Sound of Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

disassembled cars and tarnished tools, his jowly face impassive. "Is my car ready?"
    "I said it would be when you called this morning."Instead of expanding on his statement, Peckenbush walked away from her into the cramped convenience store that doubled as his office. Cara told herself not to let him intimidate her and followed, watching while Peckenbush sat down heavily at a desk behind his cash register. He took out a pad and scribbled numbers on it.
    Cara suspected there wouldn't be a good time to reintroduce the topic of Reginald Rhett's death, so she didn't wait for one. She cleared her throat.
    "Do you remember yesterday when I asked you about Reginald Rhett, the boy who was killed in front of your station?"
    His eyes briefly met hers before they swung down to his pad. The malice she thought she glimpsed in them made Cara want to turn around and never come back. She fought the feeling and forced herself to ask another question.
    "Why didn't you tell me you were driving the car that hit him?"
    "It’s not any of your damn business, that's why." Sam's voice was gruff, dismissive. He tore the sheet of paper off the pad and extended it to her. "I don't take credit or out-of-town checks."
    Cara glanced at the bill, noting that he'd charged her about a third more than the job should cost. She squashed the impulse was to point it out to him. The knowledge she was after was worth far more than a few dollars. She extracted her wallet from her small pocketbook, keeping her gaze on Peckenbush.
    "I have a reason for asking.” Cara wouldn’t get Peckenbush to talk unless she had one. She frantically searched her brain and had an inspiration. "I'm a freelance writer, and I'm working on an article about small-town newspapers."
    There. That, at least, made a modicum of sense. A perk of her job at the magazine was that she sometimes struck up conversations with real writers in the elevator. Sometimes, they even told her about the stories they were working on. She’d paid close enough attention that she thought she knew what kind of questions to ask to put a story together. She plunged ahead. "Part of the Secret Sound Sun’s story is the premature death of the son of the publisher."
    "I thought you were a tourist just passing through." Peckenbush narrowed his eyes even more than their natural state. "You didn't say nothin' yesterday about being no writer."
    "It didn't come up.” Cara’s stomach rolled and her heart beat too fast. "Since I was stranded here in Secret Sound, I decided to do some work. I'd been researching an article about small-town newspapers anyway."
    "Who you write for?"
    "I’ve sold stories to a few national magazines.” She surreptitiously wiped her damp palms on her slacks as she embellished her lie. " I think there's a market for this one in newspaper trade journals and mainstream regional publications."
    There, Cara thought, that sounded suitably impressive.
    "I don't put much stock in nothin’ anybody writes." Peckenbush extended his hand to Cara for the money she'd taken from her wallet. He opened the cash register and placed the cash inside, not bothering to give her the few dollars in change she had coming. Cara decided to ignore that, too.
    "Other people do." She swallowed. Now came the hard part. "If you don't tell me your version of what happened, I'll get the information somewhere else. I'm sure you don't want people to read that Sam Peckenbush ran over a little boy without an explanation as to how it happened."
      Peckenbush rose, and he seemed a menacing presence although he wasn't much taller than she was. His breathing was uneven, as though he'd been exerting himself when he wasn't used to it. Cara wanted desperately to back up a step — heck, she wanted to flee out the door — but she didn’t move.
    "I'm gonna tell you this only once, lady, so you better listen real good. I was coming back to my station because I couldn't remember if I'd locked up. It was dark, almost pitch black. I wasn't