Unless someone did a comprehensive sanitation of the inside of that bus after every party, I wasn’t stepping inside without a biohazard suit, and something told me The Party Bus wasn’t exactly known for its cleanliness.
My dad had let me take his old Chrysler to the club—because he hadn’t known. I would have asked, but he was out twilight golfing and my mom was nowhere to be found. Besides, I wasn’t planning on drinking tonight and having my own mode of transportation meant I could escape whenever I wanted.
Whatever level of reprimand I’d receive, it would be well worth it.
Once I was inside the Chrysler, I fired up the engine and peeled out of the parking lot. I hit ignore when Avalee’s call came in on my phone, and I tried Boone again before firing off a quick text. His phone was off or disconnected. Either way, getting ahold of him was clearly out when it came to warning Boone.
That might have been why I felt okay breaking a few speed laws as I gunned down the highway toward Ford’s family’s lake cabin. The guys were supposedly going to be spending the night drinking and having a bonfire and night fishing and basically acting like Neanderthals. Of course I’d expected a stripper would be involved somehow, but I’d never arrived at the possibility that she would be one of the party guests’ sisters.
My fingers curled around the steering wheel so hard I felt as if I could rip it straight off. From childhood into adolescence, Ford had always derived a great deal of pleasure from tormenting Boone, but despite what I’d seen over the past few days, I would have assumed his venom would have wilted in adulthood. It had never made sense for Ford to pay Boone so much attention anyway, with the way Ford seemed oblivious to those he deemed “beneath him,” but Boone, for whatever reason, had been the exception.
And here we were, years later and so-called adults, and I was refereeing the same kind of shit I had as a kid. If Boone didn’t strangle Ford for this stunt, I was planning on it. Actually, I was looking forward to it.
By going twenty over, I got to Ford’s cabin in just under twenty minutes. A record, and not to mention a miracle I’d made it without getting pulled over and ticketed.
The cabin sat on the edge of Clear Lake was more an estate than what a person envisioned when they thought of a lake cabin. Three stories, two thousand square feet per floor, and complete with a tennis court out back, this was not how one “roughed it” at the lake for a weekend.
A few cars were staggered in the driveway, all of them in the six-figure category save for one: a beat-up Honda I’d walked by countless times when visiting the Cavanaughs’ place.
I hadn’t known Wren had grown up to be a stripper until recently, but I guess it wasn’t a great surprise. Boone’s little sister had been tough and bullheaded like him, but she hadn’t had the hope and optimism Boone had always carried to some degree. She’d been a troubled child who grew into an unruly youth. With what Boone suggested had happened to her at the hands of Dolly’s boyfriends, her behavior made more sense now.
I’d been too young and perhaps too close to the situation to see it then, but the blinders of youth and love were off.
I skidded to a stop right behind the bumper of Ford’s Jaguar. The urge to ram into it became so overwhelming, I forced myself to take a few deep breaths before I turned off the Chrysler and slid out of the car. If I’d had a baseball bat, that would be one thing, but I couldn’t damage my dad’s prized possession in the name of revenge on his future son-in-law. Tempting though it was.
The night was cooler out here, less sticky with heat, and the lake was flat and still. The night was quiet and calm. That all ended the moment I tore toward the front door, running as fast as my short, embarrassingly out-of-shape legs would take me.
As I rounded the front of the house, gunning for the front door, and prepared to drag Boone out of there if I had to, I heard shouts coming from the back of the cabin, where I’d just been. I paused, waiting to hear the voices again. When I did, my heart sank. One of the voices was Boone’s. The other was a woman’s.
I was too late. Too late to save Boone from being the butt of another cheap joke dealt from Ford’s hands. Too late to save him from the humiliation of discovering his sister was the entertainment for the night. Too late to save him from being treated like a second-class citizen all over again by a bunch of guys who were a long fall from being first-rate themselves.
Spinning around, I sprinted back in the direction I’d just come, the shouts becoming louder. The Cavanaughs weren’t known for their propensity for peaceful resolutions—they were better known for their tempers doing the talking. Or in this case, the hollering.