Thank You For Not Shifting (Peculiar Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

clothes in this bag after you change. Also, I don’t think you should stay here tonight. Why don’t you stay with Sunny and Babe for a few days?”
    Sunny and Babel were having enough issues with Baby Jude not sleeping through the night. They were both exhausted, and I didn’t want to upset Sunny. Not tonight. Besides, I couldn’t deal with my friend’s reaction to blood. Sunny was notoriously squeamish and tended to faint.
    “Chavvah can stay with me,” said Billy Bob.
    “Uh, no.” I racked my brain for alternatives. I didn’t want to go to Billy Bob’s place. One, it was attached to his clinic, and I still had a lot of painful memories of my recovery, and two, I couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping just feet away from Billy Bob, knowing he’d never see me as anything more than a patient. “I’ll go to Ruth’s.”
    “It’s after ten, Chavvah.” He used his doctor tone—the one that suffered no arguments. “There’s no sense in waking her and Ed this late at night.”
    “Besides, they took in two of the Jubilee attendees,” added the sheriff. “They’ve already got tight quarters.”
    Desperate, I seized on a ridiculous thought. “I’ll sleep at the motel.”
    The Halliver’s Hilltop Motel was a thirty-bed unit just outside of town on the same rural road that led to Sunny and Babel’s cabin. Homer and Audrey Halliver, a nice young were-raccoon couple, managed the motel.
    Billy Bob lifted an eyebrow. “The rooms are booked. But maybe Bethany could let you share her room at the Halliver’s.”
    The knowing look in his eyes made me want to punch him in his perfectly flawless kissable kisser. Billy Bob or Bitch?
    I took the lesser of two evils.
    “Fine,” I said, making sure he heard the irritation in my acquiescence. I snatched up the paper bag for my bloody clothes. “I’ll be right back.”
    * * * *
    Blood colored the shower stall.
    As the hot water poured over me, the memory of getting clean after sitting in my own filth and blood for three weeks rolled back on me like a dust devil on a hot highway. My imaginary friend began to chant. I couldn’t understand the words bouncing in my mind, but I understood the soothing tone. Calmness stole my panic, and I released a pent-up breath.
    It took all of about fifteen minutes to shower, change my clothes and pack an overnight case. I didn’t want to stay longer than a day or two. When I got back downstairs, I found Billy Bob and the sheriff in the kitchen. The back door was still open. One glance out the back door confirmed that the body had been removed. But the blood-soaked dirt remained. A terrible reminder of the carnage.
    Crap. Jo Jo was supposed to open in the morning to prep the food. Over the past year, he’d become a very competent sous-chef. I made a mental note to set my phone alarm so I could call him in the a.m. before he came to work.
    Silently, I handed the paper bag to the sheriff. Billy Bob stared at my overnight case and frowned.
    “You got enough for a few days?” Billy Bob’s low baritone voice sent a shiver through my belly to my girly parts.
    Oh, Lord, going to spend the night at his place was such a bad idea. “I have everything I need for a short stay.” A very, very short stay. “Sheriff, do you want me for anything else?”
    “Come down to the station in the morning and fill out a witness statement. You two can go.” The sheriff cast a furtive glance at Billy Bob then me.
    “Am I missing something?” I asked, suspicious. What was this all about?
    “No, ma’am,” Sheriff Taylor said. “You all have a safe drive,” he added.
    My left shoulder ached, the one that had been ripped from its socket and left to mend out of place. My body held too many reminders of being tortured by my kidnappers. I switched the small suitcase to the right hand. Billy Bob reached out for it, but I stopped him. “I’m not an invalid.”
    His brow wrinkled with irritation, but suddenly, his gaze landed on mine, and his face