“Doesn’t he date Brewster’s daughter?”
“No . . . well, sometimes.” Why was she even engaging in this conversation?
“And Brewster hired him? Your son wouldn’t be the first boy trying to score Brownie points with a girl by buddying up to her old man.”
The very thought was appalling. Jeremy would never stoop so low. But he did go to Brewster behind my back, didn’t he?
As if Gage could read her mind, he smirked, then stuck his large nose into his paper again and, gratefully, out of her business. Remembering that she’d come into the lunchroom for a reason, she reached into the refrigerator for the can of Diet Coke she’d left earlier, only to find that it was missing. Someone had decided to help himself to the unmarked can.
“You’d think you could trust people not to steal in the damned sheriff’s department! Aren’t we supposed to uphold the law, not break it?” Slamming the refrigerator door shut, Pescoli let her breath out slowly. She was on edge, no doubt about it, and overreacting. Hadn’t she herself “borrowed” a can of soda now and again, never quite replacing it?
“Payback’s a bitch,” Gage muttered as he folded his paper.
Irritated by the chief criminal detective’s remarks, probably because of lack of sleep and the fact that Gage’s sentiments echoed Santana’s, she strode out of the lunchroom in a dark mood.
Only last week, while lying naked in Santana’s bed, she’d vented her frustrations with her son to him. Santana had listened, his arms tightening around her, holding her close, and then he, like every man she’d come into contact with lately, had offered his own thoughts. “Let him grow up, Regan. Quit fighting the inevitable. For Christ’s sake, Jeremy’s nearly a man.”
“Haven’t you heard? Twenty’s the new twelve.”
“Only from overprotective, control-freak mothers.”
“Nice,” she said, trying to roll away. Santana, damn him, had chuckled, pulled her close, and kissed her. With his hands caressing her body, she’d let the argument drop and concentrated on the tingles he’d elicited with his warm, wet tongue on her skin.
Now, though, she was pissed. It was just so much like a man to use sex to end an argument.
Oh, and you haven’t done that too? Along with taking a can of Diet Coke or Pepsi now and again? Face it, Pescoli, you’re no saint.
Self-doubts assailed her as she walked into her office. For the first time in a long while, she wondered if, as a mother, she was more a hindrance rather than a help. What she did know was that having Jeremy working and doing something—anything—was positive. However, having him work in her space wasn’t all that great. She just couldn’t afford not to have full concentration on her job; her focus had to be razor sharp so that she could find Judge Samuels-Piquard’s killer and Grayson’s assailant.
Time was going by and being distracted by her son’s presence wasn’t conducive to keeping her attention razor sharp, but she couldn’t see what she could do about it.
“So you’re okay?” Hattie asked, her Bluetooth microphone and receiver strapped to her ear as she drove into the heart of Grizzly Falls. She’d finally caught up with her sister. With the girls in the backseat of her Toyota, she was headed to Wild Wills, a restaurant situated in the lower level of the town, the older section built on the banks of the Grizzly River.
“I’m fine. We’re all fine,” Cara replied from the other end of the wireless connection. “I don’t know what the big deal is, why everyone is so concerned. Dan and I have been divorced, like forever. I know that sounds so cold and heartless, and that’s not how I feel.”
Hattie wondered but didn’t say it as she drove down the steep slope of Boxer Bluff.
“Of course I’m worried sick about him,” Cara said. “And I feel awful, just awful that someone took a shot at him.”
Not just “took a shot.” Whoever it was actually hit and wounded him. Big time. Hattie slowed for the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill, waiting for the empty flatbed truck in front of her to roll under the open arm of the gate.
“And now someone’s killed that judge, which is frightening,” Cara added with a little shiver.
“First Dan and then Judge Samuels-Piquard,” Hattie murmured.
“You think it’s the same killer?”
“I don’t know,” Hattie said, but had been troubled ever since she’d heard the news on the television earlier in the day. “It’s a pretty big coincidence if it’s not, considering the timing.” The assassination of the judge, so like the attack on Dan, was causing her to rethink her position that whoever had shot the sheriff had previously killed Bart. Was it possible that her ex-husband, depressed over their divorce and life in general, really had hanged himself? All these years she’d convinced herself someone had actually killed him and staged the scene to appear as if he’d taken his own life, and with the attempt on Dan’s life, it had felt like a replay.
But now, she wasn’t certain of anything.
“I don’t understand why everyone is calling me,” Cara was saying as McKenzie, from the advantage of her booster seat, spied a mother holding the door open for her son who was carrying a double-dip cone from the ice-cream parlor situated less than a block from the railroad tracks. She began pointing frantically, her finger tapping against the glass. “Can we get ice cream? Mommy, please?”
“Please, please, please!” Mallory chimed in.
“Today? It’s freezing outside,” Hattie said automatically, which wasn’t a lie, and the clouds rolling over the mountains were threatening snow.
“But I want ice cream,” McKenzie argued.