A Shattering Crime (9 page)

Feeling the urge to put a little distance between me and my mother, I opted to take the drive out to the fancy coffee shop up on the highway and there pulled into the line at the drive-thru.

As I waited my turn to place an order, I picked up the
Town Crier
and forced myself to flip through the pages one by one rather than turning directly to the classifieds at the back, which I knew was what I really wanted to do. Denial is a powerful thing.

No, I had really had no plans to leave Grandy's, though I can't say why I didn't. Until my mother's arrival I had assumed I was simply happy where I was. And for all that I insisted as much to her, still, she was my mom.
That meant whatever she said to me, right or wrong, carried extra power. So of course I faced the little itch of doubt that insisted Mom was right and I was staying with Grandy more to hide from life than to learn to live it happily again. Maybe it really was time to get back out on my own.

Wenwood was a small town with a low population. Its neighboring towns were not much larger. You had to go up to Newbridge to get any sort of real numbers. Because of this, the
Town Crier
covered not just Wenwood but most of the eastern side of Pace County. This wider coverage brought the listings of available apartments and rental houses up to almost two full columns.

Finally reaching the window, I ordered an iced latte and paid the tab before letting my foot off the brake long enough for the car to roll forward a whopping four feet.

I returned my attention to the classifieds and the properties listed for rent. Studio and one-bedroom apartments seemed the most predominant and the most affordable. With my limited earnings, renting a whole house was out of the question. But then again, wasn't renting almost anything out of the question? I had Friday and Fifi to think of. I didn't see a single “pets welcome” notation on any of the listings.

All right. Maybe that wasn't something that got listed but was something that was negotiated after. In which case, there were a smattering of studio apartments in Edgewater that I might be able to afford. And Edgewater was a . . . well, a bit more run down than Wenwood but not too run down as to be scary.

Edgewater. Studio. Just me and Friday and Fifi.

In Edgewater.

Alone.

I let the car inch forward into the space that had opened up before me. Almost there. A frothy, caffeinated beverage was almost in my possession.

I looked back at the paper.

Edgewater.

Suddenly it seemed so far away. It couldn't have been more than forty minutes from Grandy's house and yet somehow that seemed a vast and challenging distance. It would be a long drive from Edgewater to Drew's law office. Even longer out to the Dine-In. I'd be spending a lot of time in the car.

Alone.

And that was the bottom line. That was the reason I bunched up the
Crier
and tossed it to the floor in front of the passenger seat. That was the reason my stomach was coiling itself into a knot.

I wasn't staying in Grandy's house because I was hiding, or because I didn't have the drive to go searching for a better job somewhere more urban than Wenwood. That wasn't it at all. I was simply and genuinely happy where I was. One of the largest components of that happiness, one of the hardest for me to admit even to myself, was that I didn't want to be alone. Living with Grandy had given me the sense of permanence I missed having as a child, the sense of family I longed for in those months when it was Mom and me leaving Grandy and Grandma behind and heading off for the next great destination that my mother believed would be perfect.

A gap opened ahead of my car and I rolled forward
little by little until my window was aligned with the serving window on the side of the building. I accepted the latte the barista handed to me and slipped it into the vehicle's cup holder before settling into the renewed business of driving.

As I made the turn out of the coffee spot's drive-thru and back onto the road, I flicked one last glance at the
Town Crier
bunched up on the floor. Until Grandy asked me to leave, I was determined to stay
put.

A
s I was growing up, my mom and I relocated periodically as she went from job to job and, to a lesser extent, husband to husband. At the time I thought that was normal. Later, I blamed it on my mother's inability to put down roots. Now that I knew one of her primary motives was staying out of Wenwood for as long as possible, things made a little more sense. None of this is to say that Mom could in any way be described as flaky or irresponsible. She was a good mother, even with our constantly changing addresses. After my dad—my real dad—died when I was two, Mom took every chance she could to improve her and my situation. Those chances didn't always turn out for the best. Those were the times we'd land back in Wenwood, bunking in with Grandy—and with Grandma when she was alive. We stayed as long
as it took for Mom to get back on her feet or until the school year ended or, I guessed, until she couldn't tolerate small-town living for another moment, and we were off again, Nomad style. There was no money to buy or space to store comic books, and for some reason libraries weren't big on them.

A very long way of explaining why I had no idea who Iron Man was. Or Captain America. Or that Thor had an entire incarnation outside of a mythology book. Now, all grown up and helping out Grandy—and my bank balance—by waiting tables two nights a week at the Dine-In Theater he owned and operated, I was finally being exposed to the world of superheroes, twice on Fridays and three times a day on Saturdays.

“All right. What about Tony Stark?” Liz asked. We stood at the back of the theater, tucked into a corner where we could see the movie screen and—mostly—keep an eye on the tables of patrons. All the food orders had already gone out, giving Liz and me a short reprieve as the evening's waitress tag team.

“What about him?” I asked, keeping my voice soft without going all the way to whisper. Those Marvel movies can get loud.

“Would you date Tony Stark?” Liz was a petite brunette in her late twenties filled with inexhaustible energy that revealed itself in quick speech and unending motion. Even as she asked about Stark, one eye on me and one on the screen, she rocked back and forth with a little bounce thrown in.

“You mean if he were real?” I asked.

She giggled. “Yeah, or if you were a comic book character.”

“Do I get to pick which character I am?”

“Would you know which one to pick?”

She had me there. I was still working on learning the mundane names for all the supers and didn't quite agree that the Hulk looked like a Bruce. “Is there a reason I wouldn't want to date Tony Stark?” I asked. “He's a bazillionaire, right?”

Liz tipped her head side to side as she considered. “Yeah, but he is kind of a womanizer.”

“But not since he started a non-work relationship with Pepper Potts,” I pointed out. “Indicating he does have the capacity to commit himself to one woman. That kind of devotion can be appealing.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Wow. I never pegged you for a romantic.”

Her gaze flicked to an unknown point behind me a split second before a tap on my shoulder made me gasp in surprise. When I turned, the high school student who ordinarily manned the candy counter—and had clearly left her post in order to try and scare me to death—was standing behind me, pointing toward the lobby. “Some guy is asking for you,” she said. “He'd be kinda hot if he weren't so old.”

Liz and I locked gazes. I imagined the perplexed expression on her face mirrored my own. Hot but old?

“Go ahead,” Liz said. “I'll keep an eye on your tables.”

“Thanks.” I followed the candy girl out of the theater, saying a silent prayer that the guy who was waiting for me
wasn't my mother's husband thinking he might smooth over the tension the morning's family gathering caused.

She held the door open for me as she passed back into the lobby, and I followed her into the gray and navy area where patrons ordinarily milled about before the auditorium doors opened for their show. Now, with the crowd in their seats, the lobby was empty save for one man. Standing in the center, hands clasped behind his back as he studied an old one sheet for
Casablanca
, was Tony Himmel.

Old? My boyfriend was old? Not to me at least. Certainly Grandy would declare him a man in his prime. Still, I supposed to a high school girl he might appear old. She couldn't be more than—

It hit me with a sickening turn of my stomach that the girl's father technically could be the same age as Tony. Could that make me the same age as her mother?

I pushed down the shock, the nausea, and the frightening sensation of life passing me by and made myself grin big. “Tony. What are you doing here?” I practically gushed . . . and realized that the gush stemmed from being genuinely pleased to see him.

He turned to me with a smile. Hair damp, cheeks smooth from a fresh shave, blue eyes bright, he sort of glowed and I felt a little warm tingle right down to my toes. “I thought I'd surprise you.” He leaned down and kissed me, a brief PG-rated hello that wouldn't give anyone gossip fodder. “Maybe talk you into going out after work.”

He could have knocked me over with a thought.
“After work?” I repeated. “Don't you have to be at the site in the morning?”

“I do.”

“And by ‘morning,' we're talking before sunrise, right?”

He nodded. “Typically.”

“Tony, I'm not done here until after ten, if I'm lucky. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you like to be asleep by then, so you can be sure you're at the site on time?”

“Where's the fun in being the boss if you can't show up late once in a while?”

I might have blinked half a dozen times while I waited for his comment to sink in. Since we had been together, while he always made time for me—for us—that time had always been evening. I took soft hold of his arm—or more accurately, the fabric of his jacket. “What's going on? Is everything all right?”

His smile was gentle, warm. “Everything's fine.”

“Are you lying to me?”

He pulled my hand free of his jacket and gave my fingers a squeeze. “You know I'm always honest with you.”

The door to the auditorium opened, letting into the lobby the explosive noises of a superhero destroying a city in the name of justice. “Yeah,” I said, lowering my head a bit so I could look up at him from below my brows. “You're honest about the big things. But how do I know for sure you don't fib on the little things?”

“You'll just have to trust me.” He lifted his gaze from mine, looked over my shoulder as his warm smile
transformed into one that was more polite, somewhat reserved. “Pete,” he said.

I turned to find Grandy crossing the lobby toward us. He held his small, old-school ledger book in one hand, reached out the other to Tony. “Well, hello there, young man.”

See? Not old.

They shook hands in a way that seemed to define their relationship to each other: Grandy, the elder, the wiser; Tony, the younger, the student who had yet to earn the approval of his teacher.

“You've missed the start of the show, I'm afraid,” Grandy said.

Tony grinned. “I'll have to come back and see it another time. Tonight I'm here for Georgia.”

“Really? What trouble has she caused this time?”

“You know as well as I do she's never any trouble.”

“She's standing right here,” I said.

Grandy made a face that could only be described as a smirk. “Yes, and as long as you're standing there, you're not getting into any trouble. The minute I turn my back, you'll be off trying to figure out who killed that—what's his name—Rayburn something.”

“David Rayburn,” Tony said.

Grandy pointed a finger at Tony. “That's the one.”

“I only saw the guy once,” I said. “I have no intention of trying to figure out who poisoned him.” I turned narrowed eyes on Grandy. “But can you honestly say you wouldn't want me poking around if the police weren't already convinced Rozelle had nothing to do with it?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Let's be grateful
for the wisdom of the police in this case. I take it your friend Detective Nolan is involved? He seems to always be in the middle of these things as well.”

I cut a glance at Tony, whose eyebrows rose at the mention of Detective Nolan as my friend. I waved a hand as though to brush away any potential thought of jealousy, though I supposed calling Nolan a friend was a fair, if not entirely accurate, assessment. There was a chance the good detective may have been even more than a friend had it not been for Tony.

All at once it hit me that Nolan knew Grandy well, and had even met my mother, neither of which occurred over the most congenial of circumstances, while Tony, who had asked to be introduced, who wanted to get to know my family, had yet to be given the chance. A gooseflesh feeling of guilt crept over me.

“Diana is assigned to the case,” I said, sidestepping any question of Nolan's involvement.

“That explains this newfound common sense the police department possesses,” Grandy said.

“Listen, Pete,” Tony said. “I know you usually ride home with Georgia. Will you be all right if I drive her back tonight? That is, unless you came up here in Georgia's car?”

Grandy squared his shoulders, stood straighter and taller than most any eighty-year-old could achieve. “I have no problem driving at night, or driving Georgia's car, and I'll thank you not to insinuate any differently.”

Ducking his head, Tony held up his hands. “I apologize wholeheartedly. It was thoughtless of me to imply . . . anything.”

Grandy lifted his chin, rolled his head like an Old West gunslinger—as portrayed in film, that is. “Apology accepted.” He looked to me. “Go ahead, then. I'll see you at home.”

“Wait, no—” I began.

But Grandy had already returned his attention to Tony. “I'll expect you for Sunday dinner. Five o'clock. Don't you dare be late.”

“No, no,” I said.

Given his earlier campaign to meet my family, Tony kept his expression surprisingly neutral.

“You don't get to argue who I invite for dinner,” Grandy said.

I shook my head. “That's not . . . I have no problem . . . I think dinner is a great idea,” I said, and mostly meant it.

Tony peered at me from the corner of his eye. He may have doubted my sincerity, but he was too much of a good guy to call me on it in front of my grandfather.

“Then what are you protesting?” Grandy asked.

Visions of the morning's set-to between Grandy and Mom gave me the shivers. “I don't know if now is the best time. We're all still getting used to one another,” I said. “I mean, with Mom's new husband and . . .”

“All the more reason for your man here to join us now,” Grandy said. “Better to get to know us as we really are, don't you think?”

No, I didn't think that at all. I thought Mom and Grandy snarling at each other had the potential to scare Tony away. And that was something I did not want to happen.

But Tony was smiling patiently . . . and a little
worriedly. I might have been scaring him away all by myself. “You're right,” I said to Grandy, forcing my voice light. “He should meet us as we are. Does this mean I don't have to dust?”

He grinned. “We'll get your mother to dust. Now, get going, you two.”

“Um, Grandy?” I pointed to the auditorium doors. “I have a shift to finish.”

Grandy nodded, smiled as though this was a new and appealing revelation. “So you do. Well. This is a conundrum.” Then he reached out and gave Tony an amiable slap on the shoulder. “Why don't we wait in my office until Georgia's done? We'll have a nice chat.”

There are vulgar terms for the type of triumphant grin Tony shot me, and he went happily off to Grandy's office. I waited in the lobby for a minute or more, trying to figure out if I was worried about the two of them being alone together.

I had no fear of them trading stories about the brilliant things I'd done—whether brilliant was meant in honesty or sarcasm. The sense of unease I felt . . . I couldn't tell where it was coming from, couldn't pinpoint its source with any precision. There was something behind the idea of Tony meeting my family, something so . . . serious, so formal, so . . .

. . . so once burned twice shy.

I took a deep breath, ran my hands down my thighs, smoothing the black fabric of my slacks. From the corner of my eye, I spied the candy girl leaning across the counter.

“That's your boyfriend, huh?” she asked.

I didn't think an answer was strictly necessary.

“I guess he's the right age for you,” she said.

I was pretty sure she had just called me old.

*   *   *

P
ast the Dine-In Theater, in the opposite direction of Wenwood, there was a retail center that featured a chain restaurant.

“Wow,” I said when Tony pulled into a vacant parking spot at the rear of the establishment. “You really know how to show a girl a good time, huh? They have two-for-one appetizers here and everything.”

He switched off the engine and smiled. “Play your cards right and next time I might just take you to a restaurant with cloth napkins.”

“Oh, be still, my heart.”

I hadn't forgotten, not for one minute of our drive, that Tony had something on his mind, something big enough or important enough to warrant staying out past his bedtime. Sure, he had said everything was fine. But the funny thing about “fine” is that it's almost always a lie—in varying degrees perhaps, but a lie all the same.

He took my hand as we circled the exterior of the restaurant. The night had grown cooler, and his warmth was reassuring.

We were shown to a table outside the bar area, where the hostess warned the kitchen would close within the hour so we should order any food straightaway.