Maggie Shayne - Kiss Me, Kill Me

Carrie drove her son’s ridiculously ostentatious car away from the high school, and thought about Gabriel Cain and why his name sounded so familiar. He obviously wasn’t well-off, driving an old VW Bus around the way he did. A drifter, by his own admission. She’d always wondered what drove men like that. Her own father had suffered from what her mother had called itchy feet. She’d grown up hating it. Hating it. Just when she would get used to one school district and begin to make a few friends, her father would yank up stakes and make them move again. It had been traumatic to her as a child and even more so as a teen. But her mother had always put her father first, ahead of her own child. And she’d hated that, too.

She’d never understood the wanderlust.

And she was irritated that she was thinking about painful elements of her childhood just because some stranger had wandered into her E.R. To hell with that. She reached for the MP3 player’s controls, found the playlist titled Just for Mom and, smiling a little at her son’s thoughtfulness, hit the Play button.

Then, as the smooth, soothing guitar and deep, rugged vocals of country music legend Sammy Gold filled the car, she relaxed and enjoyed the rest of her drive.

Her modified A-frame was waiting, as peaceful as always. Sam and the ever-present Sadie sat on the broad front porch. As Carrie pulled the SUV up to the oversize garage, she saw that Sam had his legs extended, feet on a wicker footstool and an ice pack on his knee.

Frowning, she parked the SUV, hit the button to close the garage door, then hurried outside, across the drive and up the steps to the first level of her two-story wraparound deck.

“What happened?” Carrie dropped her medical bag and purse on the glass-topped wicker table, and crouched in front of her son to remove the cold pack.

“Nothing, Mom. It’s just a little swollen and sore from overuse. Coach said to ice it.”

“Coach didn’t go to medical school.” She poked and prodded at his swollen knee, then flexed it a few times, one hand over the kneecap to feel for any problems.

“So what’s the diagnosis, Doc?” Sam asked.

She tried not to smile and said, “It’s strained from overuse. Ice it.”

“Thank God for med school, huh?”

“Watch it, pal.” She smiled at his teasing, though, and finally turned to Sadie. “Hi, hon. How’s your day going?”

“Better now that you’re here. You wouldn’t believe how he’s been whining about the game.”

“Lost, huh?” Carrie asked her son.

“By one. One. On a penalty shot based on a bad call. You wouldn’t even believe—”

She held up a hand. “Yes, I would.”

Sam gave them both the stink-eye and tried to change the subject. “How’s Marty?”

“He’s fine, hon. No side effects. Just a nasty bout of asthma and a bump on the head to boot.”

“Good thing Marty’s got a thick skull,” Sadie put in.

“That’s what I told him.” Carrie sighed as she looked at her watch. “It’s almost time for the afternoon round of searching for Kyle. But maybe you ought to take tonight off, Sam. Rest your knee.”

“No way. I’m not going to stop looking until we find him.”

She thinned her lips but didn’t argue. “It’s your call, hon. But I really don’t think we’re going to find Kyle by trekking through the woods.”

“I know what you think,” he said. “And you know I think you’re wrong. Dead wrong. Kyle didn’t run away. He wouldn’t run away. Something happened to him—something bad.”

“I know you believe that—”

“And no one’s taking it seriously. Everyone’s assuming he just ran off, that he isn’t out there somewhere, needing help.”

“Regardless of what anyone believes, Sam, everyone is out looking. Bryan Kendall swears that he and everyone else in the police department are treating this like a missing person case, not like a runaway, just in case. So all the bases are covered.”

“Right,” Sadie said. “And we appreciate how much time you’ve been putting into the search, Carrie. Even though you don’t think it’s going to get us any results.”

“Thanks for saying so,” Carrie said. And she gave the girl a smile, thinking again how much she liked Sadie. She was tough and smart and not afraid to say her piece. Girls were growing up strong these days. She liked that, too.

Sam was still frowning, no doubt frustrated. Carrie wished she could make this better for him, but only bringing his friend back home would do that. Damn Kyle for worrying everyone like this.

“It’s three,” Sadie said. “If we’re going to be at the firehouse by four, we’d better grab a bite and get ready.”

“I’m not hungry,” Sam muttered.

Sadie met Carrie’s eyes, rolled her own. “The average halfback runs eight miles per match,” the girl said, “burning off a few thousand calories in the process. There’s no possibility that you are not hungry. So it’s obvious you’re saying that just to make sure we know how miserable you are. But honestly, Sammy, it doesn’t help Kyle one bit to play stubborn and refuse to eat. It only hurts you. So do what you want. Your mom and I are going to get some food.”

And with that she got to her feet and sauntered through the wide entry door into the house.

Carrie smiled. “I swear, son, you’ve got yourself a keeper there.”

He smiled back. “I know I do.” Then he tossed the blue cold pack to her and leaped off the chair to his feet, forcing Carrie to bite back a squeak of protest.

In a moment her son was through the door, catching up to Sadie and sliding his arms around her waist from behind.

Carrie sighed, glad Sadie was around to help pull Sam through this tough time, and started forward herself, then stopped when she heard a vehicle in the driveway.

Turning, she saw an unfamiliar old-school station wagon with wood-grain sides. She hadn’t seen one like it since she was a kid, she thought. It pulled to a stop, and a smiling woman got out, her head of snow-white hair like a soft, fluffy cloud. Twinkling eyes, crinkled at the corners, gazed her way as the woman waved a hand.

“Hello,” she called. “Dr. Overton?”

Carrie nodded and, since the woman was hurrying toward her, trotted down the steps and met her in the driveway.

“I’m Rose. Rose McQueen. I know it’s terribly presumptuous of me to come by in person like this, but I just had to try.”

Rose McQueen. Carrie’s rapid-fire brain ran the name through its files and found a match. If only she could be so efficient in figuring out where she’d heard the name Gabriel Cain before.

Now what was he still doing on her mind?

“Yes, I remember,” she said, tugging herself back into the moment. “You phoned me last week about the room over the garage.”

The woman nodded. “Yes, and you said you weren’t going to be renting it out this year.”

Carrie nodded, catching a whiff of the woman’s perfume, which reminded her of her grandmother’s flowery favorite scent. “It’s just with the circumstances—”

“The missing boy. I know. I’ve seen the flyers. And you have a son of your own, so I completely understand why you wouldn’t want a stranger around right now.”

“Exactly,” Carrie said. She didn’t add that she wasn’t all that worried about strangers, since she didn’t think Kyle had met with any sort of foul play. No, she was more concerned about the gossip-seeking tabloid junkies and money-seeking amateur sleuths, all sniffing around for information on the missing baby from sixteen years ago.

“But still, I wanted to come by. Partly because most people just love me once they meet me,” Rose said, exaggeratedly batting her eyelashes and offering a coy smile that had Carrie smiling right back. “And partly because I figured you could tell at a glance that I’m no menacing kidnapper type.”