Fifteen acres? Whereabouts is it, say, in relation to the old farmhouse?”
    “We have the adjacent parcel, east of there, where the little gardener’s cottage is. My husband is an architect. He designed our house, but we’ll live in the cottage until it’s