Twenty

Anarchy insisted on taking Jane into custody. Insisted.

The cold and rain had nothing on the temperature of my digestive organs. “I’m not pressing charges.”

“Charges?” He tilted his head slightly. “Oh, the stolen car. I didn’t figure you would.”

“Then why—”

“Protective custody,” he explained. “She saw a murderer. She’s in danger.”

“I didn’t really see him.” Jane shook her head. “It was dark and he was in a car, and Leesa was talking to him through the passenger’s window. I wouldn’t recognize him if he was standing right in front of me.”

The skin at the corner of Anarchy’s left eye twitched.

“I say we get out of the rain.” No one could argue with my suggestion. A chilly drizzle was slowly soaking us through.

We left Dee’s house with Anarchy behind the wheel, me in the passenger’s seat, and the girls in the back.

I turned and asked, “Jane, who is Madame Reyna?”

Her lips thinned and she turned her head—away from me—and looked out the rain-streaked window. “My grandmother.” The raindrops moving across the glass must have been fascinating because her gaze remained fixed on them. “We thought about going to her house but I didn’t want to put her in danger.”

Anarchy reached across the seat and squeezed my hand tightly, his meaning clear. I was not to tell Jane about the wreckage at her grandmother’s home. I was not to tell her that her grandmother was missing.

“I’m just glad you’re safe now.” I turned and stared out the windshield. The wipers swished away the light rain.

Anarchy drove to my house and the four of us piled out of the car.

Daddy opened the front door immediately—as if he’d been waiting by the window. He shook his finger at Grace. “You put your mother through hell, young lady.”

“I know.” Grace actually sounded contrite. “And I’m sorry.”

That was all it took for him to forgive her. He grinned. “Come on in out of the rain.”

We tromped inside.

I took off my coat and folded it over my arm.

Anarchy did the same.

“Are you staying? I thought you were taking Jane into custody.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not until I can get a patrol car parked in your driveway. Not until I know you’re safe.”

A warmth that had nothing to do the heat vents in the foyer suffused me. Gulp. “Daddy, is there coffee?”

“We’ll make some fresh.”

The kitchen felt homey and comforting. A feeling only enhanced by the heavenly smells of Mr. Coffee brewing ambrosia.

I wrapped my cold fingers around a mug and settled onto a stool. If Jane was only going to be around for a few minutes, I’d better get my questions in quick. “What happened last night?”

Jane, who also held a cup of coffee, paled. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

I donned a sympathetic face and nodded.

“Ray wasn’t so bad. He treated me like a human being and not a piece of—” she glanced at my silver-haired father “—and not like a product.” She shifted her gaze to the contents of her mug. “I wanted to return Grace’s car. I felt bad about stealing it.”

No one said a word. The only sounds were the ticking of the clock and Max’s yawn (we were disturbing his late morning nap).

“I’m not great at driving a stick, so I asked Ray to drive Grace’s car and I drove his Impala.”

She looked up from her coffee and stared at the wall. “He parked in the drive. I heard a shot. Then someone ran toward me. I knew it wasn’t Ray. He was too bulky. Too slow. I got scared and took off.”

“And after that?” I asked.

“I drove around. I didn’t know where to go.” Now she looked at Grace. “I remembered that Grace had told me she was spending the night with a friend, so I stopped at a gas station, looked the address up in the phone book, and went there this morning.”

“Why didn’t you stay at Donna’s?” My voice was sharper than strictly necessary.

“We should have,” said Grace. “I was kinda freaked out and I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m glad you’re safely home now.” Glad I could banish that awful threat. Glad Anarchy had been there—not to solve my problem, but to help me solve it. I abandoned my stool and wrapped Grace in another hug.

Ding dong.

“I’ll get it.” Anarchy disappeared down the hallway before I could point out that I answered the door in my house.

He was back in a minute. “The patrol car is here. Are you ready, Jane?”

Jane put her mug down on the counter and nodded.

I walked with them to the front door.

Jane slipped her arms into her coat.

Anarchy slipped his arms around me. “I’ll be back. Don’t do anything dangerous.”

Like letting Anarchy Jones into my heart? I looked up at him and said, “I never do.”

He snorted, dropped a chaste kiss on my forehead, and released me.

I stood in the doorway and watched the two of them drive away.

When I returned to the kitchen, Grace was peppering Daddy with questions.

“What’s up with Granna? When’s she coming home?”

Daddy peered into his coffee mug as if he was genuinely surprised to find it empty.

“You know—” I refilled my coffee mug “—it’s been so cold and gloomy here, maybe Granna just needed some warmth and sun.”

“Piffle.” The word sauntered off Grace’s tongue, as sassy as could be.

I raised my brows. “Piffle?”

“She needs to get down off her high horse.”

Daddy and I stared at her.

“Unless there’s something you’re not telling us.”

I shot Daddy a look. “May I get you more coffee, Daddy?” I asked so sweetly he wouldn’t need sugar.

He pretended not to notice my glare. “Yes. Please.”

Grace, her grenade thrown, tossed her hair. “I need a shower.”

My stomach rumbled and I glanced at the ticking wall clock before taking possession of Daddy’s cup. “Are you hungry, Grace? Aggie left some soup. I can warm it up.”

“Fine.” She tossed her hair a second time. “I won’t be long.” Then she ran up the backstairs.

“Are you hungry, Daddy?”

“I could eat,” he allowed. “Aggie made the soup?”

“Italian wedding.” I added coffee to his cup. “All I have to do is pour it into a saucepan.”

“Sounds good.”

I returned Daddy’s coffee mug then fetched a sauce pan from the cabinet and the soup from the fridge. When I heard the water running upstairs, I asked, “Have you heard from her?”

Mother not talking to him was novel—and unpleasant. The corners of his mouth drooped. “No.”

I poured the soup in the pan and turned on a burner. “Maybe you should call her.”

“She’s very angry.” He regarded the pan on the stove. “Warm the soup on low, honey.”

Everyone was a critic. I turned down the heat. “What happened?”

“This isn’t something a man wants to discuss with his daughter.”

“Mother left you. I think we’re past that objection.”

He went back to searching the depths of his coffee mug for answers. “Your mother was not my first love.”

Oh dear Lord. Be careful what you ask. I abandoned the soup, and settled onto a stool.

“My senior year at Stanford, I met a girl. She was different from the girls back here. A free spirit.” He shifted his gaze from his coffee to the past. The expression in his eyes was soft and gentle—as if he was looking as his younger self and the girl. “We fell in love and she got pregnant.”

I swallowed. My mouth suddenly dry. Coffee! I needed more coffee. I got up and poured myself another cup. And, just to prove my cooking prowess, I stirred the soup. “What happened next?”

“I asked her to marry me, told her we’d come home to Kansas City and have a marvelous life.”

“She said no?”

“She said no.” Forty-plus years later, Daddy still looked sad. He even wiped under his eyes with the knuckles of his right hand.

“She had a daughter.” I wanted to know more about this mysterious half-sister.

“Karma.”

I sat down again. I had to. I had a half-sister named Karma? “And you never told us?”

“I told your mother.”

There was a conversation I was glad I missed.

“I told her before we married. A child isn’t something you can keep from your wife. We agreed—” he shifted his gaze to the soup “—we agreed we were starting a new family and we’d keep what was in my past separate from our future.”

Classic Mother. An undiscussed problem or issue or sister, was a problem or issue or sister that didn’t exist. I, for one, would have appreciated knowing about Karma.

“All those golf trips to California. That’s where she is, isn’t she?”

He nodded.

“Do you see her?”

“Yes.”

“Does she know about us?”

“Yes.”

He’d kept secrets from us, but not from Karma. Something inside me deflated. Deflated even as jealousy ran acid green in my veins. My father. He was my father. You’d think at almost forty I’d be past juvenile, emotional responses. Apparently not.

“Your mother—”

“You don’t have to explain.” Mother hadn’t wanted us to know.

He could have overruled her.

The sound of running water ended. Of course it did. Grace’s showers usually lasted longer than an episode of All in the Family. But now, when a private conversation with Daddy was all I wanted, she turned into Speedy Gonzales?

I glanced at the ceiling. “Call her.”

Daddy’s answering sigh belonged to a man who’d spent forty years married to a woman who could inspire fear in Attila the Hun. A sigh that belonged to a man who knew his wife wouldn’t be coming home without serious groveling. Although—

“If Mother knew about Karma all along, why is she angry now?”

“When Sylvia died—” he rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand “—losing her mother was hard on Karma. They were very close. I spent more time in California. Your mother contends I wasn’t around when you—you and Frances—needed me most.”

“When we needed you most?” Daddy and his shoulder had been there when Henry died. He’d held my hand through the funeral. Stood next to me at the reception afterwards. He’d silenced Mother with a look when she said the flowers were too bright. He’d been there. “What do you mean? You were there.”

“Not for all of them.”

“All of them?”

“The bodies, Elli. You found bodies when I was out of town. Your mother is traumatized by all the bodies.”

Mother? Traumatized? “She’s not the one who finds them.” A small point, but an important one.

“How would you feel if it was Grace who found all those bodies? Here. There. Everywhere.”

A smart answer stalled at the tip of my tongue. How would I feel? “I’d worry myself sick,” I admitted.

“And you think your mother is any different?”

Of course she was different. She was Mother. Mother wasn’t upset because Daddy missed all those murders. She was livid because he spent too much time with Karma. Time that should be spent with his family in Kansas City.

Besides, the whole argument was moot. I’d had a nice long stretch—months—of not finding bodies. Until Ray got himself murdered in my drive.

“Mother may be worried about the bodies,” I conceded without meaning it. “But the ashes in the closet were what set her off. Why would she think you’d left Sylvia’s ashes in the hall closet?”

Daddy took a moment and refilled his coffee mug. He also stirred the soup. “Sylvia was cremated and Karma wants me to be there when she releases the ashes.” He stirred again. “I think this is ready.”

I fetched three plates and three bowls from the cabinet. “Do you mind if we eat in the kitchen?”

“No.”

“Good.” I grabbed spoons. “Crackers or baguette?”

Daddy eyed the soup. “Baguette.”

“I’ll get the loaf from the pantry.” I called up the stairs. “Grace, lunch is ready.”

A moment later, the three of us were seated at the kitchen island with bowls of Aggie’s wonderful soup and crusty bread in front of us.

“So?” Grace’s gaze traveled from me to Daddy. “Are you going to tell me?”

Daddy’s soup spoon froze half-way to his mouth.

Secrets weren’t doing our family any favors. I fixed Grace with a severe stare. “Family matters stay within the family. If we tell you, this goes no further. You don’t tell your friends. You don’t write it in your diary. You don’t whisper it in your dreams.”

“Geez, Mom. You sound like Granna.”

I winced. “Sometimes Granna gets things right.”

“Fine. Okay. Vault.” She mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.

“Daddy? You want to tell her?”

He shook his head. “This one’s on you.”

“Before your grandparents were married, while your grandfather was away at college, he fell in love and—”

“Wait.” Grace held up her hands and wrinkled her nose. “Are you saying?”

“You have another aunt.”

She sat for a moment, her expression stunned. Then an impish grin spread across her face. “No way.”

“Way.”

Grace gave us her best Diana Ross impression.

Mother would not have appreciated Grace’s rendition of “Love Child.”

Daddy simply choked on his soup.

I handed him my napkin.

Grace stopped singing. “Is she married? Does she have kids?”

Daddy wiped soup from his chin. “Yes and yes.”

“Cool.” At least Grace, unlike her mother, was unfazed by the prospect of unknown relatives. “Can I meet them?”

Because we needed more dysfunction in our family. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

One could only imagine a family gathering that included Mother and Daddy’s illegitimate daughter. The mind boggled.

We finished Aggie’s delicious soup without further discussion of Karma and without Grace reprising her Diana Ross impression.

When we’d scraped the last drop from the bottom of our bowls, Grace disappeared.

Daddy stood. “Elli, you’re fine here. I’m going home.”

I hugged him. “Thanks for all your help today.”

“Thank you for being so understanding about Karma.”

He was giving me too much credit. I wasn’t understanding, I was overwhelmed. “Of course.” In our family, skeletons falling out of ash-filled closets should come as no surprise. “I love you, Daddy.”

I let him out the front door, waved at the patrol officer parked in my driveway, and went upstairs to my studio.

Painting—the restorative act of adding color to canvas—took up my afternoon.

I descended the stairs when the afternoon’s murk ceded to darkness. “Grace,” I called. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.”

I tracked her down to the family room. She sat on the couch cocooned in a fuzzy blanket watching an afternoon movie on channel forty-one. “What are you watching?”

“Some movie. There’s nothing on but sports.”

“Do you want a pizza?”

She nodded.

So did Max.

“Pepperoni or combo?”

“Combo.”

Max didn’t argue.

I picked up the phone, dialed the number I knew by heart (calling for take-out was what I cooked best), ordered the pizza, then joined her on the couch.

The movie she was watching was in black and white. A terrified woman was running from a house.

“You know—” Grace’s gaze shifted from the frightened woman to me. A frown wrinkled her forehead (Grace’s, not the fleeing woman’s) “—I get the weirdest feeling this isn’t over.”

I frowned too. I had the same feeling.