“I have to go back down to the Medical Examiner's office later. Special meeting with the boss.”
Her boss, who had driven out to the ED on a sleety Saturday night so Molly wouldn't have to find out what was going on from somebody else. Who had never once named what they faced, either, as if the longer they could keep from saying it the better they could be protected from it.
Molly caught Patrick's nod out of the corner of her eye. He was looking well put together this morning. Tall and bright and handsome.
“Tell you what,” he said suddenly. “How 'bout some breakfast?”
Molly turned his way with an apologetic smile. “I'm not in the mood to go out right now.”
His grin was impish. “This may be hard for you to comprehend,” he said. “But I wasn't talking about junk food. I thought I'd make pancakes.”
Molly blinked up at him. “You cook?”
Patrick shrugged. “Sure. Juanita can't cook a thing without chilies in it, and the parents are never home. Sean and I have gotten pretty good.”
Molly nodded. “Yeah. Our housekeeper was Swedish. Miss Bartels. You hate chilies, try getting excited about lutefisk.”
“No lutefisk. Just flour and water and eggs.”
Which made Molly smile. “What a novel idea,” she agreed. “Breakfast in my own kitchen.”
He laughed. “If it'll make you feel better, I'll let you eat it in the car, just like a drive-through place.”
Molly scowled. “Snot.”
She took a shower and changed into khakis and sweater, returning to the kitchen in time to find the table set and the griddle working. Patrick was humming, Magnum was crouched alongside, his tail going like a metronome,
and the sun had really come out. Just like a family in a television show. Molly didn't know quite how to handle it.
“Probably wouldn't be a bad idea to call home today,” she said, heading for the coffeemaker.
Patrick never reacted. “Why?”
“To see what's going on with your parents. Talk to Sean. Things like that.”
Never turning away from the stove, he shrugged. “Whatever.”
“You don't want to talk to Sean?”
“Sean probably doesn't want to talk to me. The evil big brother? Besides, Sean's probably studying his nuclear physics or something.”
Molly pulled the coffee from the freezer and filters from the cabinet. “He's smart, huh?”
“The perfect Burke.”
Molly almost laughed. “How 'bout your mom? Don't you want to check in with her?”
She thought Patrick might have stiffened. “Oh, Mom'll call when she's ready.”
It was all Molly could do not to stare. “She's really that mad at you, huh?”
A pause. He seemed to curl just a little over his work, as if physically shutting the questions away. “Tough to tell with Mom.”
Molly tried again. “How's her job? She still designing offices?”
“No. Not anymore.”
“That's too bad. I thought she was pretty good.”
A shrug, striving to be noncommittal. “I don't know. She hasn't worked for a while.”
Molly recognized every symptom. The stiff back, the careful words, the practiced disinterest. It was a lesson the Burkes had perfected generations ago. Denial and defense. Projecting the perfect front. Suddenly she wanted to know why, when she never had before. She wanted to understand what had put that board in Patrick's spine, that chilled disinterest in his voice.
“What about your dad?” she asked.
This time his answer was quick and true. “Oh, the undersecretary
makes sure he puts in an appearance at least once a week to inspect the troops. Other than that, he's too busy fighting the trade wars.”
Which meant Martin hadn't changed at all. Molly wondered if Mary Ellen had. Molly had always thought of her as one of those high-strung women. A pale, thin redhead with a breathy voice and fluttering hands, who'd always seemed to be struggling hard to maintain her balance. Martin had referred on occasion to Mary Ellen's “nerves,” especially the times he'd been forced to journey alone to St. Louis. Molly had simply assumed Mary Ellen had been a lush.
Was that enough to produce this kind of discomfort and distance in a son? Had it been enough for Molly when she'd dealt with her own mother? And, come to think of it, would her own mother have forgotten to ask the most pertinent question of all when told her son had run almost a thousand miles from home?
Is he all right?
Well, Molly had had just about all she could take of that kind of parent for the day. For the month, come to think of it. Christmas and high summer. You'd think once in a while these little crises would take place in April.
“Why law enforcement?” she asked.
Patrick flipped the last of a pile of golden brown pancakes onto a plate and switched off the stove. “I don't know,” he said easily, as if anticipating the question. “It's not politics.”
Molly grabbed mugs and waited for coffee while Patrick got the pancakes situated on the table.
“That's all?” she asked.
He looked up, flushing. “I want to
do
something,” he said. “I want to make something of myself. I've thought about it. I could start in the military. That might please the old man. MPs or something. And then, if he really wanted, I could go federal. DEA, maybe the FBI.”
“Tough to do with a felony complaint on your record.”
“Don't worry,” he said, settling himself down to eat. “The school won't press charges. It's not the way it's done.”
“Especially since you're innocent.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
Molly poured the coffee and wondered if she knew what the hell she was doing. “And Juanita's money?”
That bought her a sneer. “Check with the saintly Sean. I'll bet he's a little more sticky-fingered than the parents think.”
“You think he stole it?”
The shrug was easy and disinterested. “Why not? Easy to lay the blame at big brother's feet when he's already deemed responsible for everything but global warming.”
Setting a cup in front of Patrick, Molly sat down to consider the pile of pancakes in the middle of the table. They were damn near perfectly round and golden. They smelled like heaven, even to her questionable stomach. Molly suddenly realized how long it had been since she'd eaten, and knew Patrick had scored big points. Not big enough to keep her from addressing her new problem, however.
“What do you have planned for today, Patrick?” she asked, spearing a couple of pancakes and shifting them to her plate.
He shrugged. “I don't know. Go see a movie or something. Maybe the cyber café. I don't go into work until five or so.”
She nodded. “I have to head down to the office for a quick meeting this afternoon. While I'm there would you check in on Sam?”
“Sure.”
“And one more thing.”
He looked up, but she didn't smile. “I'd prefer you didn't do your early course work in law enforcement in my family room.”
For a second it seemed he was going to tough it out. But after a brief show of bravado he dipped his head, that beautiful strawberry hair falling over one eye. “You knew?”
“I don't keep those books to look at the dirty pictures,” she said quietly. “I use them.”
“I just wanted to see.”
Molly thought of the cases described in some of her homicide texts. She thought of all the deviant, frightening behavior laid out in four-color photos and realized that she should have childproofed her house before letting one in.
“Patrick,” she said. “Those aren't the kind of books you can ogle and
then pass around to your friends. When I get home from my meeting this afternoon we'll figure a way to introduce you to law enforcement. But I don't want you sitting alone in the family room looking at pictures of dead people. That's not what it's about.”
He watched her, still not ready to believe her. “You mean it? You're not just trying to get me off your back?”
Molly did her best to smile, because, of course, she
was
just trying to get him off her back. “Hey, I have a great respect for anybody who feels the need to buck Burke tradition. I'll be happy to talk to you all about it. But I'm serious about the books.”
He nodded eagerly. “Okay. I promise.”
She nodded back. “Okay. Let's eat before all this work goes to waste. Although I have to tell you, you might have set a dangerous precedent. I may make you cook all the time.”
“Small price to pay for the vacation.”
Molly saw the carefully offhand shrug that accompanied the statement and suddenly thought of David, that pale little soccer player the night before. All that pain rigidly folded away beneath a shell of indifference. Were there any children left out there who hadn't been traumatized or abandoned?
Maybe she should get a job in a McDonald's. A circus. Someplace kids came when they were healthy. She needed, suddenly, to see happy kids, if only to believe that there were any left in the world.
“By the way,” Patrick said around a mouthful of breakfast. “When I took Sam his groceries yesterday, he invited us over to Hanukkah. Is that legal?”
Molly laughed. “Sure. Hanukkah's a family holiday, and Sam's family can't be here. It's a small enough thing to do for him.”
“I guess. Poor old guy. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?”
Again, Molly laughed, and thought how much she had missed it. “Never fall for that quaint Old World grandfather crap, Patrick. Last year that poor old guy pulled off a stock market coup that netted him almost a million dollars in forty-eight hours.”
Patrick goggled. “That old guy? No way.”
“Let me put it to you this way. The only money I have left after Frank Patterson got through with me is my small and cherished retirement account. I have left it all in Sam's hands. And I'm perfectly confident.”
Patrick kept shaking his head. “I guess I should have tried to pawn something from
his
house.”
Molly laughed even harder and thought that maybe this teenager business wasn't so bad. Even angry and unfocused, Patrick had the capacity to entertain her. Laughter and food. Not a bad combination for early on a Sunday morning. Something to shore up her nerves for what she was going to learn in that meeting.
Just the thought threatened her mood.
It was waiting for her, like a fatal diagnosis. Lurking in the shadows, submerged just below the surface of conscious thought.
They had a monster on their hands.
Well, maybe they did, Molly thought, almost physically squaring her shoulders. But before she dealt with it, she was going to fortify herself on breakfast, and then soothe herself with the secrets growing in her basement.
She was just dispatching the last of her pancakes when the phone rang. Patrick, teenager that he was, jumped up to answer it.
“ ⦠yes, ma'am. She's here. One moment.”
Molly received both phone and vaguely disappointed scowl. “Hello?”
She'd been expecting Winnie. Winnie wasn't what she got.
“Ms. Burke, this is Donna Kirkland of Action Seven News, and we've had a report that a serial killer is sending you trophies. Would you care to comment on that?”
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This wasn't right
.
It wasn't the way it was supposed to go.
Kenny paused a moment, his hand still on her head. Her warm head where her brain still fired in sporadic enough bursts to keep her breathing in shallow, gasping efforts. Her soft, sweet head where his own juices now flowed, even if only for a while longer.
He'd pictured it so perfectly in his own head. Dreamed it a thousand times, with her eyes open and smiling, her brain his. Her soul in a perfect, quiet compliance so that she wouldn't leave.
But now she was dead and he still didn't feel just right.
It hadn't taken long enough. She hadn't smiled at him. Not once. Not even after he'd laid her out on the couch and patted her all over like a mother pats a little boy. Or a friend pats a friend. With hands and smiles and conversation.
She hadn't smiled. She hadn't even screamed or begged or cried.
She'd wet herself, her eyes wide and silent, her mouth round like a fish, her fingers spasming, as if she were too far under water to get to air.