You Can't Escape (9781420134650)
Page 37
“You got that right.” She said good-bye and clicked over. “This better be good, Sanders, because I’m walking on the beach with my sister and my new niece, and Jake’s back at the cottage we rented, getting his three favorite women appetizers and wine from both the Westerly and Rafferty vineyards, though of course July’s drinking grape juice and, well, Junie’s on breast milk.”
July blew a raspberry, but she was smiling, looking down at her sleeping baby with tenderness.
“You’re gonna want to cut that vacation short,” her partner predicted. “Remember Fairy and Craig and the skeletons in the closet?”
“I’m not likely to forget.”
“Finally got all the forensic work back. Remember there was Gramps and Gran and Uncle Harry, too. Lots of stealing money from the government. But wait, there’s more. A new guy, too. This one’s about our age, so no one’s hiding him in order to cash his Social Security check.”
“Really?” September said.
“Bones are pretty clean, so he’s been there awhile. Looks like we got ourselves a bona fide case, Detective Rafferty. When can you get back?”
September looked at her sister, then out across the restless gray ocean, the frothy white waves rushing up the beach and nearly touching her sneakers, then down at her bare finger, the one she’d decided probably needed that ring after all. Nothing like a newborn baby to put things in perspective. And no, she wasn’t ready for motherhood yet, but geez Louise, time had a way of running faster and faster, and putting off marriage to the man she loved because she felt conspicuous about wearing a ring? What the hell was the matter with her?
“Oh, no, what’s she saying?” July asked, reading September’s expression correctly. “You promised a whole week, remember?”
September nodded to July, and said, “I’ll be back on Monday,” to Gretchen.
“Come on, Nine. I could have this thing solved by then,” Gretchen protested. “Come back tomorrow.”
“Monday,” she reiterated, clicking off as Gretchen swore pungently. Then she leaned over and kissed Junie’s clean little brow, her mind traveling along pathways she tried to ignore.
“You’re not going to make it till Monday,” July predicted.
“Sure I will.”
“Wanna put a hundred dollars on that?”
September started to protest, to tell her sister she was all wet. She wasn’t nearly as gung-ho as her partner about these kinds of weird cases. But, she could admit a little tickle of interest growing, a desire to know the truth. Extra bones? Someone around her age dumped into the mix at the house on Aurora Lane? A possible homicide?
July had thrust out her hand, waiting for September to shake on the bet. September curled her fingers into her palms, ignoring the request, and July laughed out loud, an “I told you so” evident in her amused eyes.
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Copyright © 2015 by Nancy Bush
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-3464-3
First Electronic Edition: July 2015
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3465-0
eISBN-10: 1-4201-3465-5