Free The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) by Loreth Anne White Page A

heart. What have I done to bring this all down at once?
    Triage, I think. Quinn has to come first right now. Above my business. Above my financial worries. My niece is teetering on the edge of a dangerous place, and my number one goal must be to keep her safe. If it means taking a holiday, even leaving Snowy Creek for a few weeks with Quinn, I’ll take out a loan to do it.
    I drive through the parking lot and up toward the exit. But as my headlights pan across a white van, I catch a gleam of chrome behind it. A bike. Something about it makes me glance up into my rearview mirror as I approach the parking lot exit. Wind gusts and shadows move, but I can’t see anything from this angle. I turn left onto the road. For a moment it looked as though there was a man in a helmet on the bike. Perhaps it was a trick of light.
    As I approach the intersection on the highway, the lights turn red. I bring the truck to a stop. While I wait, I try once more with Quinn. “I really wish you’d tell my why you hit those girls.”
    “I told you!” she yells. Her ferocity startles me. “They’re bitches. Liar s . . . ” Tears, fat, start to roll fast and furious down her pale cheeks and she starts to shake violently.
    The lights turn green. Instead of turning north on the highway, I quickly drive through the intersection and pull up onto a curb under the branches of an old oak. I reach out, wrap my arms around Quinn, draw her shaking little body against mine. And I just hold her tight. My chest aches with Quinn’s pain. My head hurts. I stroke her hair. Soft under my palm. I remember her as a day-old baby in my arms.
    Another memory flashes through me, of being in Jeb’s arms. Wrapped in his protective care. Pain twists through my stomach. Ever since that day in Guthrie’s office six months ago, Jeb and Quinn have become intertwined in my mind. I can’t separate one from the other yet.
    How could I have been so wrong about him? How on earth am I going to do this? I swallow against the tightness in my throat. I need help. I need to take her back to see the therapist.
    “They’re liars,” she sobs softly into my jacket. “They’re horrible, horrible liars. I hate them all.” Her slender body judders as another wave of sobs wracks her body. “It’s just not true.”
    “What’s not true, Quinnie?” I whisper, stroking her hair. “You mean what they said about the man following you?”
    “They said I was a bastard,” she mumbles into my jacket. “They said I was adopted.”
    A dull roar begins to sound in my head. “They sai d . . . what ?”
    “They said Mom and Dad weren’t my real parents.”
    My heart begins to jackhammer.
    “It’s not true,” Quinn says. Then, sensing the sudden stiffness in my body, she turns her face slowly up to me, tears shining on her cheeks, her lip quivering. “I am not adopted.”
    I swallow. Panic crashes through me. Sophia wanted Quinn’s paternity kept secret, but I wish with all my heart they’d at least told her she’d been adopted. Quinn’s features change as she watches my face, feels my mushrooming tension.
    “ I . . . I’m no t . . . am I?”
    Oh, God, Sophia, wherever you are, please, give me a sign, help m e . . . what do I say now? Why did you leave telling Quinnie about her adoption to me?
    Trust.
    I need Quinn’s trust. Break that now, and I could lose my niece forever. But is this the time to tell the truth? Won’t it hurt more now than later? I have to say something —those girls have cracked this open, and I won’t be able to get this genie fully back in the bottle.
    “Rachel?” Quinn’s voice quavers now, thin, pleading.
    Time stretches. The roar in my head grows louder. Whatever I say now will shape things to come, perhaps forever, between Quinn and me.
    “ Am I? ” Quinn’s voice is now shrill, laced with desperation.
    Inhaling deeply, I say, “Quinnie, your mother and father loved you more than anything in this world. They were your parents