"No, let me!"
Penny protested.
"Tell them both you can't," Charley
said
. "I don't want my sisters riding with
somebody who goes
so fast,
my life flashes before me
!
"
Amanda ignored him
. "I
have one spare helmet. I
could take one of you home, and then come back for the other."
The sisters looked at each other, then nodded. "We'll be right back as soon as we shower and change clothes."
"Before you go, is that Greg
Carter
?" She indicated the man
in a baseball cap holding a clipboard and
talking to another sweaty girl.
"Yeah
, that's Coach,
"
Paula
replied.
"Can you introduce me?"
The twins exchanged startled glances, then looked back to her. "You want to meet Coach?"
Penny asked.
"He
is
single
,"
Paula
said.
"
B
ut—"
Amanda almost choked when she realized what the girls thought. "Oh, that's not what I mean! I don't want to meet him socially! I want to ask him some questions
about
…" She hesitated, unsure how to explain the whole thing to the girls. "I'm trying to get information
about
people who knew your brother."
Both girls l
ooked relieved. "We like Coach," Paula said.
"It's just—"
Penny ended her comment with a shrug.
Amanda hadn't been out of school so long she
'd forgotten
how things were. "Just that it would be really weird for somebody you know to date him."
"Yeah."
"Trust me,
" she assured them,
"
that's not
where this is going."
"I should hope not since you're still a married woman
,
"
Charley said.
She glared at him and shook her head.
Paula
trotted over to Greg
Carter
, said something to him, pointed to Amanda, and the two
walked
back
to where she stood.
"Amanda, this is our coach, Mr.
Carter
."
The man
stood little taller than she and was muscular as expected
of
a football coach, but his broad face and warm brown eyes
gave him a mellow appearance. Amanda extended a hand, and Greg took it in a firm but gentle grip.
"
You're Charley's widow?
"
"Yes
. If you have a minute, I'd like to talk to you."
"Sure."
Penny and Paula
took
this as
permission
to leave. "We'll meet you back here after we get cleaned up!"
"
They're g
ood kids," Greg observed, watching them go.
"The whole family's great."
Greg turned to her. "You want to talk about Charley?
I didn't know him very well. He never went out for sports.
"
That figured
. Even in those days he probably had no time for something as clean-cut as sports
.
"Actually, I want to talk about Dianne."
Pain flashed
across
Greg's
face
, and he looked down for a moment,
composing himself before he met her gaze
again
. "
I could talk about Dianne all day, but she
didn't know Charley very well
, either
."
"
I realize that.
It's just that they came from the same town, and they both died violent deaths."
Greg
shifted his clipboard from one hand to the other and
studied her for a long moment. "Two years apart, in different towns."
"Both were shot with a thirty-eight caliber gun. I know I'm probably reaching, but I'd really appreciate it if you could answer a few questions.
"
Greg
pushed his baseball cap toward the back of his head and drew in a deep breath. "It's hard to get past something like that. The
boys
and I still miss her every day.
But I guess I don't have t
o tell you what it feels lik
e when your life partner is gone
.
"
Amanda glanced at Charley who smiled and shrugged. She refrained from telling Greg that she could only wish she knew what that felt like.
"Do you know why Dianne and Roland Kimball broke up?"
Greg blinked a couple of times
as if startled by
the question
. "I…no, that was before we started dating."
"I know. I just thought she might have told you."
"She never talked much
about that time in her life."
"Did she
stay in touch with
him
after they came back from college
?
Did they remain
friends
or at least friendly
?"
Greg shook his head.
"She
had no contact with him, and she never brought up his name.
"
"So the breakup must have been a bad one."
Greg drew in a deep breath.
"My wife is dead. All I have left is her memory.
Why do you want to dredge up things from her past that are better off forgotten?"
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to upset you. But her kille
r was never brought to justice, and Charley
said he thought her death might be
connected to what happened in college.
" That wasn't a lie. She just didn't specify if Charley
told her
before or after he was killed.
Greg
gripped the rail and
leaned closer. "You think that bastard Kimball had something t
o do with what happened to my Dianne
?"
Amanda hadn't expected that
reaction
.
For all his money and prominent position in the community, Kimball didn't seem likely to be voted M
r.
Popular
ity
.
"I don't know.
That's why I'm asking questions."
Greg
leaned back and
studied her for a moment
.
"She was different when she came back from college. In high school she was
the girl everybody loved.
A cheerleader,
smart, funny,
bubbly
,
adventurous. Always
right there when somebody wanted to do something silly. One time she and her friends put pink flamingos in the biology teacher's yard. Another time they blew up hundreds of balloons and filled the boys' bathroom
with them
. Never anything bad
, just high-spirited
. About the worst thing she ever did was smoke a cigarette in the
cafeteria on a dare."
"She doesn't sound like the kind of girl who'd date Roland Kimball."
"
He was rich and good looking
, she was beautiful and popular
. Nobody was surprised when they started dating. After they went off to college together, everybody thought they'd get married."
Greg
was silent for several seconds, his gaze
focused
on the ground.
"But they didn't," Amanda supplied.
He slowly lifted his head. His eyes were damp, but he smiled. "No, they didn't. She came home and married me. She never looked at m
e in high school, but when she came back, she was quiet, subdued, ready to settle down. We had a good life."
"She never mentioned Kimbal
l? Never even something like,
gee, I wish I'd never met that jerk
?"
Greg shook his head. "
Never.
Not even when
somebody else brought up
his name. She never talked about him, and she went out of her way
not
to be around if he was speaking to a group or visiting the school or something public like that. Yes, I thought that was suspicious. I thou
ght he'd probably hurt her
, but I didn't see any reason to bring up bad memories, so I never pushed her."
He hesitated,
holding his clipboard against his chest.
"She had nightmares. Sometimes she'd wake up crying, sobbing as if her heart was broken."
"Did she say what the nightmares were about?"
"No. She always claimed she didn't remember. The nightmares got worse just before she was killed.
" He hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind. "Sometimes
I'd catch a word here and there in all the crying.
She'd mumble things like,
forgive
and
blood
. She was very religious, obsessed with never being good enough. So that seemed normal, forgiveness and the blood of Christ. But sometimes she begged somebody to stop." He swallowed. "Sometimes she
talked about
death
and
murder
."