The Word of a Child (13 page)

"That's right."

She was clutching her purse to her breast like a shield.
"Do you know how agonizing those weeks will be for Gerald Tanner as well
as Tracy?"

Emotions moved in his eyes, giving her a glimpse of a conscience
she had wanted to believe he didn't possess.

"Yeah." In contrast, his voice was utterly without
emotion. "I know."

Mariah took a breath. "Just … hurry. Okay?"

Gaze intense on her face, he reached out and briefly gripped
her arm just above her elbow. "I'll do my best. That's all I can do."

Her head nodded, puppetlike. She didn't move.

"Mariah…" His voice lowered, roughened.

"Yes?" she whispered.

Behind them one of the doors opened. "Detective McLean!" Noreen Patterson said. "You're still here."

He blinked, and the next moment Mariah wondered if she had
imagined that moment of shimmering intensity.

"Start early, work late," he said easily. "I
had some questions for Ms. Stavig."

Ms. Stavig. Not Mariah.

And why would she want it to be Mariah?

"Did you have something you wanted to ask?" he
continued.

"Nope." Noreen scanned the cars at the curb.
"I was hoping to catch Justin's mother. And there she is." She lifted
a hand to them, then hurried down the steps and across the lawn toward a red
minivan with the doors open to what looked like half a dozen teenage boys in
soccer shorts and shin guards.

"I've got to pick up Zofie," Mariah said quickly.
"Unless you had anything else?"

"No." His voice was very quiet, very controlled.
"I didn't want anything else."

"Oh." Foolish to feel letdown. "Then I'll
take my bag…"

He looked back at her, expressionless. "I said I'd walk
you to your car, and I will."

"You really don't have to…"

He merely raised his brows. "Which way?"

"I'm parked on the side." Mariah was embarrassed
by her sulky tone. She pivoted abruptly and started down the steps, aware of
him following.

He was silent until she was fumbling to get the key in the
lock of her small red car.

Then, rather oddly, he said, "I take it I haven't improved
on acquaintance for you."

Startled, Mariah turned, the car door open. "What do
you mean?"

"I'm just gathering that you despise me as much as you
did last week when you walked into your principal's office and realized I'd
been called."

He sounded as if he didn't care, but his very stillness told
her otherwise.

"What difference does it make?" she asked.
"You don't need me for this investigation."

"I told you…"

"That I'm symbolic." For some reason that made her
angry. "Well, find another symbol." She snatched her tote bag from
him and tossed it onto the passenger seat.

Creases formed on his brow. "Now I've annoyed
you."

"I want this not to be happening," she told him, a
snap in her voice. "I want not to be a part of it, but you keep involving
me."

His eyes narrowed. "You didn't seem to mind talking
about Tracy."

"No. I … I'm curious. How can I help it?" She got
into the car, feeling safer. His hand on the open door kept her from slamming
it. Childishly she said, "That doesn't mean I
like
my role
in this!"

"You mean, giving the cop ideas? Letting him bounce his
off you?" Now his voice was silky. "What is it, too much like
consorting with the enemy?"

She gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead at the
granite and stucco wall of the school. "Do you blame me if I have mixed
feelings?"

There was a moment of silence. He sighed. "No. I don't
blame you. I hoped… Oh, hell. Never mind. I do appreciate your time and
thoughts, Ms. Stavig. Drive safely."

He closed her door and was already walking away by the time
she turned, her mouth open as if she were going to say … what?

"Damn," she whispered.

What had gotten into her? One minute, they'd been talking
like friends. No, more. She would have sworn he'd been … oh, flirting with her.
That was one way to put it. And then when Noreen came out, he shuttered his
every emotion, and hers had come irrationally screaming forth.

Maybe he was right, and she
had
felt
like a collaborator, whispering under the portico with the man investigating
the school's secrets. That's how the other teachers would view their low-voiced
colloquy, she knew it was.

She heard that low, rough, "Mariah."

Not a question, but perhaps the beginning of one.

But what had he intended to ask?

Or was she, once again, imagining things?

And if he
had
asked, what would her answer have been? And why had she been
so afraid of the question?

Chapter
6

«
^
»

"
I
'm
going out for a pass
!"
Evan yelled, running a zigzagging path across the open grass. "Breaking
right…"

Connor let loose the football, an easy toss, sending it
spiraling gently into his nephew's outstretched hands. Evan clutched it to his
chest and raced the last few yards to an imaginary goal line, where he spiked
the ball and did a victory dance.

Lazing on his side in a sunny spot on the park grass, Hugh
called, "Good one, kid!"

Connor reached the "goal line" himself and picked
up the ball. "Okay, why don't you throw me a few."

"Yeah. Cool." The seven-year-old's thin shoulders
slumped. "Except mine wobble."

Connor made his shrug careless. "Of course your passes
wobble. You have to grow into throwing a football. At the moment, your hand is
too small to put the right kind of rotation on it. Time will take care of it.
For now, you can work on accuracy and developing your arm."

"Really?" Evan looked hopeful, then downcast.
"My friend Ryan can throw really great passes."

"Is he bigger than you?"

He frowned. "Well, yeah."

"There you go." Connor grinned. "Evan, you're
seven years old. Trust me, by the time you hit high school, you'll be ready to
star."

A big smile lit the kid's freckled face. "Okay!"

"Now, throw the ball." Connor broke into an easy
lope, turning so that his pattern brought him into the path of the short pass.
"Good one," he called, and tossed it back. "Another."

Connor reveled in the normalcy of the scene and of John's
son and his daughter, Maddie. She was off watching the soccer games and kicking
the soccer ball with friends but within eyesight of her uncles. Hugh, who'd had
a late night with one of his blondes, pretended to watch both kids while really
catching some shut-eye.

Evan and Connor played catch until the boy was panting and
red-faced. To be tactful, Connor said, "I need a break. Let's go see what
your uncle Hugh has in that cooler."

Maddie arrived about the same time, dribbling the ball
between her feet. She was playing on a special team this year that traveled all
over the state to compete. Evan, perhaps recognizing that he wouldn't equal his
sister's ability as a killer forward, had dropped out of soccer and started
youth touch football.

"I'm hungry!" Maddie announced, easily lifting the
ball into the air with one foot and bouncing it from her forehead.

Hugh jerked and opened his eyes. "Jeez! You scared
me!"

"I think he should play goalie for you," Connor
suggested ruthlessly. "He's getting lazy."

"Yeah!" she exclaimed gleefully. "We could
practice penalty kicks!"

Hugh laughed. "You don't think you could get a kick by
me, do you?"

His pretty niece dropped cross-legged to the grass.
"You never even played soccer, did you?"

"I'm a good athlete," he said carelessly.

She gave him a piranhalike smile. "You're on."

Connor rubbed his hands together. "Oh, this is going to
be fun. Whaddaya say, Ev? Shall we watch the slaughter?"

"Yeah!" his nephew exclaimed.

Hugh gave a kind smile. "You should take pity on your
sister. Let's not embarrass her too much."

Evan fell to the ground with a raucous laugh.

Hugh lifted his eyebrows.

"You haven't been to one of her games lately, have
you?" Connor asked. "They don't play like girls anymore. You're in
deep doodoo, bro."

Evan thought that was funny, too. Hugh was less amused.

"Bunch of girls," he muttered.

Maddie was moved to heave the ball at him. He caught it in
midair and grinned rakishly. "See? Won't catch me snoozing."

"We already did," she said with a sniff.

However sunny, no late October day could offer picnic weather,
especially not on the Olympic peninsula at the foothills of mountains already
gaining the foundation for winter snowcaps. The McLeans had brought one to the
park anyway. John and Natalie had taken a ferry to Victoria for a romantic
weekend getaway. Privately Connor suspected they wouldn't leave their room at
the Empress. Hugh and Connor had offered to stay with the kids. Last night,
Uncle Connor had been enough entertainment. By today Maddie and Evan had begun
to get antsy and whine about going to friends' houses. The picnic had been an
impulse, but the kids had both jumped at it.

Yesterday Connor had worked, interviewing Tanner again and
half a dozen more students from Port Dare Middle School. Today, he had decided
to let well enough alone.

Tracy Mitchell and Gerald Tanner both could stew a little.
The girl had missed a week of school now, and must be getting restless. The
computer instructor's mood was swinging between anger and depression. Somebody
was due to crack, Connor figured.

"Can we go to a movie tonight?" Maddie asked,
unwrapping a sandwich. She seemed impervious to the wintry chill in the air and
the cold ground that had barely thawed by midmorning. Her sweatshirt was tied
around her waist, and she wore only jeans, a T-shirt and athletic shoes. But
this was a girl who played soccer games in pouring rain and snowstorms. Her
sport wasn't like baseball, postponed at the first drizzle. Officials never
seemed to call a soccer game.

"Yeah!" Evan chimed in. "Cool! A movie would
be fun. Can we?"

They had a rousing discussion about what was worth seeing,
with both men knowing perfectly well they would end up at a PG snoozer. The
trick was finding one that both a ten-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy
would enjoy. Maddie's tastes were starting to lean toward the preteen, while
Evan was bloodthirsty and repulsed by romance.

"Hey, that's my team," Evan said suddenly. On the
hour, players from the games that had just finished were heading toward the
parking lot, while the teams to play the next game were warming up. A group of
boys, filthy and grass-stained, were whooping and dribbling balls while their
parents trailed, chatting and carrying lawn chairs and coats.

"You should have kept playing," Maddie said.

Evan shrugged.

"You can go say hi," Hugh suggested.

He shrugged again. "Nah."

Connor watched him with the tangle of pity and compassion
and anger on his behalf that a parent might feel. Evan, scrawny and with huge
feet, wasn't very athletic right now. He would grow into those feet in a few
years, but right now he was struggling with a sense of inferiority.

Connor shared John's belief that their mother had
contributed to it. She had baby-sat the kids often after their own mother had
been struck with multiple sclerosis and forced to move into an extended care
facility. The kids' grandmother still stayed with them when a case had John
working hours that Natalie couldn't be home. For reasons none of them
understood, she had always been harder on Evan than on Maddie. John had told
Connor privately that he'd confronted her after Maddie told him "Grandma
is mean to Evan."