DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete First Book

PART 2, SECTION 9

He looked almost as if he'd been crying, and he was as pale as he'd been in the locker room the night before. His expression actually reminded me of the days after his accident, and the endless months he'd spent in the hospital with pins holding his spinal column together.

He didn't say anything. For a moment he just stared down at me, folding his arms around his now-pudgy frame, and I just stared back up at him, not knowing what to say, and everyone else just watched silently. I realized I'd been holding out hope that somehow, for some reason, it would turn out that it had been Shawn who I'd been with in the motel last night. I'd hoped that we'd both gotten so drunk that maybe on whim we'd just run off to the Starlight to make up for all the lost intimacy we'd been missing.

But now even that remote possibility was gone. If Shawn had been worrying about me all day, that meant he didn't know I was at the motel. I'd cheated on him. I still had no idea who I'd slept with last night, but now I was sure that it wasn't my husband. 

I didn't know what else to do other than to just start talking. I couldn't stand everyone just staring at us. There was no way I could tell my family the truth, so I started making things up which I hoped were half-way believable. 

"I got stuck inside the fairgrounds," I explained. "I'm so sorry. I realized I'd left my phone at the bar when they started evacuating everyone." My whole family just kept staring at me, listening, so I just kept talking. "I ran back to look for my phone, but the police wouldn't even let me back into the Buckshot. By the time I made it all the way back to my car, they were already closing up the gates at the fairground. They wouldn't let me out. I had to sleep in my car. It was only this evening when I finally talked Jason Gibbs into letting me leave." I glanced up at Shawn, who had now sat down at the top of the staircase. "I have no idea what's going on around here." I felt myself starting to cry, but I got control of myself. I swallowed and took a deep breath. "I haven't even really talked to anyone all day. I don't understand. What's been happening?"

My mom was feeling a little more generous now. She gave me her signature sideways hug and started rubbing my shoulder. Ian cleared his throat.

"Tyler," Ian said. "Take your sister upstairs please."

"Why?" Haley asked.

Ian didn't say anything. He just raised his eyebrows sternly and Haley immediately dashed upstairs. Tyler followed. Ian took me by the shoulder.

"Let's go outside," he said.

I let him lead me out the door. We sat on the porch swing.

"We don't know much more than you do about what's going on, Ash. To be honest. There's a lot we don't know. It's not good though. I can tell you that much. It's not just the fairgrounds and the high school. There are roadblocks on all the highways coming in and out of town. I haven't been able to get any answers." He turned around and looked into the house. He was obviously worried about his kids. "There's not a damn thing on the news," he whispered. "None of the stations have picked anything up yet."

"They won't let any of us leave town? At all?" I knew things were going badly, but I never dreamed it could be as big as this. "How is that even legal?"

"It's not," Ian said. "But they're doing it." 

"Why, though?" I asked. "I don't understand. Just to find this guy who attacked a little girl? I mean, obviously they have to catch him, but none of this makes sense."

Ian leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. I could feel the weight of his body in the sway of the porch swing. He glanced inside the house again and lowered his voice even further. 

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