Dark Debts by Karen Hall Page B

attractive young lady, and there must be something alive in him that would take note of that fact.”
    Randa was sure she was offended by that last statement, but she couldn’t isolate the reason to call him on it. Before she could figure it out, he was talking again.
    â€œI want you to give Jack one message for me. Word for word, please.” He was looking her dead in the eye. “Tell him that the thing is real. You have to make him believe that, no matter what it takes.”
    With that, he turned and headed for the door.
    â€œWhat thing?”
    Let him go, idiot. He’s a nutcase.
    â€œHe’ll know,” Ryland said, then turned to look at her again. “If you ever cared about this family, you’ll do this.” Then he left.
    Randa waited, giving him plenty of time to get out of the building. She tried to figure out why he’d been able to upset her so much. So Cam’s crazy uncle Ryland was in town for the funeral, and she’d met him and he’d talked nonsense, as crazy people have a tendency to do. So what?
    HE’S TELLING THE TRUTH.
    The voice. The voice. The one that had been drowning the others out for a while now, even though its messages usually made about as much sense as Uncle Ryland.
    She headed for the door. She’d track Jack down and mail the books to him. She’d include a note about her conversation with Ryland. That would be that. She’d be done with the Landrys for good; she could move on to another obsession.
    She waited for the elevator, unable to get Ryland’s face or voice out of her head.
    â€œÂ . . . doing the best he could, all things considered . . .”
    What was that supposed to mean? Cam had been doing “the best he could,” but the best he could was pretty damned impressive.
    â€œLike they all did . . .”
    The elevator door opened and she got in and pressed the lobby button, eager to get away.
    â€œIf you ever cared about this family . . .”
    What? She was supposed to care about them enough to fly clean across the country to deliver a nonsensical message to the surviving member? Assuming she could even find him, why would he listen to her? What did any of this have to do with her?
    IF YOU EVER CARED ABOUT THIS FAMILY . . .
    I didn’t even know them . . .
    IF YOU EVER CARED ABOUT CAM . . .
    Not fair. Now the damned voice was going to play dirty. Well, what the hell. Everyone else did.
    Back home, she sat on her bed and sipped straight tequila and flipped through the scrapbooks. There they were, in time-faded black-and-white photos: Will and Lucy, Jack, Tallen, Ethan, and Cam. She knew who everyone was from having gone through the books with Cam so many times. Randa wondered once more why her heart was so torn by these sad people she’d never met.
    She picked up the piece of paper from Cam’s nightstand and looked at it again. Asked herself again why Cam would have been going to Atlanta.
    â€œI want you to give Jack one message . . .”
    Was that it? Was Cam trying to go to Atlanta to look for Jack? To tell him something? Was Ryland asking her to do something that Cam would ask her to do, if he could?
    â€œIf you ever cared about this family . . .”
    â€œOh, hell,” Randa said out loud. She picked up the phone and dialed the Delta number.

FOUR
    J ack knocked lightly, rattling the screen door of the trailer. He knew Cathy had seen him come up the walk, but she would take her time about answering the door. She always did.
    The storm had moved on and the smell of wet pine filled the crisp night air. Jack looked across the way at the other trailers. The lights were on in almost all of them, and he could hear a radio somewhere, tuned in to a country station. He hated having to think about people living in tin boxes, and wondered why it always took Cathy so long to answer the door. Did she still bother to