by Kathy Altman
Matt turned a wince into a sneer. “So this community service is going to be all, like, sappy lectures over milk and cookies and stuff?”
Eleven? This kid sounded more like sixteen. “I don’t reward bad behavior.”
“You sound like my dad.” His eyes turned wary. “So you don’t care if I don’t like you?”
“I didn’t say that. Your father and I were once good friends, and I’m sure I’d enjoy being friends with you, too. But it’ll mean more if you decide to like me on your own.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“Whatevs. You still don’t get any milk and cookies.”
Matt rolled his eyes, but some of the hostility had eased from his expression. “You and my dad. You’re not friends anymore?”
The air went still. The piano prodigy had disappeared, and the wind had settled. The only sound was the remote masculine murmur of the voice on the other end of Grady’s call.
“Not like we used to be,” Charity managed. “We haven’t seen each other since before you were born.”
“Did you know my mom?”
Grady moved back to Matt’s side, saving Charity from having to answer.
“I need to get back to work,” she said. “Any more questions? About how you’ll be spending your afternoons?” she added quickly.
“What about Will and Turbo?” Matt asked.
“They were transferred to a juvenile facility. They’ll probably be there through the summer.”
“They’re going to think I narced on ’em.” The kid’s voice rattled with panic.
Charity resisted the urge to smooth a hand over his thin back. “No. They know we have them on video.”
Grady squeezed his son’s shoulder and tugged him toward the parking lot. “I’ll bring him back after we grab something to eat.”
With a scowl, Matt freed himself and speed-walked toward the car.
Grady hesitated, pulled his wallet from his back pocket and walked back to Charity. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you.” He handed her a square of paper and watched as she unfolded it. “It’s a price quote from J.T. Muscoe’s, on a security system for your Camry. I talked him into giving you a top-of-the-line system for a basic price.”
Charity stared down at the pale yellow paper. She could actually afford this. She could have Clarabelle so wired that no one would dare come within five feet of her. She inhaled. His gesture had caught her unawares, and left her feeling off balance. “Thank you,” she said, looking up with a smile. “This was very thoughtful.”
His cheeks darkened and he shrugged. “Thank you for looking out for Matt and Drew. Justine, too. And for putting up with me.”
“You’re welcome.”
He snapped his wallet closed and started walking backward, toward his car. “We need to talk,” he said. One side of his mouth edged upward. “Partner.”
“I’ll call you when I get home tonight.” She watched him turn and walk away, admiring the strength in his shoulders and the clever fit of his expensive suit.
“What’d the kid get?”
Charity jumped, and aimed a grimace at the courthouse entrance. Brenda June peered around the edge of the heavy door.
“Restitution. Mandatory curfew. Community service.” She stuffed the paper from Muscoe’s in her pocket, marched up the steps and sidled past Dispatch into the quiet dimness of the building. “Under my supervision.”
Brenda June shut the door behind them, her slick ruby lips forming a capital O. “Pratt’s going to shout this place down.”
“You know it.”
The dispatcher patted her cheek. “Dix is looking for you. He went to Kate Young’s house to talk to Allison and no one answered the door. Allison wasn’t in school today, and Kate took a sick day from the hospital.”
“Did Dix spot either of them inside the house?”
When Brenda June shrugged, Charity set off for Judge Purl’s office. The dispatcher kept pace, kitten heels clacking an urgent rhythm along the tiled floor, oversized turquoise sweater swirling around her like a cape.
“I’ll get the judge started on a warrant,” Charity said. “Meanwhile I’ll try to get Kate on the phone. Tell Dix to start calling Allison’s friends, starting with Peyton Langford.”
* * *
Eyes squeezed shut, hip braced against the kitchen counter, Charity chugged another glass of water. She really needed something stronger, because once she grabbed some dinner and put on a clean uniform shirt she was headed back to the station, but damn it, she was determined not to cave to caffeine again. Even if her head did feel like she’d slammed it in a car door. But dear Lord, how many painkillers would it take to get rid of that incessant knocking?
Oh. Try the back door, dummy. Someone stood on the cement porch—someone tall and dark—and her midsection started to vibrate. Grady. He’d decided not to wait for her call. With an embarrassing amount of eagerness, she lunged at the door and swung it wide. Her visitor turned to face her.
She put her fists on her hips and inhaled, smelled lilacs and smoldering leaves and all kinds of trouble. “I don’t know why you’re here,” she said grimly, “but it’s a very bad idea.”
Chapter Twelve
Drew Langford was all wide-eyed innocence. “Can I come in?”
“No, you can’t come in. You’re a person of interest in my murder case. What in God’s name are you doing here?”
He eyed her unbuttoned uniform shirt and the white tee she always wore underneath. “You coming in or going out?”
“Both. Why are you here?”
“I’m here for the truth.”
“About?”
“Did you really forgive Uncle Grady for getting you arrested?”
Charity gaped. “Seriously? You’re standing on my back steps, in plain sight, risking my career and your own criminal defense because you want to know about something that happened a dozen years ago?”
“I want to know if you’re setting me up to get back at him.”
Her skin went cold, and it took her two tries to find her voice. “Your grandparents have about as much common sense as a bag of dirt.”
“They didn’t send me. By the way, the longer you make me stand out here, the greater the chance someone will see us.”
“Oh, this is perfect. This is great.” She stepped aside. “Come in.”
She shut and locked the door and turned to find his gaze lingering on the meal she hadn’t gotten around to—a bright yellow bowl and a box of Lucky Charms. When he caught her eye, his expression turned sheepish.
“I haven’t felt like eating with the family lately.”
She gestured at the chair opposite hers. He sat, and watched as she fetched a second bowl—this one orange. Ceramic clanged, and the cabinet door banged shut. She yanked open a drawer, scrabbled for a spoon, and hit the drawer with her hip. Silverware jangled. She fetched the milk out of the fridge and slapped the door shut. Bottles clinked. Finally she snatched the cereal box off the counter and thumped it down in front of Drew. Magically delicious marshmallows and bits of toasted oats rustled.
His grin was half desperation, half defiance. “You sure make a lot of noise when you cook.”
She dropped back into her chair, picked up her spoon, set it back down, watched her guest as he emptied half the box of cereal into his bowl—damn, she’d have to settle for oatmeal for breakfast—shoved the box across the table, and frowned at the jug of milk.
“Skim,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose—”
“Take it or leave it.”
He shut up and poured. For ten minutes they concentrated on eating, the only sounds in the kitchen the close-mouthed crunch of cereal and the rhythmic plunk of spoon meeting milk. When Drew’s pace didn’t slow as he reached the bottom of the bowl, Charity got up and put two slices of bread in the toaster.
His expression was grateful. His words were not. “So are you? Setting me up?”
She held on to his gaze. “You don’t know me. You have no re
ason to trust me. But I have too much respect for the law, and my profession, to be anything less than honest, on or off the job.”
“So when someone asks you a question, you always provide an honest answer?”
“If it’s a question I can legally answer, then yes.”
Drew watched her with those too-damned-perceptive Grady West eyes.
She pushed away from the counter in search of knife, plate, butter, jelly. “Unless it’s a question I don’t want to answer. In that case I say nothing at all.”
His gaze lowered to her cheeks, which she could feel turning pinker than the marshmallow hearts sitting abandoned in her bowl. Drew nodded.
“Do you think I killed Sarah?”
One by one Charity set the items on the table, then turned her back to her guest as she waited for the toaster. Her fingers shook. What a question. And one she shouldn’t answer. Then again, Drew Langford shouldn’t be in her kitchen eating Lucky Charms.
“No,” she said.
“Do you think someone’s trying to frame me?”
She thought of the leather necklace. “Yes.”
“Anyone you know?”
“I don’t know who it is, so I don’t know whether I know them or not. I do know it’s no one in the sheriff’s office.”
Bit by bit Drew’s shoulders eased downward. He ate his toast as Charity rinsed out his bowl. When the kitchen was quiet again, Charity sat back down.
“I’m not going to let you go to jail for something you didn’t do,” she said.
He angled his head. “Why do you care?”
Charity started to say, it’s my job, but realized that wasn’t the entire truth. “You remind me of someone.”
He smirked around a mouthful of strawberry jam. “You really expect me not to know you’re talking about Uncle Grady?”
“I really expect you not to be a smartass when you’re sitting in my kitchen eating my food.”
Drew ran a napkin across his mouth and stood, keeping the smirk while handing her his empty plate. “Now I’m not doing either. Thank you for feeding me.”
“You have his eyes. And his ego.”
“You ever going to forgive him for what he did?”
“I forgave him a long time ago.”
“So what don’t you forgive him for?”
“Getting married.” When Drew’s gaze sharpened, Charity managed a wheezing sort of laugh. “So soon after we split, I mean.”
“You should forgive him. For Matt’s sake.”
“Matt?”
“He says you’re mean to his dad.”
“Does he?” She considered. “Maybe I should kick mean up to brutal.”
“How come?”
“He’s still mad at his dad for the divorce. If I give him someone else to resent then maybe—”
“He’ll back off Uncle Grady.” Drew’s expression turned speculative, but when he spoke, it was only to say, “Thanks for letting me in.”
He opened the door and stepped out into the chilly dusk, paused, and looked back. “Allison’s not returning my calls. Do you know if she’s okay?”
They were looking for Allison, too, and Charity had a very bad feeling about the reason she was making herself scarce.
“I’ll look into it,” she said. “And Drew—” the butter dish clattered as she pushed to her feet “—you know we’ll need to bring you in tomorrow. For more questioning.”
“Okay if I stop in after school?”
She gave him a nod. “Do you mind if I ask, are you still planning to go to Stanford in the fall?”
With a shake of his head, Drew fastened the snaps on his letterman’s jacket. “I wouldn’t mind being near Uncle Grady. But I’m going to stick close for a while. See what I can do about getting my mom back out on her own. Living with my grandparents…it’s not good for her.”
“Kate Young told me Allison had opted for community college instead of following you to California.”
“I don’t think she was ever serious about Stanford. Heck, she’s not even serious about high school. Anyway, she doesn’t have the grades for a scholarship.”
Translation: she couldn’t have afforded Stanford otherwise. It must have been wishful thinking on Kate’s part.
Drew braced his palms on either side of the doorway and leaned in. “Let me know when you talk to Allison, okay?”
“Absolutely.”
He hesitated. “My dad wants to see me.”
“Do you want to see him?”
He gave his head a shake. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“You know it doesn’t.”
“Think I should forgive him?”
Charity crossed her arms against the chill that sidled through the open door. That one question was, without a doubt, the entire reason behind this visit.
“Forgiveness is a very personal thing,” she said, “so I can’t answer that for you. At some point, though, you’ll realize it takes more effort to hold onto a grudge than it does to forgive. So you have to ask yourself, how much will you lose between now and then?” She shrugged. “Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe it will. No one else can decide that but you.”
Frowning, he mulled over her words. Then he slapped the door frame twice and took off.
Charity moved forward and watched his tall form lope around the corner of the house. A ridiculous swell of sadness tugged at her shoulders. She snatched up the hem of her T-shirt and pressed it to her face. Breathed in and out, through cotton gone suddenly soggy.
* * *
Kate’s house remained dark. Charity walked the perimeter twice, flashlight playing over every window, every exterior door. No sign of movement, no hint of forced entry. She circled back to the front porch and dropped down onto the top step, wincing as the bricked edge bit into her thighs.
What the hell? After the judge granted a warrant that afternoon, Dix and Mo had searched Kate’s home. No signs of a panicked departure. Empty suitcases remained stacked in an upstairs closet. But neither mother nor daughter would answer her phone.
Charity clicked off the flashlight and sat in the deep black of the night while she concentrated on the weight of her phone in her jacket pocket. With a not-quite-steady sigh, she pulled it out, and dialed Grady.
“I’m sorry to call so late,” she said when he answered.
“It’s only ten. Besides, I’m used to you keeping me up at night.”
A delicious awareness buzzed through her veins. “I…don’t know what to say to that.”
“Say you’ll make it up to me.”
“What happened to keeping this professional?” What happened to understanding that I’m not up for another episode of loving and leaving?
His turn to sigh. “That mean I’m not next on your to-do list?”
A sweet, sudden heat pulsed between her thighs. She shifted on the steps, this time welcoming the scrape of the bricks against her legs. “How about you talk to Sarah’s coworkers in the morning?” she suggested briskly. “Then see what you can get out of Keith Tarrant. I need to track down Allison.”
“You worried about her?”
“Not yet.”
He paused. “You’ll need to talk to Drew again.”
A sweep of headlights sent Charity to her feet. Kate was back.
“We’ll talk tomorrow.” She stuffed her phone back into her pocket and waited.
Ten minutes and a pocketful of tissues later, an emotional Kate admitted Allison had gone into hiding. “I know she’s with one of her friends, but none of them will own up to it. I’ve left message after message. She won’t return my calls. She felt so guilty after your visit the other morning. She said she shouldn’t have dumped on Drew. I know I told you she was handling the breakup okay, but she really did love him.”
“We need to talk to her, Kate.”
“About the ear buds, right? I realize that makes her look guilty, but she wouldn’t hurt Sarah. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. She lost those ear buds. I haven’t seen them in forever. I don’t
know how they ended up…you know.”
“We’ll need the names of her friends. Anyone she could be staying with.”
“Of course. Come in, and I’ll get those for you. I should go and work a few hours at the hospital. I really can’t afford to take any more leave. But I’m so tired.” Kate pushed to her feet. “I guess you told your colleagues about Hampton and me.”
“I had to, Kate. I explained that.” No way Charity would repeat what the sheriff had had to say about it. “The only way it’ll come out is during someone’s testimony.”
The other woman nodded curtly. “Someone mentioned they saw you and Grady looking cozy in the liquor store parking lot. Since you were supposedly trying to avoid him, I take it he finally talked you into working together?”
Kate’s words carried an understandable bite, but Charity had no intention of going there. She asked why Kate couldn’t stay home and rest. As the other woman listed all the expenses involved with raising a teenager, Charity struggled to concentrate on the moment Kate had pulled into her driveway. A second vehicle—an extended cab pickup—had driven slowly by the house at the same time.
Dark blue? Black? She’d seen that truck before.
Now she just had to remember where.
* * *
Charity juggled her backpack, her keys, a bottle of water, a plastic sandwich bag of almonds, and a travel cup filled with instant hot chocolate—was she really willing to let a handful of Colombian beans get the better of her?—as she maneuvered through her front door and onto the porch. She tucked the water under her arm, shoved a corner of the snack bag into her mouth, and locked the door. A warm awareness drifted down her spine, and she turned to find Grady standing at the bottom of the steps, a paper bag in his hand and a sleepy smile on his face.
The almonds hit the floor of the porch with a rattling thwap. “What are you doing here?”
“Good morning to you, too.” He looked askance at the almonds and hefted the bag. “I brought breakfast.”
Charity heard the words, but they barely registered. All her senses were too busy admiring the fit of the jeans and turtleneck he wore beneath a short, black wool coat. His thick, dark hair was rumpled, his jaw unshaven, and she prayed he didn’t yawn; the fact that the door to her bedroom was maybe twenty feet away would make it much too easy to suggest he slide back between the sheets. With her.