Twilight (15 page)

15

T
he meal at Tico’s had been every bit as wonderful as the first Dana had shared there with Rick. Burritos stuffed with succulent meat and cheese and spicy jalapeños had been washed down with icy beer. The conversation had been pitifully short on answers, though.

Tico had joined them for a time, but he knew no more than Rick claimed to about the murder. Rick had leaned back in the seat across from her and kept quiet as she cross-examined his friend. There was an expression of tolerant amusement on his face that she had hated.

“This just doesn’t make sense,” she had cried out at one point in frustration. “No one is more likely to be tapped into the underground network around this part of town, but neither of you has turned up so much as a whiff of information. Why is that?”

She noticed that the two men exchanged a significant look at the question, but both remained stubbornly silent. “What is it that you’re not telling me?” she asked again, certain that they were holding back, protecting someone or something—Yo, Amigo, for instance.

Both had denied they were hiding a thing, but she knew a cover-up when she saw one. Neither of them could look her in the eye when he said it. She had vowed to take the subject up with Rick again on the way home, but he was prepared for her questions. He fielded them with vague replies that left her feeling more irritable than ever.

She was still trying to make sense of their odd behavior the next day as she prepared for the arrival of the group from the church. She had baked all morning and hauled out her grandmother’s silver service, the one she used only for formal occasions. She’d washed all of her best china cups and set them up on the gleaming dining room table, along with platters of triangular, crustless sandwiches, scones, tiny cakes and delicate almond cookies. She had held enough of these formal teas that she was able to do most of it by rote while her mind toyed with interpreting those undercurrents the night before. Unfortunately, no new spin came to her.

She spent a solid hour dressing for the occasion, more time than she’d spent on herself since Ken’s funeral. She chose a soft gray suit, a prim white blouse and gray pumps. Her sterling silver necklace and earrings had been a gift from Ken on a trip they’d taken to Mexico to celebrate their first anniversary.

As she touched the cool metal at her throat, tears stung her eyes, and her gaze drifted toward the window overlooking the church cemetery. A huge knot formed in her throat as she looked at the snow-covered gravesite, where long-dead flowers poked through the blanket of white. The sight of the neglected plot saddened her.

Suddenly frantic to see it cared for, she ran downstairs and toward the kitchen door, almost plowing into Kate, who was just coming up the back steps carrying an armful of fresh flowers to brighten the table.

“Hey, where’s the fire?” she asked, studying Dana worriedly.

Dana paused and shook her head, unable to get the words past the knot in her throat. Kate followed the direction of her gaze.

“Oh, no,” she said softly. “Not now, sweetie. You can’t go out there now.”

Gently she took Dana’s arm and guided her into the house and into a seat at the kitchen table. She set the flowers in the sink and poured Dana a cup of tea, adding lots of sugar.

“Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

Dana realized then that her teeth were chattering, not so much from the arctic air outside, but from the deep chill within. She closed her eyes and sighed as she swallowed the first warm sip. After several more swallows of the overly sweet liquid, she met Kate’s gaze.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. All of a sudden I was frantic to clear away the dead flowers on Ken’s grave. It looks so desolate out there.”

“We’ll do it tomorrow,” Kate promised. “I’ll help. We’ll buy some fresh flowers, too. Or we can take the ones I brought today.”

“They’ll just wither and die.”

“Then we’ll get bright silk ones that will last until spring. That’s only a couple of months away, you know. By April, there will be tulips and daffodils blooming all over the cemetery.”

Dana smiled at the quick, determined responses. “You’re a very good friend.”

“And why wouldn’t I be?” Kate demanded. “You saved me from financial ruin by getting that evidence against Peter. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be working at some fast-food place for minimum wage and struggling to support the girls. College for them would be out of the question. With luck and tenacity, maybe I’d even be a manager by now.”

“Who are you trying to kid?” Dana teased. “You’d be running the whole darned chain by now.”

“You always did have more faith in me than I had in myself. Speaking of faith, how did yours in those pictures turn out? Was Ted as over-the-moon about them as you were? Have you talked to him?”

“He called me five minutes after the courier put them on his desk. Rosa has a meeting with him tomorrow. Rick and Marco and I are taking her. She’s so terrified and excited she’s sure she’ll faint when she walks into his office and mess up the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“How did her friends take the news that she was getting such an incredible break?”

Dana chuckled at the memory of the aftermath of Ted’s phone call. “Let’s just say that registration for my photography class has gone through the roof.”

“Uh-oh,” Kate said. “Doesn’t that terrify you? What if lightning doesn’t strike twice?”

“Rick’s worried about the same thing. I told him and the kids that there are lots of things they can do besides modeling. Not all of them will be suited for it, anyway. I’m hoping I can use the class to get a fix on what they will be good at and steer them in the right direction. I’m not sure if I’m qualified to do career counseling, but I’m going to try.”

“Rick must be pleased that you’re fitting in so well,” Kate said, her expression sly.

“Let’s just say he’s trying very hard not to say he told me so,” Dana replied dryly. She glanced at Kate and thought she detected a new glimmer of excitement in her eyes. She suspected it had nothing to do with the kids at Yo, Amigo. “What’s going on with you, by the way?”

“Actually, I have a date,” Kate said. “That is, I do if it doesn’t upset you.”

“Why would it upset me for you to go on a date?”

“It’s with Detective O’Flannery.”

Dana tried not to stare in openmouthed shock. Of course, she shouldn’t be all that stunned. She had seen the sparks flying between the two herself. Even so, she felt somehow as if Kate were betraying her, shifting allegiance to the enemy.

“You are upset,” Kate said at once, interpreting her silence as condemnation. “I was afraid of that. I’ll call him and cancel.”

“You will not,” Dana insisted, trying to put her friend’s feelings above her own. She owed Kate that after all she had done for her the last few weeks. When Kate seemed about to argue, she silenced her. “Besides, you can pump him for information about the investigation the police are supposedly conducting into this drug business.”

Kate grinned. “Obviously he’s a very smart cop. He told me you were going to say that.”

“Did he also tell you whether he was prepared to lie through his teeth?”

“No. Actually, he said he intended to use the occasion to pump me for information about
our
investigation.”

Dana stared. “What? Kate, tell me you didn’t blab to him about what we were doing?”

“Of course not, but he’s no fool. He figured it out. You dropped enough hints yourself over at the church the day we met him.”

“Does he know about this afternoon?” she asked, just as the doorbell rang.

“Not from me, he doesn’t,” Kate assured her as Dana headed for the living room.

“I hope you’re right,” Dana said. “I’d really rather not have the cops turning up in the middle of this little tea party of ours.”

She opened the front door to admit Lawrence Tremayne and Gerrold Wald. As she greeted them, she noticed the others arriving in separate cars. While Kate took the coats the two men were wearing, led them inside and offered them tea, Dana waited to greet the new arrivals.

“My dear, how are you?” Miriam Kelso asked. “I’ve thought of you so often the past few weeks.”

“Thank you. I’m doing the best I can.”

“And those darling boys of yours,” a glamorous, middle-aged woman said, “how are they?”

Judging from the tautness of her skin, this had to be the very well-preserved Carolina Vincenzi, Dana concluded. “They’re still with my parents in Florida,” she replied. “We thought that would be best for the moment.”

She led the newcomers in to join the others. “Please, allow me to get you all some tea and you can help yourselves to scones and sandwiches or whatever you’d like.”

As the guests chatted in low voices suitable for an occasion in the home of the recently bereaved, Dana went into the kitchen, closed the door and drew in a deep breath. “Courage,” she murmured, then plastered a smile on her face and rejoined the others.

When everyone was seated in the living room, she was about to speak but Lawrence Tremayne cleared his throat and regarded her solemnly.

“Mrs. Miller...”

His sudden formality made her stomach clench. She had the distinct feeling she wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. He was the kind of man who normally presumed to call every woman by her first name.

“Dana, please,” she reminded him.

Color bloomed in his pasty cheeks. “Yes, of course. I know that you invited us here to discuss certain things, but there are a few things that I wanted to pass along to you, on behalf of the elders.”

Dana glanced at Kate and saw that her gaze had narrowed suspiciously as she watched the normally slick church leader try to impart some apparently unpleasant news.

“Of course, you first,” she said with as much grace as she could manage, when she was overcome with a sense of impending doom.

“It has been several weeks now since...” He uncharacteristically fumbled for words. “Since your loss.”

Dana remained silent and waited.

“We don’t want to rush you into a decision about the future, of course.” He looked to the others for support, but their expressions were carefully guarded. Most had their gazes cast toward the floor or ceiling. “Actually, it’s about the house.”

“The house,” Dana repeated blankly, then realized exactly where he was heading. “This house.” She swallowed back panic. Even though she’d known it was coming, it was too soon. They couldn’t force her out yet. She needed more time.

“You would like me to move, is that it?” she asked, her voice shaky.

Relief spread over his face. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

“How soon?” she asked.

“As I said, we don’t want to rush you. We haven’t settled on a new minister yet, but we expect to have a decision soon. Of course, he will need a place to live.”

“Of course,” she agreed, then repeated, “How soon do you anticipate needing the house?”

He glanced at the others, but they continued to avoid his daze. “A few weeks, a month perhaps, if that wouldn’t be too difficult for you to arrange. I know I had told you to take all the time you needed, but it’s just not practical to let you stay indefinitely.”

“Of course not. I can be out of here by the weekend, if that would help,” she said, fighting an unreasonable fury.

Of course, this was the church’s property. She had known that sooner or later she would have to leave it, had already begun making mental, if not practical, plans, but she hadn’t expected it to be this soon. She hadn’t expected this callous announcement in her own living room with others staring on in uncomfortable silence. She especially hadn’t expected it coming from a man who had shown her such compassion right after Ken’s death.

“Don’t be silly,” Miriam Kelso soothed, scowling at Lawrence Tremayne. “You take all the time you need. If the new minister arrives, we can certainly make arrangements to accommodate him until you’re able to make your plans. Your life has been disrupted enough without us adding to it.”

“Thank you,” Dana said, all too aware that Miriam Kelso’s kindness wouldn’t fare well against the grim determination she had seen on Lawrence Tremayne’s face. She couldn’t allow that to matter, though. She had to remain focused on the reason for this gathering. She had brought them all here to ferret out information, to get their uncensored reactions to the news that the matter of Ken’s death was far from over. This discussion about her moving on was untimely, but irrelevant.

“I would like a little more time here,” she said, injecting a dutiful note of gratitude into her voice. She deliberately glanced in the direction of the cemetery. She didn’t have to feign the tears that formed in her eyes. “I’m not quite ready to move on and leave Ken behind.”

In truth, she hadn’t even considered that aspect when she had made the decision to bury him right here, rather than somewhere else. The church had offered the burial plot, and she had seized the offer, because it was one more detail she wouldn’t have to attend to.

“Of course you’re not ready to make a move yet,” Mrs. Kelso declared sympathetically. “We understand perfectly. It was all so sudden, so terribly tragic.”

The others chimed in dutifully. Dana wondered if they’d heard yet about the latest phase of the investigation. Apparently not, since none of them brought it up. If they’d known about the drugs, they might very well have ordered her off the premises that very afternoon.

She managed a weak, placating smile. “I also would like all of you to know that I am doing everything I can to solve Ken’s murder,” she said as if assuming the news would delight them. She watched their reactions very closely, as she added, “The police have essentially back-burnered the case, but I have not.”

“I thought it was a drive-by shooting in that terrible neighborhood,” Carolina Vincenzi said, sniffing as if she could smell the bad odor all the way out here in the suburbs.

“The police are inclined toward that theory,” Dana admitted. “I’m not convinced. As many of you know, I was a licensed private investigator for some time before Ken and I married. I am conducting my own investigation.”

The guests did gape at that, even Mrs. Kelso, who’d been doing her best, up until that moment, to be supportive of Dana.