Jo and Brody had fallen hard and fast for each other. At the time the attraction they’d shared had made perfect sense. But her mother was right. Fast didn’t last.
“As long as she’s not knocked up, she’ll move on fine.”
Jo winced.
Her mother cocked a brow. “You better than anybody should agree.”
Jo didn’t respond, not wishing to stir up an argument.
“Of you two girls, Ellie was always my open book. Not like you. The girl with the secrets. Sometimes I think gypsies dropped you off on the back stoop.”
An edge had crept into her mother’s voice. “Where did that come from?”
“I spoke to your neighbor yesterday. Mr. Rucker.”
“Why were you talking to my neighbor?”
Candace set her paintbrush carefully in the paint pan. “Because I came by to see you. Mothers do check on their daughters from time to time.”
“Since when? Is everything all right with you?”
The lines around her eyes had deepened and her skin had paled. “I’m fine.”
“Really? You’re not working too hard?”
“Don’t deflect the conversation to me. This is about you.”
“And my secrets?”
“That’s right. Mr. Rucker told me you were spending the afternoon with a guy.” The frown lines around her mother’s mouth deepened. “Said you were with a tall guy named Winchester.” Her mother drew in a breath. “Please tell me it wasn’t Brody Winchester.”
Jo let a breath hiss slowly from her lips.
Her mother’s lips flattened. “It is Brody Winchester.”
“It’s not like that.”
Green eyes narrowed. “What’s it like, Jo? Didn’t that man do enough damage in your life?”
“As I remember, we accomplished much of the damage together. And we’re not dating. Definitely not dating. We’re working a case.”
“Case? Last time you hung out with Brody Winchester, you said it was about tutoring and homework. All that led to a whole heap of trouble.”
“I’m not eighteen, Mom. And I’m not a wide-eyed girl anymore.” She stopped herself. “This is not why I came to see you this morning.”
Candace picked up a rag and wiped her clean hands. “I don’t want to fight, Jo. I don’t. But it would make me sick to know you and Brody Winchester were seeing each other again.”
“We are not seeing each other. Yesterday was the first time I’ve spoken to him in fourteen years.”
Candace lowered her voice as she did when she was upset. “Fourteen years isn’t enough to make me forget, honey.”
“I haven’t forgotten, Mom. Can we let this go? Please. Brody and I were working a case.”
“He’s not the reason you came by?”
She’d been unsettled since yesterday and now wondered if those feelings stemmed from Brody or Smith or maybe both. “No, I wanted to see you.”
Her mother raised a brow. “It is not like you to stop by and talk, honey. You’re self-reliant like me. Ellie is a chatterbox like your daddy. But not you. What is the case you’re working on?”
“We went to West Livingston yesterday.”
“To the prison.”
“That’s right. We went to interview Harvey Lee Smith.”
Her frown deepened. “Isn’t that the killer that’s dying?”
“That’s right.”
Her mother again rubbed her clean hands with the rag. “Why does he have you so turned around?”
“At the end of the interview I asked him why he wanted to make his last confession to me. He said, ‘Look deep inside yourself.’ It didn’t make any sense. Why would he say that?”
She rested her fist on her hip. “Honey, how am I supposed to know why a crazy man says what he says?”
“I don’t know, Mom. I thought the statement was odd, and there’s no one that knows me as well as you, I guess.”
Some of Candace’s tension eased. “He’s a lunatic, honey. He’ll say or do whatever suits him. And my guess is that he wanted to upset your applecart to watch you squirm.”
“That’s what Brody said in so many words.”
Candace glanced at her manicured red nails and then at Jo. “You don’t worry about Smith. From what I read, he’s an egghead who doesn’t have many more days on the earth.”
“Egghead. That’s what Dad used to call me.”
Her mother’s face tensed. “Honey, your dad was a good, hardworking man, but he wasn’t a big thinker. He didn’t understand why I wanted this shop and why I wanted to work for myself. He’d have been happy to see me doing sets and perms in the garage like I
did when you girls were little. You wanted more, like me. Daddy didn’t understand.”
“Your idea of more for me included winning beauty contests and coming into the business to work.”
Candace lifted her chin a notch. “Both are honest pathways to a good life.”
“I wanted different than you.”
“Jo, what is going on with you?” She shook her head. “That Harvey Lee Smith has gotten under your skin.”
Jo sighed. “Maybe you’re right. I’m out of sorts.”
“Honey, I don’t want to fight. If I could help you I would. And I’m sorry for needling you about Brody Winchester. I don’t have much use for the guy.” She shook her head. “When you were having the miscarriage and he was off with his buddies getting drunk—”
“Please, Mom, he didn’t know I was miscarrying.... Look, I don’t want to rehash old news.”
“As long as it stays old news, baby, then I won’t bring it up again.”
Jo checked her watch. “Mom, I’ve got an appointment.”
“What kind of appointment would you have on a Sunday morning?”
“It’s police stuff.”
“Not with Brody.”
Jo hugged her mom. “You don’t need to worry about Brody. He’s history.”
Brody was a half block from Jo’s house when he saw her driving from the opposite direction and pulling into her driveway. Out and about early on a Sunday morning. And without meaning to, he found himself wondering where and with whom she’d spent the night.
Gut tensing, he parked his Bronco behind her and watched as she scrambled out of her car, grabbed a backpack from the backseat and hurried toward him. She slid into the seat, tucked the pack at her feet and clicked her seat belt.
She straightened her jacket. “Thank you for the ride.”
“Sure.” He put the gearshift in reverse and backed out of the driveway. “Where’d you come from?”