Free Laura Marlin Mysteries 1: Dead Man's Cove eBook by Lauren St. John Page A

‘His name is Skye.’

    Laura’s hand sank into the deep, soft fur of the husky. His small pointed ears were thick with it. He was a wolf-grey darkening to black around his head, shoulders and back, and white around his eyes, nose and belly. His mouth curved upwards at the corners, as if he were smiling. He stood up. It was only then that Laura saw he was missing his right front leg. A wiggly line of silver fur showed the scar of where it had once been. She wondered if the reason his owner wanted to get rid of him was because he was no longer perfect.

    ‘You’d be perfect to me,’ she told Skye. ‘With a dog like you, I wouldn’t need a human friend. With a dog like you I could do anything.’

    His thick tail, which reminded Laura of a fir tree branch heavy with snow, thumped against the step.

    Laura was still hurting and miserable when she climbed the hill to Ocean View Terrace, but she’d drawn strength from the husky. He too was being rejected, but if he knew it he certainly didn’t show it.

    Mrs Crabtree started from her front door as Laura passed. Her mouth opened and her arms waved, but she got no further.

    ‘Don’t say a word,’ Laura warned her icily. ‘Not one word.’

10

    LAURA HAD NEVER in her life suffered from depression. At Sylvan Meadows, some of the girls had spent a great deal of time crying about parents who’d died or given them up for adoption. Laura had sympathised with them but she hadn’t joined them. The way she looked at it, a whole lakeful of tears wouldn’t bring back her mum who’d been lost in childbirth, or find the handsome American soldier who may, or may not, have been her father, and who in any case had no idea she existed and probably had a family of his own by now.

    The unhappy girls often asked Laura how she kept her spirits up. She’d always told them it was the power of reading. Rightly or wrongly, books had taught Laura to believe that almost every situation, no matter how bleak, could result in a happy ending if one only worked hard enough, pictured it long enough, and had enough faith. At Sylvan Meadows, she’d preferred to believe that there was a better life waiting for her rather than sit around full of self-pity because she was stuck in a children’s home. If she were a character in a novel, Laura would tell herself, some day some caring person would, out of the blue, contact Sylvan Meadows and claim her.

    And one day Calvin Redfern had.

    But what had happened with Tariq hit Laura hard. Her innate confidence, her pride in her judgement of character, had been shaken to the core. On Saturday morning she was so blue she could barely drag herself out of bed. What good was living by the ocean and having loads of freedom when you had no one to share it with? Her uncle was nice, but he was secretive and rarely around; Mrs Webb had a personality disorder; and Mrs Crabtree was, well, Mrs Crabtree. Kevin and his loser mates aside, the kids in her class were decent enough, but most already had all the friends they needed. Besides, if she was as dull as Tariq claimed, she could hardly expect to be included in anyone’s circle.

    Every time Mr Mukhtar’s words came into her mind, a knife twisted in her heart. ‘Tariq finds you very boring. He tells me that day after day he’s had to listen to you going on and on and on about your background and your school and he can’t stand it any more. He has tried to be polite - he is such a courteous boy, my son - but enough is enough.’

    It was humiliating to think that she’d imagined a friendship where none existed. And yet she’d been so sure it had meant as much to Tariq as it did to her. His shadowed face had almost glowed some days when she’d visited him at the store. If Tariq himself hadn’t confirmed what Mr Mukhtar had told her, she’d never have believed it. But he had. He’d stood there in his fancy new clothes looking at her as if she were a shoplifter who’d been caught stealing from the North