by Rula Sinara
The kitchen island hadn’t existed in those days. She and her mother had been sitting at the long butcher-block table that had filled the middle of this room for three generations. After Annie married her husband, Eric, and he had moved in, she’d converted the family farmhouse into a bed-and-breakfast. Now recently widowed, and in spite of the family’s insistence she take a break, Annie had decided to carry on with the business. She needed to earn a living, and she also didn’t want to disappoint her clientele. They were devoted, and had increased her business by posting amazing online reviews and telling family and friends about her B & B.
“Emily?” Annie’s question hauled her thoughts back to the present.
“Hm? Sorry. Daydreaming.”
“I said you look nice today,” Annie said. “Is that a new top you’re wearing?”
“Oh, yes, it is.”
“The color really suits you.”
“Thanks. I thought I’d try something other than my usual black and beige.” Truthfully, she’d chosen the deep marigold patterned top more for its style than its color. The soft gathers falling from the U-shaped yoke added some flare to the hemline and enough fullness to disguise the fact she was no longer as skinny as her jeans.
Annie studied her seriously but, in typical Annie fashion, kept her thoughts to herself.
Something CJ seldom did. “I told you something’s weird. You’re quieter than usual, avoiding caffeine, jazzing up your wardrobe. What’s up with you?”
Emily glared at her little sister. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.” That’s what she desperately hoped for anyway.
“So, Em. What have you been working on these days?” Annie asked, switching subjects as though she had somehow gleaned what was up with Emily and was intentionally trying to distract CJ.
“Oh, this and that.” She sipped her coffee. “The mayor has called a special session of the town council on Monday afternoon—says he has some big announcement—so I’ll be covering that.”
“A big announcement? In Riverton?” CJ’s tone was tinged with derision. “Don’t tell me the mayor’s finally decided to fix that rusty old stop sign at Main and Second, the one old man Thompson ran into when his truck skidded on a patch of ice last winter.”
“I certainly hope not. They’ll have to raise our taxes if they do that.” Annie chuckled at her own joke. “I’m betting someone has an overdue library book.”
“No, I’ve got it,” CJ said. “Another garden gnome has gone missing.”
Emily laughed at their lame attempts at humor, knowing her sisters loved their hometown every bit as much as she did. “Come on, you two. Riverton’s not that sleepy. Besides, my sources tell me the mayor’s going to announce that Chief Fenwick is retiring from the Riverton Police Department at the end of the month, and he’s looking for a replacement.”
CJ wasn’t buying it. “Yes, Riverton is that sleepy. And excuse me, but...you have sources?”
“I do.”
“Let me guess. Becky Wilson?”
Becky, who ran the only beauty salon in town, was an avid participant in and a regular contributor to Riverton’s rumor mill.
“No, it wasn’t Becky,” Emily said. “She never gossips about anything interesting. Fred told me when we had lunch yesterday. Mayor Bartlett was in for a haircut that morning and happened to let something slip.”
Annie smoothed a hand over her short blond bob. “Maybe I should get Fred to cut my hair. Everyone jokes about the beauty parlor being a hub for gossip, but I never hear anything worthwhile at the Clip ’n’ Curl. Did the mayor say who he’s planning to appoint?”
“No.” Emily sighed. “Just that he’s casting a wide net.” She liked to think she’d make an ace investigative journalist but in fact spent far more time writing obituaries and reporting on town council meetings. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him and wheedle it out of him. I’ve been a little preoccupied.”
“With...?” Annie’s scrutiny once again had her on edge.
“Oh, you know. Work, writing my blog, stuff like that.” Emily slid off her stool and loaded her mug and plate into the dishwasher. CJ stood, too, and crossed the big kitchen to open the French doors and let Chester outside. The old retriever ambled across the plank porch and onto the sprawling back lawn.
Emily gave her older sister a hug. “Thanks. This has been great.”
“We do this every Saturday.”
“I know, but I really needed some sister time this morning. And a muffin.” She had eaten two.
“Want to tell me what has you so out of sorts?”
“Nothing,” she said, lowering her voice even though her nosy younger sister was out of earshot. “And I’m not ‘out of sorts.’ I’m fine.”
Annie held her by the shoulders and gave her a long look. “I know you, Em. And I know you’ll tell me in good time. Promise me you’ll call if you need to talk?”
She appreciated her big sister’s restraint. “I promise. You’re the best, you know that? Will you give Dad and Isaac my love? Tell them I’ll be around for dinner tomorrow night?”
“Of course.”
Emily heard her phone ringing from inside her bag, which she had left on the bench by the doors to the veranda.
“I’ll grab it for you.” CJ reached for Emily’s tan leather satchel.
“Sure, thanks.” Oh. No. Oh, no! “I mean, never mind. Just leave it. It’s not important.”
But CJ had the bag open and was staring at the contents. “What on earth?” she gasped, and pulled out a box. “A pregnancy test. What’s this for? I mean, I know what it’s for, but who is it for?”
And then both sisters skewered her with their attention.
“Emily?” they chorused.
Her face burned. “I might not be. I mean, it’s just a precaution. You know, to be sure. One way or the other.” Busted, Emily babbled like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar, a D-minus science test buried at the bottom of her school bag and one foot out the window at midnight on her way to meet friends. Guilty, on multiple counts.
“There’s a ‘one way or the other’ chance you’re having a baby? I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.” The disappointment in Annie’s voice was reflected in her eyes. “Why haven’t you said something before now?”
“Because if I’m not...” She placed her hands on her belly. “If I’m not, then no one needed to know there was a chance I might be.” She ignored Annie’s reference to seeing someone because it was mortifying to admit she wasn’t. She shot an accusatory look at CJ instead. “And no one would know if it hadn’t been for a snooping little sister.”
“Hey! I was not snooping. I was looking for your phone. I thought I was helping. How’d I know I was going to find—” she brandished the box “—this. But if you are, that means...holy moly, Em. If you’re going to be a mother, then who’s the father?”
“He...” Nowhere near ready to admit the truth, Emily did something she was sure to regret. She lied. “It’s Fred.”
Her sisters gaped at her for a full five seconds, and then they both burst out laughing.
CHAPTER TWO
THE JANGLE OF his cell phone made Jack Evans hastily sweep his desk, shoving aside papers and lifting files to check beneath them till his phone slid out from inside one of the folders—the Scarlett Daniels homicide. She was the third victim of Chicago’s most recent serial killer, the South Side Slayer, as the media had dubbed him. Scarlett’s murder was arguably the grizzliest of his three victims.
“Evans here,” he said, managing for once to answer his cell before the call went to voice mail.
“Jack, Brett Watters. I found the daughter of your murder victim.”
“Rose Daniels?” Finally. “Alive?”
“Living and breathing.”
“Where is she?�
�
“We got a ping off her driver’s license. She was pulled over for speeding near some hole-in-the-wall in Wisconsin.”
Huh. He’d figured if the girl was still among the living, she was running from something, more likely someone, but he hadn’t expected her to make it that far out of Chicago. “Does this place have a name?”
He could hear the sound of his colleague tapping on a keyboard. “Riverton. That ring any bells?”
A whole cathedral full of them. “That’s my hometown, so, yeah, it sure does.”
“Huh. You don’t say. Want me to give the Riverton PD a call, have them ask her some questions?”
Jack opened the top drawer of his desk and plucked a business card out of the pencil tray. He’d put it there almost two months ago, the day he’d returned to Chicago from a rare visit to his hometown to attend his friend Eric Larsen’s funeral.
He’d looked at the card every day since.
Emily Finnegan, Reporter.
The Riverton Gazette.
Beneath that, her phone number and an email address.
He thought about her every day, too, even when he wasn’t looking at her card. He hadn’t wanted to. Simply hadn’t been able to stop himself. He’d thought about calling her but had decided against it. What would he say?
Thanks for a good time? Too tasteless.
See you next time I’m in town? Too vague.
Better to let it be. With some regret, he was now wishing he had given her a call.
Years ago, they had been paired up as maid of honor and best man at Eric and Annie’s wedding. Tall and reedy, a glossy-haired brunette with a brown-eyed gaze that didn’t miss a beat, Emily had returned home for the big event from Minneapolis, where she’d been studying journalism. Quiet, though not so much shy as watchful and reserved. It would have been a cliché for the best man to hook up with the maid of honor, so he hadn’t tried. But he’d wanted to. The next time he’d seen her was at Eric and Annie’s son’s christening. He and Emily were godparents, and a post-baptismal hookup would have been even tackier. Again, he’d let it go.
Eric’s funeral had been a game-changer. A change driven by grief, the raw emotion of the day, the sharp reminder that life could be unexpectedly short. As a homicide detective, Jack knew about death, had seen it up close and personal in a way few did. He possessed intimate knowledge of all the gruesome ways people could die. What he didn’t know, he’d realized the day of Eric’s funeral, was how they lived. He had no idea how he needed to live, and he’d discovered just how clueless he was as he’d helped carry his friend’s casket to the waiting hearse and later stood on the sidelines, watching a young widow with her family, each of them grieving the loss of a man they had loved. They should have been angry with the world, with the unfairness of losing someone so young. They were mourning their loss, of course, but they were also honoring their loved one by moving on with their lives and caring for one another. By living.
After the funeral, Jack had spent a polite amount of time exchanging platitudes with people he barely knew, drinking bitter coffee and eating several crustless triangle sandwiches that were a church-hall staple. He had spoken briefly with Annie and then left. He had encountered Emily dashing out of the coatroom with her jacket slung over her arm. He had done the gentlemanly thing and helped her put it on. They had walked out of the church and into a deluge, so he’d offered her a lift and suggested they go for coffee. That had segued into dinner. He had assumed they’d have nothing in common. The energy of city life pulsed through his veins, and she was a small-town girl through and through. So when he’d taken her home, he shouldn’t have stayed. But he had.
“Evans? You still there?” Brett’s voice dragged his attention back to the business at hand and the card between his fingers.
“Yeah. Sorry. What were you saying?”
“Should we have the Riverton PD interview the Daniels woman for us?”
“No.” Jack set the card next to the stack of reports on his desk. “I’d like to talk to her myself. If I leave now, I can be there in five hours. Could you ask them to—”
“She’s not going anywhere. They’ve given her a twenty-four-hour suspension, and her car’s been impounded. She’s been drinking.”
Jack checked his watch. Seven-thirty. An early start by anyone’s standard. He knew Rose had been raised by a drug addict and spent a lot of years in and out of foster homes. The Chicago PD wanted to know more about her relationship with the suspect they had in custody, and to what level, if any, she was involved in the homicides. Also, were they the reason she was on the run?
“Could you give them a call, let them know I’m on my way? I’ll talk to her when I get there.” By then, she should be sober enough to answer his questions.
“You got it.”
Jack closed the files on his desk and shoved them into a drawer, scrolled through the list of contacts on his phone and hit the one called Home.
“Mom, Dad,” he said after their voice mail beeped, glad he hadn’t woken them. “I need to be in Riverton for a few days. See you tonight.”
He picked up Emily’s card, debated whether or not to call her, too, let her know he was coming to town. No. He’d surprise her. Smiling at that, he slid the card into the pocket of his leather jacket.
“I might be late,” he added to the message he was leaving for his parents. “Don’t wait up.”
* * *
HER SISTERS HAD insisted that Emily take the pregnancy test immediately, so she had reluctantly barricaded herself in the second-floor bathroom, alone. The result was positive, as her gut instinct had been telling her for the past week.
Now what? The only thing she knew for sure was she wasn’t ready to venture back into the world, and she wasn’t ready to face her sisters.
Why had she lied? Telling them she was having Fred’s baby was the dumbest thing she’d ever done. What must they think? What had she been thinking? Fred had been her best friend since first grade, the closest thing to a brother she’d ever had, and just about the last person in the world she could imagine making a baby with. Fred? The very idea made her cheeks burn. Now she wouldn’t be able to face him, either.
Then there was Jack Evans, the real father of this tiny human who had taken up residence inside her. No need to worry about how to face him. After one night with her, he had hightailed it back to Chicago, never to be seen or heard from again.
She would have to get in touch with him, tell him about the baby. She wasn’t ready to go there, though. Not yet. This news was too new, too unsettling, too overwhelming. Jack was not part of her life, never had been, not in any real or meaningful way. And he never would be. Don’t think about him, she told herself. Not now.
Besides, she had more pressing concerns. Her sisters were waiting downstairs. They would pepper her with questions, most of which she wasn’t ready to answer. She needed to figure out something to tell them, though. Aside from Fred and her father, of course, they were the two people in the world who always had her back, and now she was going to need their support more than ever.
CJ would be this new little person’s irrepressible, fun-loving aunt, the one who took him or her kite flying and horseback riding. She’d teach him or her how to blow bubble-gum bubbles. The farm was as much a part of CJ as her free spirit. According to her, she had a perfect life—teaching riding lessons, taking B & B guests on trail rides, boarding horses for several families in town, and operating a successful therapeutic riding program. CJ would welcome this baby with arms as wide as the world.
Annie, the world’s best mom, knew all about raising a child on her own, but at least she’d done things in the proper order. Marriage first, baby second. The recent and unexpected death of her husband had been beyond her control, but she was coping as only a natural-born supermom could. She carpooled to softball games, helped with homewor
k, baked the most awesome bake-sale cookies on the planet, all while single-handedly keeping house, running a business and making it look easy. Annie’s huge heart was brimming with all the care and attention this newcomer would ever need.
Fred, too, would be great with the baby. He’d be a sort of surrogate dad, as soon as he got over the shock—no, make that horror—that she had told her sisters he was the father. Once he was over that, he would always be there for her and—Emily ran her hands over the almost indiscernible curve of her belly—whoever this was.
But for now, it’s just you and me, kid.
Her heart rate amped up, and she realized she had been standing at the bathroom window, staring unseeingly through the white lace drapery. She pushed aside her panic along with the delicate fabric and focused her attention on the familiar scene below. The grassy backyard gave way to the soon-to-be-planted vegetable garden with its deer-proof fence and the chicken coop with its fox-proof enclosure. Beyond those, a stand of poplars, their branches studded with new buds. The stables, still visible through the trees, would soon be obscured by a trembling, leafy-green curtain. Emily had committed every square inch of this place to memory, could picture it clearly in any season. She loved the farm as it was now, sun-warmed and fresh from the late-spring rains. Summer would arrive any minute, and she would always associate it with the long, lazy days of school holidays. Then the sudden burst of autumn color would gradually fade to the monochrome that was a Wisconsin winter, then it would be Christmas, and after...
The baby would be here, and she’d be a mom. A fresh wave of panic rolled over her. Truthfully, she didn’t know the first thing about being a mother, never having had one, or at least, scarcely able to remember a time when she had.
