Over Her Head (16 page)

Oh, boy. How did they get here from pizza? And how could they get back—in a hurry?

“I’m sure that if there is a God, he understands grief, Tanya.”

“If there is a God? You don’t believe there is?” Those green eyes were wide and concerned, and for the first time he regretted
that she was a truthful woman who probably wouldn’t be put off by the smoke screen he usually set off for his cousins.

He began to pick up the tools on the bathroom floor. “I’ve seen too much of what people do to each other to believe that any
all-powerful God is in charge.”

“What people do is different from what God does.” She moved in the direction of the kitchen, talking over her shoulder. “You
forget that people can choose their own actions. God gives them that gift.”

“I wouldn’t call child abuse a gift.” A handful of screws in his palm, he followed her down the hall.

“It isn’t, of course, and you know that’s not what I meant. He gives us the ability to choose our course. Some people choose
. . . poorly.” Did she know she was quoting from a movie that happened to be one of his favorites? One that, oddly enough,
was all about faith—and the quest for truth and family instead of fortune and glory.

She stood in front of the open refrigerator, looking over his meager stock.

“Okay, so mostly I eat at the Split Rail,” he said in his own defense. Food—or even the lack of it—was a good subject to talk
about. He wanted to get away from the topic of God as fast as possible.

“A very eclectic selection here,” she said. “I take it you’re not serving Thanksgiving dinner next week?”

“Uh, no. There are a dozen women in my family, and every one of them invites me for either Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

“Lucky you.” Her voice sounded so wistful that something inside him twisted.

“No family around here?”

She shook her head. “It would have been Randi and me. If we still lived in Ohio, we might have gone to Daryl’s—to Randi’s
father’s people on their farm. But we haven’t lived there for a long time. And I couldn’t afford the gas to get there right
now, anyway.”

He couldn’t imagine not living in Glendale and tripping over relatives every time he turned around. Sometimes they drove him
nuts with their matchmaking and sly grins around the dinner table as yet another unexpected female dinner guest dropped over—one
who was Christian and conveniently single. But under the bickering and teasing and crowded family events was a bedrock of
love so deep he depended on it without even thinking about it.

Leaving Tanya grieving and alone on Thanksgiving seemed like a crime. But what else could he do? He’d been ignoring protocol
all day while he pretended that he was helping her escape her dismal present. Instead, all he was doing was enjoying himself
and closing his eyes to reality.

A memory flashed through his mind of his brothers, ages thirteen and fifteen, taking the train into Pittsburgh without permission
one Saturday night so they could see Pearl Jam. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission,” they’d told him when they swore
him to secrecy. They’d caught big, big trouble when they snuck in at one in the morning, and so had he for not coming clean
about it. But while they were all grounded together, his brothers had been jubilant. They’d seen the concert, and that had
been worth it.

When it came to women, he knew his fellow officers would turn a blind eye. His lieutenant might not, but the worst he could
do was put a memo in Nick’s file. Big deal.

A memo . . . stacked against a holiday that might keep the ghosts of regret and grief at bay for an hour. It seemed to him
to be a pretty even trade.

“Why don’t you come with me?” he asked before he could change his mind.

“Where?” She paused in the middle of pulling a block of cheddar out of the plastic bin on the fridge’s second shelf.

“To dinner on Thanksgiving, wherever I wind up. Probably Laurie’s. She always makes sure she gets her dibs in by the first
of the month.”

Tanya added two potatoes and a package of bacon to the cheese, and stepped around him to put it all on the counter. “I couldn’t
barge in on a family dinner.”

“You wouldn’t be barging in. Everyone’s welcome there—usually we have twelve or thirteen people. The kids invite a friend,
and there’s always a stray somewhere that Colin brings home from the store.”

One corner of her mouth lifted in wry acknowledgment. “That would be me. The stray of the week.”

“Tanya.”

“What?” She didn’t look up. Instead, she began hunting through his kitchen drawers until she found another knife, and then
through the cupboards until she located a plate.

“Stop running yourself down. I’d be happy to have you come with me. Laurie will understand. And maybe it’ll make my sisters-in-law
back off for five minutes.”

“Why, are they trying to get you married off?”

“They are, they have been, they always will be, world without end, amen. Unless you do me a favor and help me out.”

“A defensive play.”

He opened his mouth to agree with her and realized what she’d said just in time. “You’re doing it again. Stop it. I’m not
using you to keep their good intentions in the defensive zone. I’m asking you because you’re a decent person, and I think
you’d enjoy it.”

She blushed, the color starting in her cheeks and washing all the way out to her hairline. Maybe she wasn’t used to people
being as honest as she was. Maybe it was easier to dish out than to take. Whatever. He was glad he’d said it, anyway.

“Let me think about it, okay? Do you have a cheese grater?”

He found it—one of his mom’s old ones—in a drawer and handed it to her. “What exactly are you doing?”

She began to shred the potato into a neat pyramid on the plate. “I’m making potato pancakes. I’ll put them with bacon and
melted cheese—unless you’re on a low-fat diet.”

“Uh, no. Potato pancakes?” He couldn’t think of anyone who whipped up potato pancakes at the drop of a hat. “I can’t let you
make supper when I’ve been making you work all day.”

“You worked, too. Do you have an egg?”

He did. For a miracle. “Here.”

“What about applesauce?”

“Tanya, nobody has applesauce unless they need it for something specific.”

“I do.” She glanced up from the frying pan, where four shreddy-looking pancakes were already frying. “Little jars of it, for
Randi’s lunches.” She swallowed, then went on gamely. “You spoon it on the pancakes. My grandma used to make them for me when
I was little. It’s a German thing, and she was from German stock. A great lady, my grandma was. I named Randi after her—Miranda—much
to Daryl’s disgust. He wanted her named after his mother, who couldn’t stand me.”

Whoa. Stick with what was safe. Food. “Sorry, no applesauce. Just a couple of apples I keep around for a snack.”

“Cut them up small, and we’ll microwave them and mash them.”

He’d never mashed an apple in his life, but since he’d bought this house, winging it had become a habit. No applesauce? Nuke
an apple and mash it up. Simple.

Fifteen minutes later they sat down to their improvised supper. And it smelled so good and looked so tasty he said nothing
when she bowed her head and said grace out loud without even asking if he minded.

The woman had helped him install a vanity and then made them supper. If she wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t there, it
was none of his business.

All the same, he waited until she finished before he dug into his food.

To: kedgar254

From: JohnnysGrrl

R u threatening me, Mayor Boy?

I know something u dont know and if u tell it goes to the papers.

What will daddy say then?

Want to know what it is?

L
aurie left work
promptly at three and drove straight over to the mayor’s house, which lay outside town on a couple of acres of perfectly
landscaped trees and shrubs that would flower in the spring.

Laurie had made a comment at Bible group during one of Janice’s rare absences about the army of gardeners it probably took
to keep Janice’s yard looking the way it did. She’d been informed that Janice and one landscape design student from the university
did it all. After that, she learned to keep her mouth shut and think twice before making snarky assumptions disguised as compliments.

That was one nice thing, she reflected as she turned into the driveway. She did put her foot in her mouth, but generally only
once on any given subject. The Lord was endlessly patient.

The big item on today’s list was Kyle Edgar, who should be arriving on the bus at any moment. Anna was under strict instructions
to go to Susquanny Building Supply and stay in her dad’s office until five o’clock, and then ride home with him. Tim, at least
for now, could be trusted to come home on his own.

The bell played the first four notes of Big Ben’s peal when she pressed it, and a moment later, Janice swung open the door.

“Laurie!”

She couldn’t blame Janice for being surprised. She’d been here once for a church fund-raising event, and once to hear a visiting
gospel singer put on a house concert sponsored by Glendale Bible Fellowship. Other than that, she saw Janice at Bible study
and on the news and that was it.

“Can I talk to you?” Laurie asked. “About our kids?”

“Of course. Come on in.” She closed the door and Laurie shrugged out of her coat, trying not to be impressed and envious.
Her house didn’t have solid-looking wainscoting like this, or floor-to-ceiling windows. It didn’t have beautiful flower arrangements,
either, or a music room with an antique Steinway and a Persian carpet on the floor.

I love my house. It’s our refuge. Quit coveting.

“I was just making a snack for Kyle when he gets home from practice,” Janice said. “Come on and let’s eat it all instead.”

The snack turned out to be carrot cake from a boutique bakery whose sweets were more than Laurie could ever afford. The first
bite was bliss.

“So what’s happened to bring you all the way out here?” Janice asked, licking a quarter inch of cream cheese frosting off
her fork. “You said it was about our kids. And something to do with . . . that night?”

“You could say so. You told me at lunch yesterday that the kids were pointing fingers at Kyle, saying he was there, and you
found out he was?”

“Yes.”

“Well, guess what. Someone else pointed a finger, and I found out Anna was, too.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You were right. About the bedroom window as an escape route. She goes over the roof and down a wrought-iron trellis next
to the garage.”

Janice put her fork down and sighed. “I’m sorry to hear it, Laurie. I really am.”

“I also found out who Kyle’s girlfriend is.”

“Anna told you? Who is it?”

Laurie had to laugh at the irony of it all, and how completely their kids had flimflammed them. “Her.
Anna
.”

Janice stared, then blinked, then picked up her fork and put it down again. The tiny clink sounded like an alarm bell in the
silence of the glossy kitchen.

“Our kids are sneaking out to see each other?”

“You’d think they’d just invite themselves over for dinner, wouldn’t you? Or come over to watch TV or study like normal people.”

“Does Anna think I’m some kind of evil witch or some-thing?”

Poor Janice. She looked ready to cry at the thought that a fourteen-year-old would make her boyfriend bike a mile into town
in the middle of the night, just to avoid running into his mother.

“According to Brendan O’Day, who got it from Nancy, it’s because I think you’re a social climber.”

Janice choked on her cake and fumbled for the mug of tea next to her plate. “A what?”

“Apparently I’m upset because you get all the TV coverage when I’m in the back room at community events, doing all the work.”

Janice clapped both hands over her mouth, but a sound suspiciously like a giggle escaped. Laurie had never thought she’d see
the day when quiet, elegant Janice Edgar would laugh out loud with her mouth full.

“Do they have any idea?” Janice gasped at last, grabbing the mug for another gulp of tea. “Do they have a single clue how
hard it is for me to speak in public? That I have to carry breath mints in case I throw up in the ladies’ room before a speech?”

She did? Laurie had never had stage fright in her life, but she could imagine it. Just take the kind of fear she’d been living
with over the last few days, water it down a little, and focus it into a pinpoint of time. Maybe it would be like that.

“Of course not. They’re just petty, jealous people with tiny souls who can’t do anything themselves, so they talk about the
people who
do
do things.”

“No one knows better than I do what you contribute to this town, Laurie—how much organizing and cooking and legwork go on
behind the scenes. If they knew how hard it is to be Barrett’s wife when all I want to do is stay home and grub around in
the garden, they’d sing a different tune.” Janice shook her head and took another sip of tea. “I’m having a terrible time
getting this plan for the women’s shelter off the ground. Maybe I should ask Nancy O’Day to be on the fund-raising committee.”

“If you promised her a TV crew, she’d be your slave for life.”

“No, thanks. But she has a gift for getting under people’s skin. That could come in handy if I set her on some of the corporations
who’ve promised funding and not come through.” She sighed. “But you didn’t come over here to talk about my civic projects.
We have a mutual problem.”

Did she mean their two kids sneaking out to see each other, or the bigger problem of why their stories didn’t jibe about what
went on at the bridge?

“I wondered if Kyle has said anything to the police about Anna being at the bridge that night. Nick knows she was, but they’re
going to want a statement from a witness.”

Janice lifted her head, like a greyhound sniffing the wind. “Here he is now. Why don’t we ask him?”

Laurie hadn’t heard a thing. Janice must have good hearing—or else she was so attuned to Kyle’s whereabouts lately that it
had become almost another sense.