by Kara Lennox
CHAPTER SEVEN
“REALLY?” A SURGE of relief rushed through Eric’s veins. Although he’d never even met the woman, he would have felt horrible if she’d met with foul play. “When?”
“Just a few minutes ago. I didn’t see it right away, because it’s a new number. I get a lot of spam, so I check messages from unknown numbers only after I look at everything else.”
“What did she say?”
“Here, read it for yourself.” She handed the phone to him, and he scanned the few lines of text.
It’s me, Philomene. Lost my phone and just now bought a replacement. Sorry I waited so long to call. Please don’t worry, I just need to think things through.
“Ugh, I feel so stupid now.” Bree pounded her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Running around insisting she was missing, dragging you all the way here.”
“It’s okay.”
“Now I really owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Bree. The iced tea is payment in full, okay?”
“Considering that we got off to a bad start, you’re being awful nice to me.”
He shrugged. “I admire that you care enough to do something when you feel something isn’t right. It’s a rare trait. Most people don’t bother.”
Her face turned a delicate shade of pink. It made him grin to realize he’d caused her to blush.
“Well, anyway, have a safe drive home.”
“I’ll do my best.”
They stood there for several heartbeats, and Eric found himself leaning closer to those plump, strawberry-kissed lips.
Bree didn’t shy away from him. She raised her chin a fraction of an inch.
He couldn’t resist. He kissed her, right there in the café in front of everybody.
The brush of lips was brief. Bree sucked in a breath and looked at him, surprised.
Eric touched his lips with his fingers. What a strange impulse. He was usually more circumspect.
Bree cleared her throat and stepped farther away from him as a waitress appeared to hand his tea to him. He thanked her, nodded to Bree and turned away before he acted like an even bigger fool.
He was so distracted by reliving that miraculous kiss that he was halfway home before something awful occurred to him. He should have thought of it first thing; even the most green of investigators at Project Justice would have. But now, away from Bree, his brain was working normally again and he had to ask himself: How did they know that text really was from Philomene?
* * *
ERIC HAD HOPED to be home before MacKenzie arrived from kindergarten, but she beat him by a couple of hours—and she was cranky about it.
“You said you didn’t have to work today.” She somehow managed to maintain her pout even while berating him.
“I know, sweetheart, but something came up. Anyway, I’m home now. We can go to PizzaMania for dinner if you want.” PizzaMania was the one place he could take his daughter that guaranteed she wouldn’t pick at her meal. But he had mixed feelings about the shortage of fruits and vegetables in pizza, so he tried to limit their visits to the kid-friendly restaurant.
“Uncle Trav is making Stroge-noff!” she objected, on the verge of panic.
“Okay, okay. We’ll do pizza another night.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I may have to...” Stop. Rewind. He’d been getting ready to say he might have to work late. Everyone at the foundation would probably have to work double time to make up for the roach-eradication vacation.
But he’d promised himself when he took this job that he would always put MacKenzie first. He considered himself a good, attentive father. Before Tammy’s death, he’d spent a lot of time with his daughter. Whenever he’d been at home, he’d focused all of his attention on her.
Which might explain why his wife had strayed.
Back then, he’d considered long hours a necessity if he wanted to excel as a real-estate legal eagle. Tammy had made it clear what she expected in terms of his career progress and his income. She’d told him exactly when he should make partner, and the piece of jewelry he would buy her when they celebrated his promotion.
At the time it had seemed like she’d been showing her faith in him, her support of his goals. Now he wondered if Tammy hadn’t just seen him as her two-legged cash register.
Things would be different now. He no longer felt the need to rise to the top of his field. Developing and maintaining strong bonds with his daughter, making sure she had what she needed to grow up into a happy, healthy and productive person were the only goals that mattered.
Working ridiculous hours wasn’t part of that equation. The generous salary Daniel paid him didn’t mean he had to live and breathe his job.
“You know, yeah, let’s make tomorrow a date. PizzaMania. And tonight we’ll enjoy Travis’s beef Stroganoff. But I do expect to see some vegetables on your plate.”
MacKenzie wrinkled her nose. But she didn’t flat out say no, which was progress. She did seem to be regaining some of her former healthy eating habits. Her therapist said Eric should rejoice in every small step that signaled a return to normalcy.
Eric sat down on the edge of her bed, where she’d stationed herself to pout. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you did at school today. Or better yet, show me.”
She clamored off the bed and went to the closet, where she had a shelf set aside for her school papers, which she stacked neatly and paper-clipped together. Solemnly she handed him today’s stack.
The first paper was a series of pictures of fruits and vegetables. She had filled in missing letters in the names of the fruits and colored the images—brown.
“You really like brown, don’t you?” If she hadn’t exhibited a love for color before her mom’s death, he would have suspected she was color-blind.
“Brown is good. My teacher is Ms. Brown.”
“Okay. What’s this?” The next picture was a stereotypical stick-figure family—mom, dad, kid, dog. The picture was predictably drawn in brown crayon—except for a dash of purple.
“That’s us. There’s you and me and Pixie.”
“And Mommy.” Eric pointed to the obvious stick lady; even though it wore pants, it wore a necklace and had a ponytail.
“No, Daddy,” MacKenzie said patiently. “This is Mommy up here.” She pointed to a blob up in the sky with wings that he’d thought was a bird.
His heart did a flip-flop. She’d portrayed Tammy as an angel.
“She’s in heaven,” MacKenzie added. “She’s watching us and praying for us.”
“Nice.” Eric wondered who’d told her that. No one around here was overtly religious, and he doubted any of her teachers in public school taught concepts of heaven and prayer, though he wouldn’t object if some sympathetic teacher had attempted to comfort MacKenzie regarding her dead mother. It was also entirely possible another child had said something.
“If that’s Mommy, then who is this?” He pointed to the ponytail figure. He figured it was Elena or maybe her teacher; the therapist had said that when a child’s family was ruptured at such a young age, she might be fuzzy on the whole concept of family for a while.
“That’s Dr. Bree.”
“Oh.” In our family? “I guess you liked her, huh.”
“Yeah, she’s nice. But she’s not Mommy.”
“No, of course not.”
“There’s only one Mommy, right? Except my friend Heather has two, ’cause her parents got divorced and her dad married this other lady, who picks up Heather from school sometimes.”
“Well, you only have one. And she is watching over you. And she would be so proud of you. Especially when you eat your vegetables.”
Again there was a nose wrinkle. “Heather says having two is good because she gets twice the present
s on her birthday.”
Eric was glad he didn’t have to negotiate that parental mess. Having a live-in aunt and uncle was about as complicated as it was going to get, and before too long they would find their own place.
“I don’t want two mommies,” MacKenzie said.
“Well, don’t worry. I have no plans to bring home a second one.” His thoughts returned briefly to his kiss with Bree. The memory was so delicate it was almost as if it hadn’t happened.
“You know why?”
“Why?”
“’Cause they would make me eat twice the vegetables.” MacKenzie threw back her head and laughed so hard she snorted. Eric realized with a start that it was the first time he’d heard her laugh like that since Tammy’s death.
He hugged her, and she wrapped her warm little arms around his neck. “You’re the best,” he whispered in her ear. “Best little girl ever.”
“You’re the best daddy ever,” she returned cooperatively.
No, he wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Sometimes he felt so helpless, like when she had a bad dream or a tummy ache or when she just cried for no reason. Sometimes she retreated inside herself, and he couldn’t reach her.
Then they would share a moment like this.
He wondered again how “Dr. Bree” had earned a spot in the family portrait, then dismissed the concern. At least MacKenzie had portrayed Tammy as an angel this time, which meant she was coming to terms with the fact her mother was “in heaven.” MacKenzie still hadn’t grasped the concept of death—the finality of it—but she had at least stopped expecting her mommy to walk through the door just as her daddy had.
Baby steps.
* * *
BREE TOOK A long sip of her coffee and looked at the text from Philomene for the umpteenth time. She’d slept badly the previous night, thinking about the missing woman and wondering where she was. Bree had tried calling the new number, but it always rolled to voice mail. So she kept reading the text over and over.
When she wasn’t doing that, she was reliving that strange and wonderful moment when Eric had kissed her. She couldn’t believe she’d let it happen. But when he’d leaned in, looking at her with undeniable hunger, it had seemed so natural to let the kiss happen.
She wondered who had seen and what they might make of it.
It was just an impulse, she told herself. Not to be repeated, best forgotten. She forcefully returned her thoughts to the text.
Was Philomene in trouble? Had she left some kind of coded message in those few simple words? Something about the text bothered Bree, but she couldn’t put her finger on precisely what.
Bree had come early to the café for breakfast because Sheriff DeVille almost always did the same. He had not called her, despite the urgency she’d tried to convey in her note. Her only option was to ambush him.
When she saw Ted Gentry walk through the front door, she thought her patience was about to be rewarded. Ted and DeVille were often seen together, sometimes accompanied by District Attorney Needles. Bree had come to think of them as the Three Stooges, though it was perhaps unfair to lump Ted in with the other two. Of all of them, Ted seemed like the one who had the least to lose if Kelly’s conviction were overturned. After all, physical evidence had barely played a role in that case. It was all witness testimony and some other thin circumstantial evidence. The man who had raped Philomene and murdered those other unfortunate women had been very, very careful. He hadn’t left so much as an eyelash behind, and certainly no body fluids.
Unfortunately, Ted was alone this morning. She waved to him and motioned for him to join her.
As he made his way toward her booth, he seemed to be placing his steps very carefully, as if he were balancing on a beam.
She’d heard rumors that Ted had been hitting the bottle a little harder than usual lately. But at seven in the morning?
“Morning, Ted,” she said amiably. “Join me for breakfast? I just ordered.”
“Sure.” He slid into the booth opposite her.
“Unless, of course, you’re breakfasting with the sheriff this morning. I doubt he’d be too keen to share a table with me, since he’s working so hard to avoid me.”
“Is he?” Ted asked innocently.
“I have more information to support foul play in Philomene’s disappearance. I left him a message yesterday and he hasn’t even acknowledged it. If he was too busy himself, he could have at least asked Joan or one of the deputies to get back to me. Personal feelings aside, I am a citizen of Becker County.”
“I guess you haven’t heard, then.”
Bree’s stomach dropped, and she set her mug down on the table with a thud. “What?”
“You may think the sheriff is ignoring you, but he got your message.” Ted lowered his voice. “Last night he seized Philomene’s car and brought Jerrod Crowley in for questioning. They found blood in the trunk.”
Bree let that information settle on her for a few moments. “That’s...that’s awful. Did they arrest him?”
“Not yet. But I thought you’d be glad someone’s taking the case seriously.”
“I am, but...I guess I was hoping Philomene would be found alive. The presence of blood is a bad sign.”
“Well, yeah.”
The waitress came by, poured coffee for both of them and took Ted’s order. He requested one of those huge “farmer’s breakfasts” with eggs, toast, bacon, sausage and hash browns. She wondered how he stayed so lean eating like that. As a doctor, he ought to know better, but she had long ago stopped chiding her friends over their dietary choices.
“I hadn’t realized you even knew Philomene,” Ted remarked.
“I didn’t, not well. But she trusted me, as my patient. She unburdened herself on me. And I felt a certain responsibility toward her.”
“It’s not like you had anything to do with her boyfriend doing away with her.”
“Oh, but I’m not sure Jerrod did it. Not at all.”
“Really? You know him?”
“I only met him once. But someone pretended to be Philomene and texted him where to find her car. Someone wanted to make it look like he had something to do with her vanishing.”
Ted scratched his head. “How do you know all this?”
“Jerrod told me. And sure, maybe he was lying. Except I received a text, too. Yesterday. Well after Jerrod was seen driving his girlfriend’s car. Something’s out of whack here.”
“Did you tell the sheriff about your text?”
“Not yet. I was hoping to run into him, since he won’t return my calls.”
“If I see him, I’ll tell him to call you. But Bree...don’t get invested in Jerrod’s innocence, okay? The guy’s a loser with a long rap sheet. You don’t need another cause to crusade for.”
Great. Ted thought she had some kind of complex, always willing to believe every man accused of a crime was innocent.
“And don’t give up on Philomene, either. The blood in the trunk might mean nothing. It’s an old car. You never know—someone could have put a deer carcass in there. My cousin did that one time. Hit a deer late at night, decided it was a waste of good venison to just leave it there, so he stuffed it into the trunk of his Buick. God, what a mess.”
The waitress brought their food. Bree didn’t have much of an appetite left, but she forced herself to eat a few spoonfuls of yogurt and at least some of the fresh fruit.
“Ted,” she said after a long silence, “would you do me a favor? Could you let me know what’s going on with the investigation? Obviously DeVille isn’t going to keep me in the loop.”
“Frankly, Bree, there’s no reason you should be in the loop. It’s now an ongoing investigation.”
“But I’m the one who reported Philomene missing. And I might actually have information that could help. Yesterday a...frien
d and I went out to the spot where Jerrod said he picked up Philomene’s car—”
“You did what?”
“Look, it seemed as if the sheriff wasn’t going to do anything, which left it up to me to find her. No law that says I can’t look for someone. Anyway, we found tire impressions. We took pictures.” She stopped short of mentioning the whole business about the stolen credit card and cell phone. The last thing she wanted was to get Eric or Project Justice in trouble for illegally accessing private databases.
“That sounds like something the sheriff should know about,” Ted said with a worried frown.
“Exactly.”
“Can you email them to me? I’ll make sure he gets them.”
“I don’t have them. My friend does.”
“That guy you were here with the other day? With the little girl?”
Bree nodded. “Eric. I’ll ask him to send you the images.”
“If Jerrod really did pick up the car, the tire tracks might simply be from someone dropping him off.”
“Then it might verify his story. Anyway, I think it’s important.”
“Yeah.”
And it would give her an excuse to call Eric. She was way more happy about that than she ought to have been, given the circumstances. But she couldn’t seem to get him off her mind.
Maybe she’d skip the call and just drive to his office. People found it harder to brush her off or refuse her favors if she asked them in person. Besides, she wanted to tell Eric about the blood and see what he thought. He’d asked her to keep him updated, after all, and she had another errand in Houston she needed to run. A medical supply company there had a type of suturing thread she liked. Since the county hospital wouldn’t provide it, she bought her own.
“Are you dating that guy?” Ted asked bluntly. “Because I thought you didn’t date.”
That was the excuse she’d given Ted when he’d asked her out. Back then, she’d been too busy to have a boyfriend. But it wasn’t a blanket policy. She just didn’t usually meet anyone she wanted to go out with.