Twenty-three
Kelly went to call
Barr while Meghan comforted Erin and I did my best to comfort Clarissa.
“What’s wrong with her?” she sobbed into my shoulder. We were on the sofa, while Meghan and Erin had gone to Erin’s room.
At least that implied Clarissa wasn’t used to that kind of behavior from her aunt. I rocked her a little and murmured, “She’s just upset. It’ll be okay.”
But would it? I still couldn’t figure Hallie out. Was she drinking and carrying on because Nate got hurt? Because she hurt him? Did she have any idea how fine the line between love and hate was that she was straddling?
Was there something I didn’t know?
Well, obviously, there was.
“How ’bout we call your mom,” I said, almost sure Clarissa would reject the idea.
But she surprised me by nodding vigorously. In many ways she seemed years younger than Erin, in spite of her desire to grow up far too quickly.
“Okay. Wait here and I’ll get the phone.”
“I have mine,” she said, reaching in her pocket.
“Let’s use ours,” I said. “I’d like to talk to your mom first, anyway.” As I went into the front hall to retrieve the handset from its cradle, Barr’s old white Camry pulled up in front. His car, not the department’s. That meant he wasn’t just stopping by the house on his way someplace else.
Good.
He ran up the walk. I met him at the door and gave him a quick kiss. “Be with you in a sec.”
“Where’s Kelly?” he asked.
“I think he went out back. Said something about checking the window locks.”
Barr nodded and went to find him. I dialed the phone and waited, debating how to tell Allie about her sister.
“Sophie Mae? Is Clarissa okay?” God bless Caller ID.
“Hi, Allie. She’s fine. Well, mostly fine.”
“What’s wrong?” Anxiety threaded her voice.
“Hallie stopped by to see her.”
“Oh. I probably should have warned you. She was pretty upset when Tom told her we’d decided Clarissa should spend some time with Erin until the … situation … is resolved.”
Situation, indeed.
“Did you know she’d been drinking?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“We tried to get her to stay so we could call you, but she took off. I’m concerned that she’s on the road.” Not to mention how she handled that sporty car of hers even when sober.
“Oh, God. I’ll call her—no, wait. What if she answers and she’s driving and then she gets in a wreck? Should I wait?”
“Er, I don’t know. We told Barr, so the police—and likely the sheriff’s department—are on the lookout for her.”
Allie was silent.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But she was acting pretty irrationally.”
She sighed. “I suppose there are worse things than the police picking her up.”
“I called to let you know what was going on, but also because Clarissa wants to talk to you. I think it kind of scared her to see her aunt like that, and she was trying to get Clarissa to come back home with her.”
“Darn Hallie.” For the first time Allie sounded truly angry at her sister. “We’ve put up with so much from her over the last year, and I keep making allowances and hoping she’d get over that crappy divorce. But her mood swings are getting more and more dramatic. She’s getting worse, not better. Let me talk to my daughter.”
Yes, ma’am. But I didn’t take offense at her abrupt tone, because I knew it wasn’t directed at me. Plus, I couldn’t blame her.
“Hang on.” I walked back into the living room and held the phone out to Clarissa, still huddled in the corner of the sofa. “Your mom’s on the phone. Do you want me to leave you alone to talk to her?”
“Yes, please.” It was the first polite thing she’d said to me.
I handed her the phone and went into the kitchen to add pasta shells to the minestrone. Barr and Kelly tromped up the stairs from my workroom as I stirred. My husband tucked his phone into his pocket as they entered the room. My gut twisted when I saw his face. Kelly didn’t look very happy, either.
“What’s wrong now?” I asked.
“That was Zahn. At least we know where Hallie was five minutes ago.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Where?”
“The hospital.”
My hand went to my throat. “Oh, no. What did she do?” I had visions of her breaking into the ICU and finishing the job on Nate.
“Found Daphne and Nate’s mother and made another big scene.”
I let out my breath. She hadn’t gotten to Nate or hurt anyone. Still. “Darn it. The last thing Faith and Daphne need is some crazy woman making things even harder.”
“Faith?” Barr asked.
Giving the soup on the stove another quick stir, I said, “Mrs. Snow. I went to the hospital this afternoon since they wouldn’t give me any information over the phone. Now I have Daphne’s number, so I can call her directly. I keep hoping Nate will wake up and
tell us who hit him
.” I couldn’t keep the frustration out of my voice. There were too many possible suspects but no good ones except the one who had knocked me down in my own front yard and made a scene at the hospital.
“Unless you can get Hallie to confess,” I said to Barr.
“That’s unlikely, at least for now.” His tone was wry.
“She is in custody, isn’t she?” I asked.
Kelly snorted.
My shoulders slumped. “The hospital just let her go?”
“Not exactly,” Barr said. “Once things escalated to the point where the floor nurse noticed what was going on, he called security. Apparently Hallie started yelling at Daphne, who turned around and yelled back. They were inches from a cat fight outside the ICU.”
“Oh, God,” I groaned. At least Daphne could stand up for herself.
“But it took security a couple minutes to get there,” Barr said. “She scooted out before they arrived.”
I slumped into a chair. “So she’s still out there.”
“Cadyville patrol is looking for her, and Everett, Monroe, and the county are on alert as well. We’ll find her.”
“Kelly told you she’d been drinking?”
Barr frowned. “Drinking or drunk?”
“Well …” I hedged. “She seemed pretty loopy, but then again she seemed loopy when Daphne and I ran into her coming out of Nate’s trailer, too. I could definitely smell tequila, though.”
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t get into a wreck or hurt someone else.”
Someone else?
“Do you think she’s the one who attacked Nate?” Kelly asked before I could.
“Hard telling at this point.” Barr refused to speculate without proper evidence. “I meant that if she’s driving around drunk her car is a weapon that could hurt anyone who gets in her way.”
Heck, the way she drove, her car was always a weapon.
“I’m going to check on Clarissa,” I said.
Meghan and Erin came out of Erin’s bedroom. Meghan looked as serious as a heart attack, but her grinning daughter had obviously recovered from Hallie’s visit with the typical resilience of youth. So I was a little surprised when she ran up and gave me a big hug.
“Does it hurt?” Erin asked, patting my hip where Hallie had hit me.
“Sophie Mae?” Alarm echoed in Meghan’s voice.
I squeezed Erin and waved with my free hand as if dispelling a fog. “That side’s fine.” My other hip, where I’d landed on the ground, would sport a fine bruise.
My housemates still looked concerned. So I pasted a big smile on my face and pushed Erin toward the kitchen. “Any chance I could get you to set the table?”
“Uh, sure,” she said, taking a few steps.
Meghan gave me a hard look and then followed behind her.
In the living room, Clarissa was still on the phone. “But Mom, you have to let me come home. Hallie needs me … I’ll be careful, I promise … please …?” She looked at me with pleading eyes.
But I could tell Allie wasn’t giving in. I couldn’t blame her.
I gestured at Clarissa and whispered. “Let me talk to your mom before you hang up, ’K?”
She nodded. “Sophie Mae wants to talk to you again … yeah …
okay … I miss you, too.” But not as much as she missed Hallie was my guess.
Offering an encouraging smile, I took the phone from her hand, crossed to the entryway and went into Meghan’s office. I closed the door behind me. Clarissa didn’t need to know what I was about to tell her mother.
“Allie? I have an update on Hallie.”
She’d been angry at her sister before, but my news about the hospital and all the cops in the entire county being on the lookout for her doubled her fury. She agreed to call when Hallie came home.
If she came home.
_____
“I don’t think that’s a good idea tonight,” Barr said when I mentioned my idea of going to Monroe for a movie with the girls.
I hadn’t had a chance to tell him why I wanted to give Meghan some alone time with Kelly. But he was right—with Hallie on the loose it would be better to hunker down at home. Together.
Meghan shrugged at me. “We’ll watch something here, maybe play some board games.”
Clarissa weighed in. “Board games are boring. That’s why they call them bored games.” She smiled at her joke, and after a moment so did Erin. “Don’t you have video games?”
“On my computer,” Erin said.
“Don’t you have a game system for the TV? Or a Wii?”
Erin shook her head, ashamed at how lame our entertainment
options were. She’d never minded before, preferring to read or
engage in real-life activities.
“Ugh! How can you stand it?” Clarissa’s lip curled in derision.
Erin shrugged. “I dunno. Do you have all that?”
Clarissa’s chin rose. “Of course I do.”
I tried to imagine Tom spending hard-earned money on such things when the budget was so tight their first year on the farm.
“Hallie gets me all kinds of stuff.”
Ah. Of course. She’d probably made out quite well in the divorce.
“We could play poker,” Erin said. “My Nana Tootie taught me how.”
Clarissa sneered.
The evening did not get any easier after that. According to our guest, the soup had too many vegetables, bread and butter would make you fat, and fizzy cola products were vastly superior to homemade lemonade. She deemed the kale chips just plain weird and wanted chocolate ice cream for dessert when we only had vanilla. She didn’t care for any of our suggestions for things to do after dinner. Eventually Erin gave up and went to her room, ostensibly to work on her novel. Even that met with disapproval from Clarissa.
At least Erin had gotten over feeling like we needed a houseful of video games, since Clarissa’s credibility diminished with every complaint. The rest of us ended up sitting in the living room watching Clarissa channel surf until finally Meghan couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Time for bed.” She stood.
Kelly, Barr, and I followed suit.
Clarissa craned her head to look up at us. “But I want to stay up. Mom lets me stay up, you know.”
“I highly doubt that,” I said, remembering what Barr had said about waking up the family when he went to show them Darla’s autopsy photo. Of course, just because he woke up the parents didn’t mean their daughter wasn’t playing some shoot ’em up in her room. “You and Erin can hang out in her bedroom.”
Meghan fired a look at me, and I tried not to look sheepish.
“Whatever.” Clarissa got off the sofa and trudged toward the hallway.
“Lights out in half an hour,” Meghan called.
I ducked my head. “Sorry. I know Erin’s had it with all the whining. But that little girl has some problems, not the least of which is her aunt. It’s been a pretty tough day for her.”
Barr put his arm around me. “You’re right. She’s not on her best behavior, but it’s not exactly her fault.”
To my surprise, Meghan rolled her eyes. “True, but it’s not like she’s ever on her best behavior.”
My friend had had a pretty tough day, too.
Twenty-four
98.1°. Again.
Peering at the thermometer in the light over the bathroom sink, I couldn’t see anything wrong with it. Maybe I hadn’t been the best about keeping track of my temperature, but this was ridiculous. There ought to be at least some kind of blip in my chart.
But no. 98.1° had been the reading every single time.
I plugged the sink and ran hot water into it. Plunged the thermometer in. Waited.
Yep. 98.1°. The stupid thing was broken.
Into the garbage it went. Disgusted, I applied arnica salve to the bruise beginning to develop on my hip and pulled on a pair of soft, boy-cut shorts and a sexy little tank. Barr was in bed already, working on his laptop and trying to make a dent in departmental paperwork. I’d filled him in on what Faith Snow had told me about Nate and Darla’s past. He’d dutifully jotted notes, but I could tell he didn’t think there was any connection to the present. Frankly, I couldn’t think of one, either.
Now I was tired as all get out. Still, I was willing to give the whole baby-making thing one more try.
Because tired or not, it was a lot of fun.
I swallowed my chasteberry supplement, mindful of the irony of the name since I’d read that it was supposed to promote fertility. I brushed my teeth and combed out my mop of hair, pretending the few white ones creeping in were just really, really blonde. On the way to the bedroom I stopped by the sitting room for a quick look at the calendar.
And stopped short.
I was usually as regular as regular could be on the monthly cycle front, but those dates weren’t lying. In the flurry of activity and worry and, well, murder, I’d somehow missed the fact that I was late. Three days late.
How could that be? Not the being late—that made sense if I was pregnant, of course. But how could I not have cottoned on before? Maybe it had something to do with the mix of emotions racing through my mind at facing the idea of actually being with child. Racing through my mind, my heart, and my solar plexus.
Which might account for the heartburn.
I shuffled into the bedroom and crawled into bed, quiet as a mouse. Slid down until the covers reached my chin.
Distracted, Barr glanced down at me, then did a double-take. “What’s wrong?”
Should I tell him? Well, why not?
“I’m late.”
A grin pulled one side of his mouth up. “I wondered when you’d notice.”
My eyes widened. “What do you mean? Since when do you keep track?”
“Since it became important. It’s right there on the calendar.”
I wiggled into an upright position. “Ruth told me she saw you buying a pregnancy kit in the drugstore.”
“Did she, now? Ms. Black should pay more attention to her own purchases.”
“Where is it?”
“Under the sink in the bathroom. Are you okay? This isn’t exactly the reaction I expected.”
I groped for the words. “For the first time this whole having-a-baby thing feels awfully … real.”
“Awfully?” His smile held confusion.
“No, no. That didn’t come out right. It’s kind of scary, is all. Scary and wonderful and exciting and … can you understand?” I asked, not adding
terrifying
to the list. What was wrong with me? I was supposed to swoon and giggle at the thought that I might be preggers. And truth be told, I wanted to do those things, too. So many feelings swirling around made it hard to even breathe.
“Of course,” he said, pulling me toward him.
But I pushed away and climbed out of bed. “I’ll be right back.”
He closed his laptop and put it on the bedside stand. “Okay. I’ll be waiting.”
I shuffled down the hallway, feeling more cold than sexy in my skimpy night gear and ducky slippers. The test sat in the back corner under the sink, right where Barr said it would be. Taking it out, I sank down on the closed toilet lid and read the directions.
It was the first time I’d taken a pregnancy test in my thirty-eight years. How had I managed that? My hands were actually shaking.
I opened the box and removed one of the wands. So you usually needed more than one? Was that the deal? It looked simple enough.
I did the deed.
And waited.
I filed my fingernails and applied cuticle cream, then rubbed cocoa butter on my elbows, knees, and heels. Barr sat in the other room. What kind of a wife was I? I should have been in there, waiting for the test results with him, but for some reason I wanted to know first. By the time the medicine cabinet was cleaned and neatly arranged the requisite amount of time had passed.
Much like I’d examined Darla’s autopsy photograph, I flipped over the test and made myself look.
Barr sat exactly in the same position he’d been in when I’d gone into the bathroom. Now as I stood in the doorway, the tenderness in his gaze almost undid me.
I shook my head once.
He held out his arms. “Come here.”
He turned the light off, and I put my head on his shoulder. He stroked my hair. “Take it one day at a time, Sophie Mae. We both will.”
I nodded. “You’re right, of course.”
Soon his breathing became heavy and deep, and I felt him slip into slumber.
I tried to sleep, I really did. Disappointment and relief about not being pregnant warred. How was I supposed to feel? How did normal people feel in circumstances like that? Why did I always have to complicate things?
Counting backwards from one thousand didn’t even dent my insomnia. And every time I tried to imagine myself drowsing on a warm, sandy beach, it reminded me of Faith Snow’s story about the woman who drowned right in front of Nate and Darla. A tragedy that had followed them for the rest of their lives.
Still, Darla had turned her life around, getting her master’s
degree and following a passion for birds of prey. And it seemed Nate had found his footing on the Turner farm. I was sure that Faith was right about Daphne being good for him, too. I couldn’t bear the thought that he might not ever come out of his coma, not when his life was finally on track. Not to mention that he was the only one who could confirm who had hit him over the head and killed Darla. Assuming, of course, that it was the same person.
See? There I went, complicating things again. Stick with the idea of one killer, Sophie Mae. At least until there was evidence to the contrary.
Was that killer Hallie? She fit the bill so well. Darla’s time of death had been hard to pinpoint, so alibis were hard to come by for anyone associated with the farm—or the CSA. But did I really buy that Hallie was motivated by some kind of insane jealousy? Sure, she seemed unstable, but you’d have to be out-and-out crazy to kill someone you only suspect is an old flame of someone you used to date. And then to try and kill the old flame himself. Still …
I shook Barr awake.
“Wha …?”
“Don’t you think you should put a guard on Nate’s room?”
He sighed. “Dawson’s been there since early evening. She’s watching Daphne, too, since she refuses to leave the hospital.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.”
“Now go to sleep, Sophie Mae,” he grumbled.
“Right. Goodnight.”
“Mmmph.”
Amazing, really, how quickly he could fall back into unconsciousness.
The other thing that struck me as odd was the way Darla had been buried in the compost. Whether the killer had known she was still alive or not, they still had to do the heavy lifting of shoveling the compost over her. I imagined they would have had to place her body at the edge of the pile and then climb at least partway up it to dislodge enough compost to bury her. That would have been very dirty work.
As Clarissa had said, Hallie didn’t like to get dirty. Still, Mother Necessity made for some unusual choices.
Thoughts still swirling, I slid out from under the covers, slipped
my ducky slippers back on and dug one of Barr’s old sweatshirts out of the closet. Slipping it over my head, I padded down to the kitchenette. My favorite sleep-aid was a tea made of valerian root. It smelled horrible and tasted like sour dirt, but did the trick. I reached for the jar then saw it was empty. Some herbs were to be avoided during pregnancy—was valerian one of them? And what about my favorite single malt Scotch? Right out the window it would go once I was “with
child.”
Of course, the upside would be the child. And the thought of a little person who was part Barr and part me, was indescribably appealing. What was I so worried about?
I found some chamomile tea in the main kitchen downstairs, and put on the kettle by the low light over the stove. The house was still and dark, everyone in bed—Kelly, too, I assumed. Meghan might not have had the perfect evening to pop the question, but it was obvious she’d made a decision to bring him into the household day
and
night. Outside, the wind wuthered around the eaves and whispered through branches. I dodged furniture in the dark living room and, reaching the window, pulled back the curtain. Tree leaves danced against the moon-bright clouds above, but to the west the sky roiled dark and foreboding.
Back in the kitchen I brewed the tea, and with the soothing scent of chamomile steaming out of the mug, went downstairs to my workroom and turned on the small floor lamp in the corner by the big freezer. My selection of aromatherapy and herbal references inhabited a narrow bookcase there. I sipped my tea and perused the titles, selecting two which I knew included information about specific herbs to avoid during pregnancy.
Light washed across the ceiling.
I turned. The source came from the end of the alley. Something made me switch off the lamp and stand there in the dark.
Watching.
Headlights crept into view. A car crawled down the alley, bumpi
ng on the uneven track so the light bobbed gently across the back
fence. Visible bit by bit through the slats, it was nonetheless
impossible to make out an outline. The beams were low to the ground—a car rather than a truck or SUV.
Terror arrowed through me, so surprising it made me gasp. I couldn’t move for a long moment after the car was gone, the big windows in my workroom that I loved so much now causing me to feel exposed and vulnerable.
I forced myself to take a step.
And then another.
It was only a car in the alley. No reason to have such a strong reaction, Sophie Mae. Hormones. Must be PMS hormones.
Great.
Shaking it off, I checked all the window and door locks even though I knew Kelly had already done that, and went back up to the main level of the house. All the calming effects of the chamomile tea had vanished.
A small noise drifted to my ears as I passed the hallway. I stopped, listening hard. Erin’s bedroom was the closest, and I was pretty sure it had come from inside the closed door. It sounded almost like a bird—yet not quite. Only silence greeted my straining ears. After a few minutes, I moved on to the stairs and up to our quarters.
Still too tense to join Barr in bed, I drifted through the arched doorway into our sitting room. Once a guest bedroom, it now contained a loveseat and recliner, bookshelves and a roll-top desk where we completed our personal correspondence, paid bills, and so on. A small bouquet of pink sweet peas decorated the coffee table, a vague outline in the dark. Their spicy scent filled the small space, and I breathed it in. Opening the wooden blinds, I settled into the comfy recliner by the window and watched the wind push
the clouds across the sky. The Krazy Kat clock that Barr had mounted
on the wall ticked loudly in the silence.
Movement on the street outside drew my eye. Someone on the sidewalk across from the house. My blood pressure began to rise, and I half stood, clutching the window sill. Relief winged through me as I recognized the tall figure—and the dog—strolling past. Bette, out walking Alexander. I glanced at the clock, its tail pendulum swinging back and forth. It was almost two-thirty in the morning. Not the most common time to walk your dog, but Bette was an
artiste
, and sometimes kept odd hours.
Better than sitting and stewing all night, like I was. Of course, she had Alexander to keep her company. I might be able to steal Brodie away from Erin—and tonight Clarissa—but he did not offer the comfortable safety of a powerful German shepherd. I watched the big dog’s tail arching through the air as he strode confidently beside his owner. She stopped and ran her fingers through the ruff around his neck, and then bent as if to whisper something in his ear before moving on.
That woman loved her dog.
And she’d loved her mother. I’d held the notion of her realistic clay masks in the back of my mind ever since we’d talked about them, worrying at the idea of one of Barr like Brodie worried a bone. Her comments had made me think about what it would be like to have a mask of my husband if anything happened to him. Which, of course, made me think of things happening to him.
I’d always worried about that a bit, especially given his line of work, but my confidence in Barr’s ability to deal with any situation assuaged my concerns. Now we were talking about bringing a new member into the family, and that put a whole new spin on it. And unlike some newlyweds, I knew bad things could happen. After all, I’d already lost one husband.
Musing, I watched our friend and neighbor walk her dog out of my line of sight, heading for home. Maybe it was time for me to head to bed and get some much needed sleep.
Outside, a car drove down the street. I wouldn’t have paid much
attention, except it was moving so slowly.
Like the one in the alley.
Then the headlights went out, and the car came to a standstill in front of our house.
The hair on the back of my neck flexed to attention, and I leaned forward again, almost pressing my nose against the window glass.
The moonlight revealed a familiar outline. A Camaro. A red Camaro, in fact.
Hallie.