“Not to her face.”
“Well, that makes all the difference. Here,” she said, handing him a fistful of pills and a glass of water. “I’m not letting you out the door until you take those.”
“I don’t know why you bother,” he complained. “You’d be happier if I was dead.”
“Yes, but I’m such an obvious suspect.”
“I’m sure your new friends at the FBI would take care of you.”
“It would make a better story if I called in all your markers for donating twenty dollars a year to the sheriff’s annual circus day fund.”
Her father sniffed and struck a pose like a Shakespearean actor on stage. Sir Richard of Bullshit. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
“Oh, please,” Anne said, quickly thumbing through the rest of the mail. “I’m completely thankful to my parent. That just doesn’t happen to be you, that’s all.”
“I’m leaving,” he announced, offended. It would give him something to talk about when he sat down with Judith Iver and her nephew. He could lament his daughter’s low treatment of him and elicit half an hour’s worth of sympathy while flogging them at Jeopardy!
Anne hurried to her room to shower and change clothes. The Thomas Center was holding a candlelight vigil for Karly Vickers and in memory of Lisa Warwick, and she felt a need to be there. She refused to recognize the fact that she expected to see Vince there, just as she refused to think too hard about the fact that he had kissed her. She had allowed him to kiss her.
It was only because she had felt weak and vulnerable, and he had felt so strong and safe by comparison. And she wanted to trust him. The deepest, most private part of who she was had existed in emotional isolation for most of her life. But in that one moment of weakness she had wanted to drop those shields just to feel the comfort of another soul next to hers for a little while.
The sound of his low, rough voice was warm in her head as she stood in front of her bathroom mirror.
It’s all right… This shoulder has been cried on before.
She ached all the way through at the memory of how much she had needed to hear someone say that.
Now she pushed the feeling away as something impractical and a waste of time. She had things to do and needing was not high on the list of priorities.
The Thomas Center was a collection of white stucco buildings that had been a private Catholic girls’ school from the early twenties into the sixties. Modeled on the style of the old Spanish missions, the buildings formed a courtyard between them with a fountain at its center and stunning, simple gardens rambling along the stone walkways.
It was a beautiful place by daylight. By candlelight it was magical. Hundreds of tiny flames seemed to dance on the dark night air. The courtyard was nearly full. Franny had scoped out the scene before Anne got there and had chosen a spot with the optimum potential for eavesdropping.
“This is my entertainment for the evening,” he said as she joined him. “I’m giving up Miami Vice to be here.”
“Well, I hope for your sake a car chase ensues at some point,” Anne said.
“I’d settle for a Don Johnson sighting. Or a sighting of your Mr. Leone,” he suggested, raising up on the tiptoes of his Top-Siders to survey the crowd. “What were you doing out there in the woods all that time, Anne Marie? A little horizontal hokeypokey?”
“Oh, yeah. In a shallow grave,” Anne whispered. “Have some respect, please. We’re at a vigil.”
“We should hold a vigil for your vagina if you take a pass on the Italian Stallion.”
A couple of heads swiveled in their direction. Anne grabbed his arm and pinched him hard. “Behave yourself!”
“I liked the way he put his hand on your back,” he said. “Very proprietary. BIG hand, I might add.”
Anne shushed him and told herself the flush of heat that washed through her was embarrassment and had nothing to do with the memory of Vince Leone touching her.
Jane Thomas stepped up onto a small stage that was positioned at one end of the courtyard and thanked everyone for coming. The program was short. A poetry reading in memory of Lisa Warwick. A plea for information from the public regarding both cases. An announcement about the reward the center had posted. Donations from the public would be accepted in memory of Lisa. A local folksinger got up and sang a song that made everyone tear up. The end.
They shuffled toward the exit with the rest of the crowd. Talk of the findings at the salvage yard that afternoon rippled through. Speculation about the sudden series of crimes ran the gamut from evil seeping north from Los Angeles to an obvious decline of a once-great society.
“I need an espresso,” Franny declared as they made it to the sidewalk. “All this melancholy has worn me out.”
As they turned in the direction of the plaza, Anne caught a flash of red from the corner of her eye.
Janet Crane was bearing down on her like a charging tigress. Her eyes were so wide-open the white was visible all the way around the iris. Her lips pulled back in a grimace that showed gritted teeth.
Anne’s heart plunged into her stomach and bounced back up to the back of her throat.
“Miss Navarre,” she spat each word as if it tasted bad. “I would like a word with you.”
Anne swallowed hard. Show no fear. She stepped out of the flow of human traffic and faced the woman, hoping she appeared calmer than she felt. Janet Crane didn’t stop until no more than a foot separated them.
“Mrs. Crane-”
“How dare you!” Her voice was lowered to a harsh whisper to keep from being overheard, but carried all the strength of a shout. “How dare you try to use my son.”
Caught mentally flatfooted, Anne couldn’t think of a response. She was guilty as charged. She didn’t deserve to defend herself.
She glanced at Tommy, who looked both mortified and hurt, and wouldn’t make eye contact with her. His expression was a harder punch in the stomach than any verbal attack his mother could launch.
Janet Crane’s words broke up like bad radio reception in Anne’s head. She wanted to drop down on her knees and beg Tommy’s forgiveness.
“… making a little boy think his father might be some kind of-of monster… absolutely outrageous… My husband is a highly respected member of this community. How dare you insinuate…”
Anne felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. Or maybe she wished that she was. She couldn’t seem to move or speak. She was aware of people staring at them, Franny looking like a deer in headlights.
Then a man’s voice came from her left. Low, rough, familiar. “Is there some kind of problem here, ladies?”
It took a minute for the rage to clear from Janet Crane’s eyes. She blinked at Vince like he had dropped out of the sky.
“Oh. Oh! Mr. Leone,” she said, scrambling. Anne could practically see the wheels in the woman’s brain brake to an abrupt halt and struggle to start turning in another direction. “Mr. Leone. What a surprise to see you here!”
“If I’m going to be part of the community, I thought I should start participating,” he said smoothly. “Is everything all right? This looked like a bit of a disagreement,” he said, wagging a finger from one to the other of them.
“No. No!” Janet Crane said, flashing the too bright smile. “Not at all. Everything is fine. Mr. Leone, this is Anne Navarre. Anne teaches at Oak Knoll Elementary.”
“We’ve met, actually,” he said.
“Oh. Well. That’s wonderful!”
He smiled down at Anne, a thousand watts of pure charm.
“I certainly hope it will be. In fact, I was hoping to catch up with you tonight, Miss Navarre,” he said, settling his hand on the small of her back once again. “I need to discuss something with you. If you’ll excuse us, Mrs. Crane?”