The Prettiest Girl in the Land (The Traherns #3) by Nancy Radke Page B

couldn't be happening.
    After five minutes one of
the medics stood up, shoulders sagging. "She's gone. Anyone here know
her?"
    "It's her
mother," the neighbor lady answered, putting her arms around Perri.
"Crystal Putman."
    Then Walt arrived, his face
pale and strained. In silence they clung together, the image of her mother
blocking out everything until a voice broke in, insistent in its authority.
"Perri. Did you see it happen?"
    She stared at the short
gray-haired man. Walt's new boss, Luke Rogers. He must have brought him.
"Yes. She didn't even try to stop." She glanced over at the blackened
wreckage. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have borrowed her car for my
trip."
    “My car,” Walt moaned. “I
should have been driving. Not her.”
    "It wasn't anyone's
fault," Luke Rogers insisted, touching her stepfather's hand so he would
lip-read what he was saying. "I'll have Jordan check the car, Walt. Just
in case."
    "Do that."
    "Who's he?" Perri
asked, signing the words as she spoke. She always signed when speaking to him.
    "An insurance
investigator. He finds things the police miss. Crystal should have slowed down
for her own driveway."
    "A scorpion was in the
car."
    "A scorpion? You're
sure?"
    "Yes. She told me.
She’s terrified of them."
    Luke frowned. "You're
positive she was talking about an insect."
    "Well...sure."
Perri looked at him, puzzled. What other kind was there?
    "We won't bother
Jordan then. I'll take care of your latest project, Walt. Don't worry about
things at the office." Bending down, Luke Rogers picked up the pendant by
its leather thong. "You won't want to lose this," he added, dropping
the smooth ivory into Perri's hand.
    She clutched the pendant
with both hands. "Mom kept saying she wanted me to have it. She wouldn't
let me take care of her until I took it."
    "Injured people tend
to focus on one thing," Luke said. "Usually it's an object; sometimes
a person."
    His words made Perri
remember her stepbrother, in the middle of a three-week business trip.
"Owen. He needs to know."
    "Right," Walt
agreed, then looked straight at his boss. "Ask the company to bring Owen
home. He needs to be here."
    "Regardless?"
    "Yes."
    "Alvaro, wasn't
it?" Luke Rogers mouthed the words, but Perri could read lips very well,
having practiced with her stepfather.
    "Yes. Just don't tell
Owen why he needs to come home. I wouldn't want him to get careless."
    *
* *
    "Is he
dead?"
    "No. His wife
took the car."
    "I thought you
never missed."
    "I don’t,
normally. But an accident, like you requested—well, it's not so certain.
I’ll set up another."
    "Cancel that.
I've a better plan; one that will rid me of both him and his son."
    "He has a
daughter."
    "Splendid. She can be the bait."
     

    Can’t
get enough of those sisters? Snatch up SONGS FOR PERRI , #5 Sisters of
Spirit    Romantic
mystery, suspense, contemporary.   Perri travels to Mexico to rescue her brother,
and finds a man of many masks. “Charming and wonderful with a dramatic twist at the end.” AddyM
    Watch
for:   #8 Appaloosa Blues, coming in April 2013.

The PRETTIEST GAL on the
MOUNTAIN
    A short pioneer story by
Nancy Radke
    (The Traherns Series)
    I hitched my creaky old rocker out onto the wooden porch of my
old home and set a bit, watching the early summer sun fall down over the
Tennessee mountains. There was no one around to ask me to get them a bite to
eat, or for help, or for anything. I was all alone on the mountain.
    Mallory Buchanan hadn’t been gone two days and already I missed
that gal. I missed the knowledge of her being there, just a few miles away on
the other side of the mountain. She should be almost in Kentucky, if she took
the most direct trail to Missouri.
    Mally was the last of ‘em, God bless ‘er. With my husband,
Jacob, gone five years now, alive or dead I had no way of knowing, and all my
boys off to this war between the states or the western lands, I had a whole
mountain to myself. I was used to loneliness, but this here went a