by Cindi Myers
She might even be falling in love with the man himself, but she pulled back from examining those feelings too closely. They had plenty of time to explore and see what developed. No sense rushing and maybe ruining everything.
* * *
HUD DIDN’T KNOW if he had the strength to leave a naked Audra in a warm bed, but by the time he was out of the shower, she was up and dressed and had coffee going. “The day starts early at a day care center,” she told him after she kissed him good morning. She handed him a mug of coffee. “What time do you have to be at work?”
“Early, too.” He sipped the coffee and welcomed the bitter jolt. “I’m going to try to interview Roy Holliday’s live-in girlfriend today, to see if I can figure out what he was doing that got him in trouble with the wrong people.”
“I don’t envy you your job,” she said.
“And I don’t envy you yours.” He shuddered. “I’d rather face down armed criminals than a room full of two-year-olds.”
She laughed. “There are days when I would, too, come to think of it.”
Hud might have taken the two-year-olds over the grieving woman he faced two hours later. Renee Delaware was pale and shaken, silent tears streaming down her face despite her efforts not to weep. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she kept apologizing. “I just can’t believe he’s gone. We were talking about getting married in the fall, and now that’s never going to happen.” She bit her lip, her face crumpling again.
Hud waited while she pulled herself together. “I’m sorry to have to bother you at a time like this,” he said. “But I’m trying to get a picture of what he was working on, what enemies he might have.”
“Anything to help find the person who did this.” She blotted her eyes with a tissue and sniffed. “Ask me anything.”
“What was Roy working on in the weeks before he died?” Hud asked.
“He was writing about Dane Trask. Anything he could find about the man. He was fascinated by him, and the news outlets were hungry for more stories, so Roy was giving them everything he could. He talked to people Dane worked with and veterans at Welcome Home Warriors, people who said they’d seen him at Black Canyon—anybody who could give him a new angle on the story.”
“Was there anything in particular he was excited about?”
She nodded. “When he left here Wednesday morning, he said he had a hot tip that could blow the case wide open.”
Hud sat forward on the edge of the sofa. “Did he say what the tip was?”
“No. He just said it was big, and that he was going to talk to Dane’s daughter, to see if she had more information.”
“What did he work on?” Hud asked. “Did he have a laptop, or a desktop here at the house?”
“He had a laptop,” she said. “He carried it with him almost everywhere. He had it with him when he left the house the morning...” She swallowed hard. “The last time I saw him. The officer who came here to tell me they’d found...they’d found his body...said they didn’t find the laptop. And I guess they’re still looking for his car.”
Hud nodded. “Maybe the laptop will be in the car when we find it.” Though he wasn’t holding out much hope of that. “So he didn’t have a computer here at the house where he might have kept some of the files?”
“No.”
“What about backup?” he asked. “Did he use a flash drive, or back up to the cloud?”
“The cloud. I think he had some kind of program that automatically backed up everything.”
“Do you remember the name of the program?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
There weren’t that many. Hud had copies of the more common ones on his unit at Ranger headquarters. “Do you know his log-in information?” he asked. “His username and password? Maybe something he used for most things?” Most people didn’t bother having very many different log-ins and passwords.
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Was there somewhere he would have written them down?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “I really want to help you, but I don’t know. His work was his work, you know?”
“No, you’re doing fine,” Hud said. “Did he keep a diary or an appointment book or anything like that?”
“It was all on his phone,” she said. “The officer said they haven’t found that, either.”
“We’ll get records of his calls from his carrier,” Hud said. “Do you know which one he used?”
“Yes. We both have Verizon.”
That would make things a little easier. “The call record will help us figure out who he was working with.” And maybe who he had talked to before he was killed. It might even be his killer.
“The officers who came here searched his desk.” She nodded toward an old oak desk in the corner of the living room. “They took a few things, but there wasn’t much here. And I found a few more things I saved for you.”
She stood and collected a box from the kitchen table and handed it to him. “It’s copies of a lot of the articles he wrote about Dane Trask, and a few other things he wrote recently. And I wrote out what I remembered about what he had been doing in the days before he disappeared.”
“That’s great,” Hud said. “That will be really helpful.” Later, Hud would read through these and build a database that could help him figure out who might have wanted the reporter out of the way. He stood, the box tucked under one arm. “If you think of anything, call me, anytime.” He handed her one of his cards. “Especially if you think of that log-in information. Even if you’re not sure it’s for his backup files, it might be useful to us.”
“I will,” she promised, and walked him to the door.
She stood in the doorway and watched as he walked to his cruiser, a slight, sad figure, alone as only the grieving can be. He felt sorry for her, but told himself the best thing he could do was find the person or persons who had killed her fiancé.
Instead of going back to Ranger headquarters after his visit with Renee, he stopped by Canyon Critters Daycare. He spotted Audra on the playground, surrounded by a group of toddlers, and walked over to join her. The children stared, wide-eyed, at his uniform and weapon and, aware of their audience, Hud didn’t kiss Audra, though he wanted to.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, anxiety in her eyes.
He supposed he couldn’t blame her, since the only other times he’d stopped by her workplace had been to deliver bad news. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d say hello.”
“That’s nice.” The warmth of her smile took away the sting of her earlier wariness. She turned to the toddlers still gathered around her. “Everyone go play while I talk to Officer Hudson.”
The children moved away in groups of two or three, some toward a play structure with swings and a miniature climbing wall, others to where two teachers were organizing a game with plastic balls and bats. “It was such a beautiful day I couldn’t stand sitting in my office another minute,” Audra said.
“It is,” he agreed. “I may have to find an excuse to hike out into the park this afternoon.”
“That shouldn’t be—” But a wail from the play structure stopped her in mid-sentence. They both turned to see a thin child with long white-blond hair sitting in the dirt, bawling.
“Get up, you big baby.” Another little girl, with long brown hair and rosy cheeks, stood over the first child.
“You pushed me!” the first girl sobbed.
“I did not. You’re just clumsy. Ugly and clumsy.” The dark-haired girl scuffed her shoe in the dirt, the resulting dust settling on the crying child.
Audra rushed to the girls, arriving at the same time as an older woman with short, graying hair. “April, get up,” the older woman ordered. “You’re not hurt.”
“How do you know sh
e’s not hurt?” Audra squatted beside April. “Honey, are you hurt?”
“I scraped my elbow.” The child displayed a bleeding elbow.
“Come on, then, let’s get you into the office and clean you up.” Audra took the child’s arm and helped her up.
“I’ll see to it.” The older woman took hold of April. “You get back to your visitor.” She sent Hud a narrow-eyed glance.
“April, go with Mrs. Keplar,” Audra said.
Mrs. Keplar pulled April toward the building. Audra turned to the other little girl. “I didn’t push her,” the child said before Audra could speak. “I was trying to do like you said and be her friend and play with her, and she’s so clumsy she can’t even do that right.”
“Mia.” Audra spoke quietly. “Calling April clumsy and a crybaby is not being her friend.”
“But she is clumsy and she is a crybaby.” Mia’s face was flushed. She looked at the children who had gathered around. “I don’t want to be friends with her and you can’t make me.” She stalked away, half a dozen others following her.
Hud walked over to stand by Audra. “Little April looks like she’ll be okay,” he said. “No broken bones.”
“I’m afraid there’s more to this than a fall off the play structure,” she said. “Mia—the girl who just left—has been bullying April. April is very shy and timid and I’m afraid that’s made her a target for Mia.” She turned to him, her face a mask of anguish. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to bully someone else. And Mia and April are both so young. What is this kind of behavior going to do to both of them?”
Her distress pinched at him, and he struggled for something to say to ease her frustration, but as much as he was used to being in charge and having all the answers, he had none now. “I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this,” was all he could manage. “I can see how much it upsets you.”
“Of course it upsets me. It should upset anyone.” She touched his shoulder. “I really need to go in and check on April.”
“No problem.” He took a step back. “I’ll talk to you later.”
He returned to his cruiser, a dull ache in the middle of his chest. Of course Audra disliked bullies. Anyone would.
Would she dislike him if she knew he had been a bully? He thought he had put all that behind him a long time ago, but maybe there were some mistakes you could never entirely live down.
* * *
AFTER AUDRA LEFT the playground, she found April with Jana in the four-year-olds’ classroom. “Hold still. I know it stings, but I need to clean it up. And will you please stop crying?” Audra heard Jana’s scolding before she reached the room.
Both April and Jana looked up when Audra entered. “I’ve got this under control,” Jana said, tossing aside a cotton ball and reaching for a bandage.
“It sounds to me like you’re losing your temper,” Audra said, her own voice calm. “Finish up here and I’ll stay with April while you see to the other children.”
“I don’t need—”
“And I need you to see to the rest of your class while I stay with April.” Audra put more steel in her voice. Jana made a face, but stuck the bandage on April’s elbow, then stood and stalked out of the room.
“How are you feeling, honey?” Audra asked. She began to put away the first aid supplies.
April sniffed. “Okay, I guess.”
“What happened before you fell?”
More sniffling, then April said, “Mia asked me if I wanted to play on the swings. I said yes, and she offered to push me. But she pushed too hard and the swing went too high. I was scared. I told her not to do it and she just laughed and said we were playing and I had to play nice. I was really scared, so I tried to get off the swing and I fell. And she called me a crybaby.”
Audra held back a sigh. Had Mia set up the situation to frighten April? Or did she simply not know how to play with a timid child? Audra was debating how best to approach this when Brenda rushed into the room. “You have a phone call you need to take,” she said.
“Take a message,” Audra said. “I have something else I need to see to.”
“I really think you need to take this.” Brenda glanced at April, then leaned closer. “It’s April’s mom,” she whispered.
Audra frowned. “All right. You stay with April until Mrs. Keplar returns with the other children.”
Audra shut the door to her office, took a deep breath, then answered the phone. “Hello, Mrs. Patrick,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me why you continue to allow my daughter to be bullied. Why there wasn’t proper supervision on the playground this afternoon. Why my daughter was put into a situation where she could have been badly hurt.”
How had Mrs. Patrick already heard about this incident? Someone must have telephoned her, but who? Brenda? Jana? Now didn’t seem the appropriate time to ask.
“I was on the playground this afternoon, Mrs. Patrick,” she said. “April and Mia were playing on the swings and appeared to be having a good time—and then April was on the ground crying. I take it she jumped out of the swing because she was afraid.”
“You shouldn’t have let her anywhere near that little bully,” Mrs. Patrick. “What if April had broken her arm? I can’t believe this. I’m coming over there right now and I’m withdrawing April from your school. I want her ready to go, with all her things, and I expect a full refund of this month’s fees.”
Not waiting for an answer, Mrs. Patrick hung up. Audra dropped into her desk chair. She didn’t blame Mrs. Patrick for being angry. Maybe Audra was even partly to blame, for encouraging Mia to befriend April. If she’d opted to separate the two girls instead of trying for reconciliation, maybe this never would have happened.
Resigned, she returned to the four-year-olds’ classroom. April sat in a beanbag chair in the reading nook, curled in on herself, while the rest of the class gathered around Jana, who was laying out items for what Audra thought was a science experiment. Audra cleared her throat and Jana looked up. “I just need a moment of your time,” Audra said, and returned to the hallway.
Jana joined her a moment later. “What is it?” she asked. “I just got the children settled. I decided it was better to leave April to herself than to try to do anything with her.”
“April’s mother is coming to pick her up soon,” Audra said. “I need you to gather all her belongings and have them ready to go. Mrs. Patrick is withdrawing her from school.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Jana said. “I don’t think April has the social maturity for a school like this.”
Audra didn’t want to hear Jana’s opinions on the matter. “Did you call Mrs. Patrick?” she asked.
“A parent should always be contacted immediately if their child is injured at school.”
“Then I’m the one who should have contacted April’s mother.”
“I’m her teacher. I saw it as my responsibility.” Her clipped tone and the stubborn set of her jaw made it clear she wouldn’t change her mind about this.
“Gather April’s things, and I’ll take her to the office with me to wait for her mother.”
Jana returned to the classroom, and Audra leaned against the wall beside the door to wait. She couldn’t help feeling judgment behind everything Jana said to her. Was that because the judgment was really there, or because of Audra’s own insecurities?
If her father was around, she would call him and ask his advice. He had always done a good job of bolstering her spirits and helping her see solutions to problems. If he had died, she’d be grieving his departure. Instead, she felt a confusing mixture of anger and loss. He had sent messages to other people since his disappearance—why hadn’t he made it a point to contact her?
April emerged from the classroom a few minutes later, backpack on her shoulder and her arms laden with a box that appeared to contain
school papers and supplies, a water bottle, a bunch of paper flowers and a box of tissues. Audra forced cheerfulness into her voice. “Your mom’s coming to pick you up. You can wait in my office until she gets here.”
“Am I in trouble?” April asked, freckles standing out against her pale skin.
Audra melted in sympathy for the child. She’d been so focused on her own troubles without thinking about how April must feel. “You’re not in trouble,” she said, one hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Not at all. Your mom just thought you might need a break.”
April nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
Mrs. Patrick arrived fifteen minutes later, tension radiating from her slender body. “Are you okay?” she asked April, accepting the box of belongings from her.
“I’m okay now.” April displayed her bandaged elbow. “Mrs. Keplar fixed me up.”
“I should hope so.” Mrs. Patrick glanced at Audra, then looked away again. “I’m very disappointed things have come to this,” she said. “But I hope you understand why I can’t allow April to remain here, where she doesn’t feel safe.”
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Patrick,” Audra began. “I—”
“After reading the papers this morning, I was already thinking that this school was not the place for my girl.” Mrs. Patrick slipped the backpack from April’s shoulders as she spoke. “But after this, I’m sure of it.”
“What do you mean?” Audra asked. “What was in the papers?”
Still the woman didn’t look at her, fussing with smoothing April’s hair. “I’m not saying you had anything to do with the murder of that young man, but it doesn’t look good, does it? Come on, April, we need to go.” She took her daughter’s hand, then at last returned her gaze to Audra. “I’ll expect that refund.”
Then she was gone, leaving Audra stunned. Were the papers saying that she had something to do with Roy Holliday’s death? Or had someone else died? She thought of calling Hud and asking him if he knew what Mrs. Patrick was talking about, but told herself that was silly. She could figure this out easily enough on her own.