In This Town Read Online Free Page B

sea.
    Maybe it was in her blood. Her grandmother had married a
fisherman, and her mother eloped with a navy petty officer, only to be left
alone when he chose the sea over his young wife and baby daughter. At nineteen,
Celeste lost her fiancé when the fishing boat he’d been on had gone down during
a Nor’easter.
    And now, for the past eight years, she’d been in a relationship
with Tori’s father, another fisherman who always, always, chose the call of the
ocean over her. Just as he’d done with his wife and daughters.
    Which proved that no man was worth giving your time, your
attention and most especially your heart to.
    “Sit down,” Celeste said, gesturing to the chair in front of
the desk, “and tell me what’s going on with you.”
    Tori plopped onto the chair. “Nothing’s going on. Since when is
wanting to cover my own shift, my full shift, a crime?”
    “Honey, you were fighting a woman twice your age over dirty
dishes.”
    “Patty’s stronger than she looks. Those water aerobics are
really working.”
    “I’m sure they are.” Opening a drawer to her right, Celeste
pulled out a bag of mini chocolate bars. Tori didn’t think it was a coincidence
Celeste’s stash of candy and the loaded handgun she kept for protection were
housed in the same space.
    No one touched Celeste’s chocolates without permission.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked, taking three candies from the bag
before sliding it toward Tori.
    Her voice was kind, worry clear in her brown eyes. It reminded
Tori of when she’d sat in this very same chair as a scared, pregnant teenager.
Only they knew Celeste was the first person she’d told. The person who’d held
her as she’d cried, more terrified than she’d ever been in her life. So afraid
of disappointing her family, of Greg turning his back on her, of being
responsible—completely, totally, fully responsible—for the life growing inside
her.
    Humiliated and angry that she’d ended up just like her
mother.
    “What’s the point of my going?” Tori asked, unable to stop the
words from spilling out. “No matter what evidence they found or new theory Layne
has, it won’t change anything.”
    She wanted to move forward and forget the past. Not rehash
it.
    “Don’t you want to know what happened?” Celeste asked quietly.
“Don’t you want to know the truth?”
    Tori didn’t believe in the truth. It was too easily
manipulated, too easily hidden. She should know. Her own life was nothing but
smoke and mirrors, shifting and reflecting what she wanted people to see. Giving
them only what she wanted them to have.
    “The truth is that Dale York killed Mom. And now he’s dead.
What else is there?”
    She didn’t expect a real answer but the look on Celeste’s face
told her the older woman was keeping something from her. See? Everyone lied.
Everyone kept secrets. Even someone as good and honest as Celeste.
    “What’s going on?” Tori asked, her fingers aching from gripping
the arms of the chair so tightly.
    Unwrapping a candy, Celeste glanced around as if someone was
going to suddenly materialize out of thin air to overhear their conversation. “I
think Layne might be in trouble.”
    Tori exhaled a short laugh, the tension in her easing. “My big
sister doesn’t get into trouble. She gets everyone else out of it.”
    Layne had always been there to help Tori and Nora with their
homework, made sure they had dinner, lunch money and went to bed at a decent
hour. She’d been more of a mother to them than Valerie had ever been.
    She never let her sisters forget it.
    Tori appreciated the sacrifices Layne had made, how she’d taken
care of them. She also resented the hell out of her for not seeing that she and
Nora no longer needed her to be their substitute mom. They needed her to be
their sister.
    “Donna called me,” Celeste said of her good friend and Chief
Taylor’s secretary. “She told me Mayor Seagren and the district attorney had an
early morning meeting with both