by Susan Rohrer
There was something almost therapeutic about clearing the table and doing the dishes. There was no discussion about who would do what. They just eased into their familiar routine.
Grace accepted a washed plate from Laurel and began to dry it. “Where did Daddy go?”
Laurel put their tumblers into the sudsy sink. “Well, they had that ambulance. They probably took him to the hospital so they can try to figure out what happened.”
“No, Mommy, I mean… Will Daddy go to heaven?”
A heaviness pressed on Laurel’s heart. Where were the words? There had to be some way to comfort Grace, yet still give an honest answer. “I don’t know, Honey,” she started. “It depends on what Daddy chose, up to the very last second. And only Daddy and God know that.”
Grace seemed to take it in thoughtfully. She looked back, her brow furrowed. “But what do you think?”
Laurel let out a breath. “That’s a good question. Let me think about that.” Soberly, Laurel recalled the many ways Frank had rejected both God’s love and her own. He had believed on some level when they’d married. He had kept up appearances for a few years. But time, money, and politics had eroded what little faith he’d claimed in his youth. Laurel could only hope that somehow, in his final moments, Frank had made peace with his Maker.
Laurel grabbed a dishcloth and dried her hands. She sat down, to regard her daughter face-to-face. “Okay. As far as God and your father are concerned, I only know that... Gracie, God loved Daddy, much more than any of us did. Even though we loved him as much as we could. And what I know for sure is that God really wanted Daddy to come live with him in heaven.”
Grace’s swollen eyes still seemed to search for reassurance. “You think so?”
Laurel smiled softly. She brushed her hand over Grace’s silky hair. “I know so, Sweetheart. Nobody ever loved your Daddy more.”
Just then, Laurel heard the chirp of a car alarm being activated. A glance out the window confirmed Laurel’s guess. Shana was already there.
Grace peered out of the glass, too. At the sight of her stepmother’s approach, Grace’s little face registered distress. “Please, Mommy. I want to stay.”
Laurel took her daughter’s hand in hers. “I want you to stay so much, too. But the judge…well, he thinks it’s best that you go with Shana.”
“But you’re my mommy, and Daddy, he’s…” Grace dissolved into tears, unable to say that her father was gone.
Laurel wrapped her arms around her weeping daughter. “I know, Baby. But this is just for now, okay?” Laurel drew Grace out to arm’s length. “Remember, I told you that secret last week, that I saw that we were going to be together one day.”
“But when?” Grace was trembling.
Laurel wiped Grace’s tears. How she wished she could be more specific. “I don’t know. He didn’t say. Maybe soon, though. Let’s hope it’s soon.”
Shana’s knock came all too quickly for Grace. “Mommy, please…”
“Coming...” Laurel held Grace by the shoulders. “I want you to be strong for me. Be brave. Can you do that?”
Grace nodded tentatively.
“I’m always with you, Gracie. You know where?”
Tears streaming, Grace pointed to her heart.
Laurel nodded warmly, affirming what had become a very familiar exchange. “That’s right. And how many times do I think of you every single minute of every single day?”
“Whenever it beats,” Grace replied, the thought seeming to bolster her.
Laurel took Grace’s hand and led her to the door. “Whenever it beats. And even when it skips one. Can you say that?”
“Even when it skips,” Grace repeated.
Joe loped into his office at Kickerton Press. His hope that Debra would have been out to lunch when he finally arrived was far from realized. On the contrary, Debra had been waiting for him. That was just like her. She’d been sitting there watching the clock, no doubt, ready to give him a piece of her steel-trap mind.
Given Joe’s personal issues with the morning assignment at Zoring’s parole hearing, let alone Joe’s post-romantic baggage with Debra, he would have thought she would have let things slide. But Debra Bernet was Debra Bernet—as sharp as she was blunt. There would be no escaping her ire.
Debra’s brows lifted like a drawbridge in the middle. “You said you could handle this.”
“I did.” Joe dumped his keys into a drawer.
“Okay.”
It was not okay. Joe could tell. That “okay” from Debra was just a wind-up to the series of fast balls she’d start firing his way.
Debra rose. “So, how exactly do you spin mouthing off at the foreman and leaving before the parole board even ruled as handling it?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Debra. I guess I was just busy trying to scoop the councilman’s murder.”
“I put you on Zoring. Not Fischer.”
Absently, Joe rooted through a pile of papers on his desk. There wasn’t anything in particular he needed to find. It just gave him a way of shifting his focus from her relentless glare. “Lou got the Zoring pics. I sent you copy. What more do you want?”
“I want you to do what you say you’re going to do.”
Joe continued to busy himself with nothing. “Why don’t we just admit that this is about me not calling you last weekend?”
Debra’s jaw dropped. Her face began to tighten, the way it always did. “Look at me. Stop futzing around with that avalanche you call a work-space and look at me.” She planted her fists akimbo on her hips. “I don’t wait for you to call anymore, Joe. You want your personal space? You got it. I do, however, expect you to follow through on time with your assignments.”
Adele Stedler popped her annoyingly perky head into Joe’s office. Adele was that copy editor Debra had been grooming. A bit too eager beaver for his taste.
Adele whispered, as if that made her presence less of an intrusion. “Are we still on for lunch, Debra?”
Debra checked her watch. “Sure. But can I meet you there in say, fifteen?”
Adele smiled broadly. “Perfect.” She turned to Joe. “I emailed that copy back to you this morning for your approval. Let me know.”
Joe gave her a half-mast nod. “Sure.”
“Okay, see you there, Deb.” Adele spun away, a cheery grin on her face.
Joe just shook his head. Great. First lunch, and now, Adele was calling Debra nicknames. Did Debra not see through this girl? Didn’t she know a world-class sycophant when she saw one?
Apparently not.
Debra pivoted back to Joe, barely missing a beat. “All right, fine. Run with the Fischer murder. The widow is giving a statement to the press today. One o’clock. Late councilman’s estate. Lou will shoot.”
Joe shook his head. “I don’t know, Debra. Sounds like hard news to me.”
Debra looked surprised. “Is that a complaint?”
Joe let out a cynical chuckle. “Just somewhat novel for this publication.”
Debra thrust a manila folder toward Joe. “I’ve already pulled everything we had from the archives on the ex-wife. High profile, messy divorce. Mother lost custody of their only child. Could be motive.”
Joe flipped through the file with mild curiosity. “How does a mother lose custody? She unfit?”
Debra’s expression confirmed Joe’s suspicion. “It seems she’s a bit around the bend. Sees visions. Claims she hears voices from the beyond. Chats it up with God. I want you to focus on her.”
A sardonic grimace crossed Joe’s lips. At Kickerton Press, there was always something hinky about the story, something that embarrassed Joe about working at the tabloid at all. “There’s that rag sheet angle again. Did I say hard news, Debra? I stand corrected.”
“Don’t start with me, Joe. Do you want this or not?”
Joe tipped his head. “Oh, more than anything. That is, if you’ll leave me to it.”
Debra cut her eyes at him and strode out of his office. She did that a lot these da
ys, but it wasn’t as if she didn’t provoke him.
Since he’d worked for Debra at Kickerton Press, he’d interviewed more charlatans, degenerates, and fanatics than he could count. But worst of all were the religious wackos Debra seemed so bent upon sending him to profile. She’d walked him right into this one, well aware how they pushed his buttons.
As far as Joe saw it, anyone who claimed to have a special hotline to God was exponentially more suspect. Debra knew that, of course. It was the reason she pegged him for these assignments. As the most jaded of all of their reporters, she knew Joe was the least likely to be taken in, no matter how sympathetic or credible a person might seem.
Joe had to hand it to her on that point. His trust for human emissaries of God had ended cold, decades prior, at the hands of that defrocked priest, Tom Zoring. There really wasn’t any justice in this world, not with that pedophile back on the streets, enjoying his parole.
Joe opened the manila folder Debra had prepped. He glanced at Laurel Fischer’s photo in the file. She looked normal enough. Interesting eyes, pretty enough. Whatever. She was either woefully disturbed or a pathological liar. Worst case, she could also be her ex-husband’s killer.
Shana led Grace away from Laurel’s apartment by the hand. Purposely, she set a brisk pace. Lingering would only make parting harder for Grace. Without a firm hand guiding her forward, Grace would keep glancing back at her mother in the upstairs window, no doubt watching them leave. As far as Shana was concerned, the sooner she could get the two of them into her car and out of there, the better.
Shana scanned the street. Gratefully, there were no hooligans in sight. This was not the kind of place where Shana wanted to draw attention to herself. That freshly detailed black sedan of hers was incongruous enough in Laurel’s lower-middleclass urban neighborhood.
Why Laurel would choose to live in a place like that, Shana would never understand. It wasn’t safe. Not for an attractive woman like Laurel, much less for a little girl.
No sooner had Shana clicked off her car alarm than the trouble started.
A punk rounded the corner, bumping fists with a cohort. The pair sauntered toward them, the sun glinting off chrome chains draped from their belts. The wiry one zeroed in on them. With an unsettling smirk, he rubbed his hands together. “Oh, Mama...”
Tall and burly, the second thug smacked a leather band against his palm. “Yeah, now. C’mon, gimme some of that. Ow!” The two of them hooted conspiratorially.
Shana tightened her grip on her purse. “Ignore them, Grace. Just get inside the car. Hurry.” This day could get even uglier than it already was.
Obediently, Grace climbed into the rear seat and shut her door. Shana quickly circled the back of the car toward her side.
The pair of hoodlums continued to advance. “What’s your hurry, Baby? Stay, why don’tcha? Hang with us a while.”
Shana slid into her seat and hit the power locks.
“Oh, yeah.” The punk cackled sarcastically. “Better lock up tight, there, Miss Lady. Get your high heels on outta here, ‘fore something bad happens to your uppity-doo-dah self.”
Shana yanked her seat belt around herself. “Buckle up, Grace.” Resolutely, she started her engine and pulled into the street. She had to get Grace away from that horrid place just as expeditiously as humanly possible. More than ever, she resolved herself. Whatever it took, she had to use every resource in her power to secure Grace’s future for good.
From her kitchen archway, Shana watched Grace, who sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. The appointments of the Fischer estate were worlds apart from Laurel’s downtown apartment. There was nothing like a trip to Laurel’s to make Shana appreciate what she had anew. Then again, everything reminded her of what she’d just lost.
Frank had picked out those stately cherry cabinets himself when they’d remodeled. Together, they’d chosen the imported marble countertops and the handsome stainless steel appliances. They were just things, she knew, but they were part of the life they’d been building together. Everywhere Shana turned was a reminder. Frank was gone, never to return.
Their matronly nanny, Helen Reed, ladled lentil soup for Grace. “Here. This should taste good.”
Grace just looked at the steaming bowl in front of her. “I had tuna at my Mommy’s.”
Helen unfolded Grace’s napkin and placed it in her lap. “This soup should go with that tuna just fine. Something hot to stick to your bones.”
Shana could hardly bear to watch. Still, it was just as hard to turn away.
Grace looked up at Helen, clearly disinterested in eating. “Did they tell you what happened?”
Helen exchanged a glance with Shana. Shana nodded. Helen stroked Grace’s hand, her eyes filled with compassion. “Yes, Love. They told me.”
Shana turned, hearing the sound of approaching footsteps. Her attorney, Howard Berg, concluded a phone conversation and tucked his cell into his pocket.
Howard had been Shana’s first call from Frank’s office. A salty contemporary of her late father, Howard had been there for Shana for many years. He’d handled all of her legal affairs since the death of her parents left her heir to their handsome estate and fortune. Howard didn’t come cheap, but he had proven himself invaluable in securing custody of Grace. That had been no small feat against Laurel, who had fought relentlessly for her maternal rights.
Shana glanced back toward Grace in the kitchen, then spoke in hushed tones to Howard. “She’s completely traumatized, Howard. You should have seen her. She was the one who found him. I’m telling you. Everything that was innocent completely drained from her face. I can’t believe I sent her into his office.” Tears welled in Shana’s eyes.
Howard put a soothing hand on her shoulder. “Stop punishing yourself.”
That was easier said than done. Shana brushed a quick hand across her face. She steeled herself the best she could. “Howard, I want this child. How soon can you get a court date to deal with the custody ramifications of this?”
“Already on it. Should know by the end of the day.”
Shana nodded. “Good.” Her hands trembled. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to control it.
As usual, Howard saw right through her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take care of everything.
“Thank you, Howard. It’s just that...I know this woman. She’ll use this.”
Laurel drew insulin into a hypodermic needle. There wasn’t much privacy where Laurel worked at the Blackberry Grille, but Laurel had gotten used to treating her diabetes in the employees’ bathroom toward the back. Laurel raised her skirt and injected her thigh as her head waitress, Belle, exited a stall and headed for the sink.
Belle lathered her hands. “Girl, I do not see how you do that. I hate needles.”
“So do I.” Laurel rubbed the sore spot, then put her insulin kit away.
“You should go home. Not every day the boss offers.”
Laurel sighed. “I know.” If only her life were that easy. “I can’t live on my base.”
Without hesitation, Belle dug into her pocket. “Take my tips for today. You’ve covered for me enough times.”
Laurel gently waved Belle off. “You’re a good friend, Belle, but no thanks. I just need to push through this.”
Suddenly, the bathroom door opened. The Grille’s aging cashier, Mary Jo, poked her head in and spotted Laurel. “Got a guy out here asking for you.”
Laurel blanched. It had been everything she could do to return to work, given the events of the day. And since she had no man in her life, there was only one reason a man would seek her out at work. The inevitable questioning was about to begin. Laurel closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. There was no way she could face this alone. She needed strength she didn’t have. It would have to come from far beyond herself.
Laurel emerged from the back with Mary Jo. Obviously, this man who was asking for her hadn’t come there to eat.
Mary Jo leaned close. “That’s him. Far end of the coun
ter.”
“Oh.” Laurel took in a quick breath. “Mary Jo, I remember him. He’s a reporter. I saw him getting bounced from the crime scene this morning.”
“Handsome rascal,” Mary Jo observed. “Worst kind. Don’t let him turn your head.”
“Not for a second.” Laurel set her shoulders and approached him from the kitchen side of the counter. At least that barrier would remain between them. “Can I get you something?”
The man quickly shut the file he was reading, as if he were hesitant for her to see it. “Laurel Fischer?”
“Yes.”
“Joe Hardisty. Kickerton Press.”
Laurel blanched. Those brown eyes of his were so penetrating.
“I’d shake your hand,” he said, “but...actually, nobody shakes anymore, do they? What with all the mess going around. And I’m sorry. Really. Sorry for your loss.”
Laurel nodded. “Thank you.” This “Joe” may have been trying to establish a rapport with her, but with everything that had happened that day, she was hardly in the frame of mind to discuss her heartache with a stranger. She waited in silence.
“So,” he said. “I was wondering if we could talk.”
Mercifully, a nearby patron signaled Laurel for a drink refill. “I’ve got work.” She grabbed a water pitcher, stepped aside, and topped off the glass. As she passed Ralph, the Grille’s stocky proprietor, he set out two steaming plates of food.
Ralph slapped a bell. “Order up!” He eyed the reporter quizzically.
Laurel shot Ralph a penitent look. This reporter was not going anywhere. She would have to be more direct about asking him to leave. She smoothed her apron and marched back over to him. “Look, Mr...”
“Hardisty. But you can call me, Joe.”
“Joe. I don’t mean to be impolite, but the fact is that I can’t talk on the job and still make decent tips. And if you’re not here to eat, we really could use that stool.”
