Free The Case of the Sin City Sister by Lynne Hinton Page A

“It’s fine. I believe you. I just don’t know why she called your cell phone and why she called in the middle of the night and why she asked for me and why she hung up.”
    “You got a cell phone?”
    “Sure,” Eve answered. “You know that. I got ours at the same time. I bundled,” she added. “Or whatever they call it. It was cheaper that way.”
    “Your sister got your phone number?”
    Eve thought about the question and then nodded. “Yes, I gave it to her when we got them.”
    “But you didn’t give her mine?” He had stayed in his seat.
    She shook her head. “You asked me not to.”
    He placed the phone back on the table and scratched his head. “Do you think I’m going crazy?”
    She smiled. “I have thought a lot of things about you in my lifetime, but I have always thought I’d be the one going crazy long before you,” she said.
    She finished her glass of water and reached down and petted Trooper. “Did you help him out of bed?” she asked, not expecting an answer but wondering how Jackson had managed to get from his bed to her door without assistance.

    “I was dreaming about her,” he confessed. “I was dreaming that she was calling and I couldn’t get to her.”
    Eve suddenly thought of her own dream, wondering if that was what or rather who she was searching for as she opened and closed doors, walking down the dark hallway. What Jackson was saying somehow resonated with her, and she figured they must have been having the same dream. She was just about to ask him for details when a car horn started to sound.

FOURTEEN

    “What was that?” Eve turned to Jackson. They both looked down at the phone and then toward the front window.
    “It’s not this thing, that’s for sure,” the Captain answered. “It’s out there.” He motioned with his chin. “It’s somebody out there.”
    Eve waited. She was still only half awake from the first disturbance of the night and was having some difficulty tracking what was going on.
    “Well, go see what it is,” Jackson bellowed.
    Eve shook her head, trying to get her bearings, and headed to the front door. She opened it and peered outside. The noise had stopped, and there was no one parked in the driveway or close enough on the street below to see. She was about to close the door when the horn sounded again. She pulled the door open wide and stepped outside onto the porch. After trying to determine the source of the sound, she was fairly certain that it was coming from the direction of their closest neighbors, Michael and Sarah Parker,artists who had moved to Madrid in the early nineties and who lived a couple of miles away.
    She turned and walked back into the kitchen. “It’s from up the road,” she announced. “Sounds like it’s at Michael’s.” She closed the door and locked it. “Should I call them?”
    The Captain cleared his throat. “No, don’t bother. He told me a week ago that the horn on his old truck was getting stuck, asked me then if it had bothered us.” He shook his head. “That’s all it is. Just that old truck horn.”
    Eve headed to the table and sat down across from her father. “It still could have been her,” she said, referring to the phone call and to her sister trying to make contact.
    “There’s no record that she called. You didn’t talk to her. You didn’t even hear the thing ring.”
    “I didn’t hear the car horn either; that doesn’t mean anything.” She started to reach out and take his hand but hesitated, thinking better of it. The Captain was not one who appreciated gestures of concern.
    “I’m going back to bed,” he announced and started to get up.
    “Wait,” she responded. “Let’s talk about this.”
    He sat back down. “Talk about what? That it’s finally happening, that I’m starting to lose my mind?”
    “Now you’re just being dramatic. I never said that. You heard something. You heard Dorisanne calling. Maybe that noise out there was just a car horn, but maybe you