Lisa Jackson - Born To Die

Kacey wondered how well she knew her mother. How well she’d ever known her. Maribelle was full of secrets and obfuscation. The truth was a thing to hide.

“How about that? You actually showed up.”

Dan Grayson’s smile stretched across his face as he stood in the doorway and swung the door open to allow Alvarez to step inside.

She’d almost turned around when she’d spied the unfamiliar car parked near the garage, snow piled four inches over it, so that it was impossible to tell what make or model it was. A small compact, it looked like.

“Hey, Hattie! We’ve got company,” he called over his shoulder, and Alvarez’s stomach dropped an inch or two. “Come in, come in. Cold as the devil out there!” Stepping out of the doorway, he waved her inside, and she forced a smile she didn’t feel.

What a mistake! He’d suggested she come over just to be polite, that was all. But now there was no turning back; she’d just have to make her excuses early and leave. She stepped into the entryway of the cabin and heard the thunder of footsteps.

Two girls who looked to be around seven, identical twins, rounded the corner. One was dressed in pink, and her hair was pinned back behind her ears with a matching headband. The other, in green, wore a ponytail that was slipping out of its band, and when she smiled, she showed a missing front tooth.

“Girls, this is Detective, er, Ms. Alvarez.” Then to Alvarez, “Selena, meet McKenzie and Mallory.”

“Hi,” the girl in pink, McKenzie, said. Her sister’s eyebrows pulled together, and she glared at Alvarez as steady footsteps clipped from behind and a woman who could have been a twin for June Cleaver appeared. Tall, slim, in heels and a sheath, she smiled brightly as she spied Alvarez.

“I’m Hattie,” she said with a warm smile. She was actually wearing a strand of pearls and one of those flimsy, useless aprons that wrapped around her wasp-thin waist. Her hair was pulled to the back and pinned with a fancy comb of some sort. She looked as if she’d just stepped off of a 1950s television soundstage.

“Selena,” Alvarez said, feeling awkward as she handed the woman, obviously the hostess, the bottle of wine.

“So glad you could make it. And just in time!” To Grayson, she said, “You could offer to take her coat. Geez, Dan, sometimes I wonder!” She glanced at the wine. “Cabernet! My favorite!”

Save me, Alvarez thought and mentally kicked her way into the dining area, where the old beat-up table had been covered with a pressed cloth, and fresh greens and a sprig of cranberry surrounded fat white candles as a centerpiece. Four place settings, chipped china on faded place mats, screamed that she hadn’t been expected.

“Dan, can you open this?” Hattie asked and actually winked at him as she handed him the bottle, then hurried through a doorway to what was obviously the kitchen.

“You got it.” To Alvarez he said, “Hattie is. . was… my sister-in-law. The girls are my nieces.”

“Oh.”

That didn’t explain a lot, and as if he could read the confusion in her eyes, he added, “Hattie’s my ex-wife’s sister.”

Oh, God, this was getting more and more complicated.

They walked into the kitchen, where Hattie was pulling another plate from a cupboard and a turkey, roasted to perfection, was cooling, waiting to be carved, an open bottle of Chablis standing next to two mismatched wineglasses.

Inwardly, Alvarez groaned as Hattie rattled in the cutlery drawer and came up with a place setting.

Make the best of it, she told herself. Just get through the next couple of hours and smile. Even though this is your own private nightmare, you can handle it. How difficult is small talk compared to searching for clues to Jocelyn Wallis’s death or studying the crime scene left by a sadistic, brutal killer? It’s only a meal, for God’s sake!

“Dan, why don’t you start carving?” Hattie asked as Grayson uncorked the bottle of red.

“Good idea.”

Alvarez buried her nose in the glass he offered her. This was a side of Grayson she’d never seen. The relaxed family guy. Dear God, what had she been thinking?

Hattie glazed the sweet potatoes to perfection, then whipped up gravy for the white potatoes as well. There was cranberry sauce and a pumpkin pie cooling on the counter… just too damned Martha Stewart for Alvarez. Why the hell had she decided to come… no, make that intrude?

They were all crammed around the table, Alvarez seated opposite the twins, Grayson at one end of the table, Hattie at the other, and Alvarez thought of all kinds of ways to escape. Hattie insisted the girls say some kind of grace. Mallory clammed up, but McKenzie said a sweet prayer that Alvarez thought she’d memorized in anticipation of the request.

The meal was tasty, the turkey succulent, the sweet potatoes a concoction that melted in her mouth, and yet Alvarez couldn’t enjoy it at all.

As Hattie served dessert and was literally beaming at Grayson, Alvarez found her cell phone and managed to hit a button that would make an alarm. When the phone beeped, she grabbed it and said, “Alvarez.” She managed to appear concerned, held up a finger, and pushed her chair back. “Yeah? Okay, go. .” She walked to the entry hall and made all the appropriate noises into the phone, then, after three minutes, clicked off and returned to the dining area. “Sorry, I’ve got to run,” she said. “Don’t get up. I’ll find my coat.”

“Trouble?” Grayson was already on his feet.

“Nothing serious.” At least that wasn’t a lie.

“Then, please, stay for pie and coffee.” Hattie’s perfectly arched eyebrows had drawn together in concern, little lines of worry evident between her brows. McKenzie imitated her mother’s expression, while Mallory was dipping an experimental finger into the dollop of whipped cream that was melting on the pumpkin filling of her pie.

“Sorry, I can’t. Thanks for the dinner. It was spectacular.” Alvarez avoided Grayson’s eyes because she hated trying to fabricate excuses and had always prided herself as a straight shooter. Lying didn’t come easily.

Grayson followed her into the hallway and found her coat on a peg near the door. “Whatever it is can wait.”

“Don’t think so.”

He grabbed the crook of her arm. “What’s going on?”

“Just a mix-up with some lab requests and reports.” He let go, and she almost sighed in relief. “As I said, nothing serious. I just want it straightened out ASAP.” She slipped her arms into the wool sleeves and felt like a fool as he helped her shrug into the shoulders. Grabbing her scarf from one of the pegs with one hand, she reached for the door with her other. “Thanks so much for the meal. It was incredible,” she said and hurried outside.

Reaching her car, she glanced back to see Grayson standing on the stoop, watching her slide behind the wheel of her Jeep.

“Dan?” Hattie’s muffled voice sounded from the other room.

Alvarez rammed the keys into the ignition and, as the engine sparked to life, flipped on the wipers to brush off the accumulation of snow that had collected on the windshield. She backed around and hit the gas. In her rearview mirror she spied the door to Grayson’s cabin close, all warmth and light shut away from the winter night.

Disappointment clutched her heart in its cold, bitter grasp, and she chided herself. What had she expected, huh? That she and the sheriff would eat an intimate dinner alone, that they would sip the wine she brought, maybe even share a kiss?

She could scarcely bear her own thoughts. She turned onto the main highway, only to be trapped by a snowplow steadfastly pushing snow to the side of the road, its huge blade scraping a layer of ice.