8

Saturday dawned with a crisp chill in the air. A fine mist hung over the yard, obscuring the outer edges of the flower borders, drooping with morning dew. Alison felt empowered despite a sleepless night. She sipped, warming her hands around the piping hot cup of Kona, watching for Stephen’s arrival.

An unfamiliar burgundy Dodge SUV pulled into the drive. Stephen emerged from the passenger side. The driver, distinguished and fifty-something, was the same man she’d seen talking to Claire and Justin at the cemetery on Thursday. He seemed, once again, familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen him.

Music . . . ?

But the flash of recognition was gone before she could capture it.

Leaving her perch on the arm of the settee in the front room, she opened the front door as the men ascended the steps.

Stephen smiled. “Morning, Ali.”

Alison nodded but raised her brows at his companion.

“Oh, I don’t guess you’ve met our friend, Robert Kendall. He’s in real estate, an elder at Redeemer, and one of the leaders of the Bible study group. Val and I have known him for years.” He stepped away from the door and allowed Robert to step forward, hand outstretched toward her.

She found herself staring into friendly, hazel eyes.

Recognition dawned. “You sang in the trio with Val at my husband’s funeral.”

Sympathy mingled with the friendliness in his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.” His speaking voice proved as warm and deep a bass as when he sang. “I thank you for the privilege of celebrating your late husband’s homecoming.” His hair, mainly dark, sported bands of gray above his ears.

Alison darted a swift look at Stephen. Wait till she told them the latest about her—well, she wasn’t sure what you ought to call it. Connection? Surrender? Relationship was probably what Val would suggest.

She took Robert Kendall’s outstretched hand. “You have no idea how much it meant to the children and especially to me. Life-changing, as a matter of fact.”

Stephen gave her a quizzical look. She realized she was standing barefoot on the cold slate porch with a coffee cup in her hand.

“Forgive my manners. Won’t you come in and have some coffee? I’ll call Justin. He’s anxious to find his dad’s clubs.” She ushered the men into the foyer and waved for them to follow her into the kitchen and family room along the back of the house.

She removed two matching cups from the cherry-wood cabinet, pouring the rich aromatic brew into the cups.

“I know Stephen likes his black and strong, but I forgot to ask you, Mr. Kendall, how you like to take yours, or do you prefer decaf?”

“Robert. Just Robert. And I usually need all the go-go juice I can stand. Plain is fine by me.”

She smiled. These people from Redeemer were easy to be around. “All right, Just Robert. I’ll try to remember next time.”

Robert gave a hesitant smile that, once fully ignited, lit his entire face. He had a familiar drawl. Maybe, like her dad, a native of the eastern North Carolina farming region? Robert had the relaxed charm of “country boy come to the city” manner, dressed in Southern country club casual, a golf shirt and khakis.

She’d loved to hear her dad speak with the flat intonations of those from Down East. Our Northern brethren, as Daddy referred to them, often incorrectly assumed slow talking meant slow thinking. It didn’t take long for them, however, to discover their mistake in stereotyping Nate McLawhorn, NASA engineer.

To her ear, the sound of the words on his tongue was like the taste of honey. Slow, but rich. She’d wanted to talk like Daddy instead of like the “nobody from nowhere” speech of the other transplants working at Kennedy Space Center. As a child, she’d practiced the way he said his words, rolling and savoring them like butterscotch morsels in her mouth.

She handed Robert a mug. “Are you a member of the club, too?”

“I am.” He sipped from his cup and leaned against the countertop. “Way too expensive, but I do love my golf.”

A guy comfortable in his own skin. A trait she admired immensely.

“Yeah.” Stephen propped his elbows on the granite counter. “Robert’s one addiction. I’m not a member, so I figured old Robert would be our point man.”

Robert laughed. “You forgot about my other addiction—Wolfpack basketball.”

Before the men could digress on the one subject most native North Carolinians could get positively rabid about—for hours—she asked, “Just Robert?” He colored but grinned at her. “Did you ever meet Frank before he died?”

“I never had the opportunity to meet him though my late wife, Joan—”

Justin clomped down the back stairs with Claire right behind him. Both their faces lit up when they saw the men. She didn’t think all of it was directed at Stephen, either.

What was that old saying about the test of character being children and dogs? She didn’t have a dog, but her children were a great testament to Robert Kendall’s kind nature.

“Hey, guys,” Robert called out to the kids.

Stephen set down his mug. “Ready to go, Justin?”

Justin hurried over to them. He was dressed in semi-clean denim jeans and a long-sleeved rugby shirt. His hair, though, looked slept in.

She stuck out a hand to smooth some hair out of Justin’s face, but sensing her intent, he ducked away.

He frowned. “Mom, please.”

Translation—stop treating me like a baby in front of the guys.

She backed off. “Looks like I need to do laundry.”

Time to get back into the swing of life. Val, bless her, had coped with everything over the last week she’d been unable to deal with. But life, no matter how unfairly, went on. The trash can overflowed. As did the dishes in the sink and clothes in the hamper.

And murderers needed to be caught.

Back to mothering, she waved a hand toward the book bags piled in the corner. “Homework needs to be done before Monday.”

Justin groaned. Claire scowled, her brow wrinkling.

“How you could imagine I care about such trivialities?” Claire drawled out the syllables of triviality. Claire liked to use big words because, well, she could.

“Now Claire . . .” No way would she let her daughter start an argument in front of Stephen and Robert Kendall.

Justin laid a quiet hand on Claire’s shoulder. “Sandy Fleming collected the notes we missed over the last week. We’ve got to go back sometime, you know.”

“But Monday? It’s too soon. I’m not ready to face . . .” Claire glanced around her for the right word, “everything.”

Claire meant everyone. Facing their peers with all the ugly publicity generated by Frank’s murder wouldn’t be easy. After a rash of nasty text messages from so-called friends, Claire hadn’t looked at her phone in over a week. This from a girl formerly glued to the device 24/7.

Before she could respond, Justin cut in. “Would we ever be ready? But it’s something we have to do, and better to get it over with sooner than later.”

Alison sighed, struck with how mature Justin had grown this last week.

Behind her, Stephen spoke up. “Putting it off never helps. Only makes things worse.”

Claire’s face remained troubled. She plucked at the ends of the corded belt dangling from her jeans.

Robert’s voice rumbled. “I never knew your dad, Claire, but it sounds as if he greatly admired courage. I think he’d want you to face this, hard as it is, with courage.”

Claire, her eyes full of tears, stared at them for a moment, and then she nodded. “It’s a little overwhelming.”

“Only a little?” joked Stephen.

Claire gave him a wobbly smile.

“We could ask Sandy to come over later and guide us through the worst of it,” Justin suggested.

A slight pucker formed between Claire’s carefully penciled brows. “Maybe.”

This was not the moment to pursue it, but something was going on as far as Claire and Sandy Fleming were concerned.

Justin hung the strap of his dad’s expensive Nikon camera around his neck. “We’re burning daylight, people.”

He was, Alison discerned, afraid something had happened to Frank’s clubs like the briefcase. The camera they’d located in the bedroom closet. She made a note to look for the prayer book and New Testament for Claire although she’d not asked for them or commented on Frank’s legacy to her.

“Can I come too?” Claire glanced at her mother for permission.

That’s a first, Alison thought, nonetheless pleased.

“I’m getting stir-crazy.”

Robert nodded. “The more the merrier.”

Alison called out to Justin as Stephen and Claire headed for the door. “Did you want to develop those digital prints on your dad’s camera?”

“No. I can do it at home later today with Dad’s office equipment. I just wanted . . .” He shrugged, embarrassed. “To keep it close to me.”

Robert clapped an arm across Justin’s thin shoulders. “A comforting idea. When my wife, Joan, died of cancer four years ago, I carried her pink poodle key chain around with me for weeks. Got funny looks, though I can’t think why.”

Justin laughed as they headed for the porch.

She sent up a quick thank-you to God for the kind people He’d brought into their lives through this tragedy, a vast support network of believers helping them deal with their grief.

Prayer? Who’d a thought? She was getting to be an old hand at this.

Who was that old guy in the Dodge leaving with Claire and Justin? Mike adjusted the binoculars and slid lower into the seat of his truck, grinding his teeth as he replayed the smile that passed between Alison and the man. Mike remembered seeing him at the graveside. His mind teased for the name.

Kendall. That was it. What business did he have with Alison?

And what business was it of his? Mike frowned at himself in the rearview mirror. Everything about Alison was his business until he eliminated her from his suspect list.

Yeah, right. Like in war, everything was fair game.

And in love, too?

Get a grip, dude.

Mike typed the name into the open laptop on the seat beside him.

He’d run a search through the law enforcement records on anyone connected with Weathersby and Frank. Nothing incriminating yet on Bill Lawrence and CompuVision. And no joy so far on any of the rest of those nutcases, either.

Why’d he get all the crazy cases? Bad luck, he supposed. Or, the Chief had a twisted sense of humor where he was concerned.

The Chief would have his head if he knew he’d been spending so much of his off-the-clock time watching the movements of the Widow Monaghan. Murders hadn’t exactly come to a standstill in Raleigh after the death of Frank Monaghan. Other cases were starting to pile up on his desk. Fun stuff like gangbangers and deadly barroom brawls.

Yeah, fun stuff. His mouth drooped. But something about this case intrigued him. Engaged unused portions of his mind. Teased at his subconscious. And he wasn’t so sure the murder of Frank Monaghan had ended whatever was going on.

He had a bad feeling—and he learned to listen to his intuition—that things were just getting started. Bad things. Dangerous for Raleigh and maybe for the rest of the Monaghans.

Mike’s stomach clenched. Why now, God? Of all the women—

His head snapped up, banging his forehead against the sun visor. Had he just prayed?

“You and Granny got some sense of humor.” He swiped a palm across the back of his neck. “Real funny this little heavenly joke of yours.”

Mike called himself all sorts of names. No doubt about it. He was an idiot of the first order.

He grimaced at the ceiling of his truck. “Fine. Have it your way, God.” He leaned his head out the window. “Laugh it up, Granny.”

Yep. He’d lost his mind. Talking to the air and dead people.

A strange feeling overcame him, starting at the roots of his short-cropped hair and winding all the way to the end of his toes. Peace? It’d been so long since he felt it he almost didn’t recognize it.

He sighed deep from the depths of his gut as it ironed out the edges of every fold in his mind. “Okay. I’ll trust you on this one.” He bit his lip. Not good enough.

“All right. All of it. From now on.” He glanced back to Alison’s house. “But I’m going to need some real help here proving she didn’t murder that jack—her husband.”

His answer came with the sighing of the wind through the treetops. And for just one moment, he thought—was he certifiable?—he heard the slight, lilting laughter of his granny in the whispers of the breeze.

As the door shut behind them, for the first time since the afternoon she’d discovered the mysterious photo, she was alone in the house. After wiping the counters and putting the last of the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, she ran up the back staircase to empty their clothes hampers into the laundry room upstairs.

Sorting through the small pile, she started the white load and realized she couldn’t stand for her hands not to be busy. The silence, even with the washer sloshing, got to her.

An urge to visit the spot of Frank’s murder consumed her. On the heels of that desire, screamed a voice of caution. The rational part of her brain mocked the cautious side as a coward. But the murder happened last week, she reasoned. What was there to be frightened of now?

Besides, maybe God was telling her it was important for some reason to go out there. Squelching her doubts, she ran a distracted hand through her silver-blonde pageboy. Alison changed into a pale blue T-shirt and threaded a wide brown belt through the loops of her jeans. She grabbed the nearest shoes she could find, a pair of old sneakers she kept by the steps between the kitchen and garage for her gardening.

She felt the stares of many eyes boring into her as she backed out of the garage and down the driveway. She passed several joggers on the sidewalk. A dog walker. Her neighbor trimming the hedge between their properties.

Her mouth tightened. Funny, she’d never seen him doing any of his own landscaping before. Nosy, gossipy old—

A new, strange feeling tingled at the edges of her mind. She darted a glance skyward through her sunroof.

“Okay, God. Sorry for that, but You and I both know the Monaghans are the hot topic of the neighborhood right now and likely to remain so until Frank’s murderer is behind bars.” She grimaced. “Or I am.”

As she drove down the street, the sense of well-being she experienced last night returned. Seven minutes later, she reached the end of Orchard Farm Road.

Seven minutes. Frank had been seven minutes from home.

Which direction had his car faced? Inward toward the dead-end sign? Or pointed out toward home?

She stopped the car halfway down the small rural road where the asphalt ended and the gravel began. Faint traces of yellow police tape tied to electric fence posts marking the property belonging to the NC State Vet School Research Lab fluttered in the breeze. Over there lay pastures, deserted except for a few cows. In the distance, the morning mist dissipated, revealing red dairy barns.

Across the street, a band of thick forest edged the back of the Weathersby House Historic Park. She wasn’t sure how close or distant the house was from this point. She’d always parked at the front entrance and ventured only as far as the vegetable and cutting gardens.

“No time like the present.” Again, that voice of caution tried to make itself heard, but she jumped out of the car before she lost her nerve. She walked the remaining twenty feet to where she supposed Frank’s murder had occurred.

Leaning down, she spotted a shiny oily patch. It had been a dry autumn. No rain since the murder. She remembered Frank commenting on needing to take his car in for repair.

Feeling the need to touch something of Frank, she dabbed one finger into the oil and rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger. The sound of the wind moaned, picking up in strength. The sky overhead had turned a dark, ominous gray, a portent of a coming afternoon shower.

The isolation of her location struck her, the loneliness. Depending upon the timing of Frank’s death, there would’ve been the dusky half-light of twilight at best or complete darkness at worst. There were no street lamps. And the shadows cast by the trees on the opposite side would’ve slowly lengthened, engulfing the car with Frank inside.

Spooky. She shivered.

And sad.

What had been the last sight Frank beheld in those final moments of life? The peaceful, bucolic pasture? The dense undergrowth of the forest? Or a face, familiar yet full of evil intent?

She jumped as the sound of a pop hit the ground beside her shoe and a puff of sandy smoke flew into her face.

“What was—?”

Another whining pop struck the gravel on her other side. Small chunks of rock bit into her ankle.

Someone was shooting at her from the cover of the trees across the road.

At first, she was unable to move, paralyzed in her crouched position.

There was a sudden roar of tires accelerating and spinning on gravel. A hunter green pickup truck barreled toward her. What was she doing out here? Did the murderer have an accomplice? She was trapped. Claire and Justin . . .

God!

The truck did an almost out-of-control three-point turn and pulled along beside her. The passenger door flew open.

Over the steering wheel, she glimpsed a furious, white-faced Detective Barefoot.

“Get in,” he commanded as another whizzing pop careened over the cab of the truck, slamming into the fence post behind her.

Move! Now! an inner voice yelled.

Alison hesitated no longer. Leaping forward, she hurled herself into the truck cab, winding up on Barefoot’s lap. He reached over her to slam the door shut and, hitting the accelerator, surged toward the main highway off Glenwood.

Shaking, she started to sit up.

“Keep your head down!” He slammed on the brakes and reached for the police transmitter on the dashboard.

“Shots fired,” he shouted into the mike. “Officer needs assistance. Orchard Farm Road. Backup requested.”

He flung open the driver’s door and hopped out. As he bent over, she noted his blue jeans and brogan work boots. Not his usual suit and tie. He stuck his hand inside the bulky beige Carhartt jacket. She glimpsed a shoulder holster and the glint of gunmetal.

“Stay here and stay down.”

He crouched alongside the truck and in a sideways crablike maneuver made it as far as her abandoned vehicle.

“Police,” he yelled. “Come out with your hands and the weapon in the air.”

Through the open window, she heard a rustling followed by the heavy crashing sound of feet running away through the underbrush of the forest. Away—thank God—from their position.

Braver now, she poked her head up to the back window of the cab. Would he pursue or remain and protect her until backup arrived? Balancing on the balls of his feet, his eyes scanned the woods for any sign of movement. Both hands clenched and unclenched around his firearm, his forefinger extending along the side of his gun.

In the distance came the whirring sound of multiple sirens. Three blue and whites screeched to a halt beside the truck. Barefoot ran over to the officers.

Alison wasn’t close enough to hear their conversation, but it was terse and quick on Barefoot’s part. Four officers drew their weapons and started down the dead-end road for the woods. Fanning out, they disappeared from her sight.

Sighing, she swiveled in the seat, disconcerted to find Barefoot leaning in the cab through the open window, fighting mad.

“Are you stupid, Miz Monaghan?”

She knew he was almost beyond the limits of his self-control in the way he drawled out the Miz in a too-soft voice.

“Or do you have a death wish?”

Feeling it a rhetorical question, she chose not to answer.

Alison lowered her eyes, as docile as a child before the headmaster. She’d learned long ago with Frank, the tirades ended faster if you kept your mouth shut and didn’t add any fuel to the fire raging within him.

She heard Barefoot mutter something under his breath and tried not to listen too hard. She doubted it was complimentary.

He thrust the pistol into his holster. Stepping onto the running board, he leaned over the roof of the Ford F-150. “He scratched the paint.” He groaned, scrambling higher for a better look.

“Or she,” Alison added in the interest of fair play.

“You,” he growled from his perch, “be quiet.”

Alison noticed how he stroked the wounded vehicle as if it were his girlfriend. Guttural moans came from up top. She wiped the grin off her face when he poked his head into the cab.

“Surely now, you believe I had nothing to do with Frank’s murder.”

“Why, in the name of all that’s holy, were you out here?”

She hesitated, unsure how to explain the intense urging. In hindsight, she realized it was probably not from God. This relationship business was still so new to her. She was going to have to learn about distinguishing His voice from her own desires. She heard Val’s voice in her head. She should’ve prayed about it first.

“Well?”

Alison refused to meet his gaze. “I don’t know. I just wanted to be here.” She sighed. “To be where Frank was last.”

Silence.

Alison lifted her head to see a strange mixture of compassion and wariness in the detective’s eyes. Maybe there was more to this tough guy than he wanted most people to see.

He gripped the edge of the cab, taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly.

She bit her lip. “Which way was Frank’s car pointed when you found him that morning?”

The detective pushed back from the truck door.

“Facing home, Mrs. Monaghan. Facing home.”