Maggie Shayne - Colder Than Ice

He lived, apparently, in a Victorian house two miles past Blackberry. The style of the place was similar to the one Mordecai was renting in Bonnie Brook, six miles in the other direction, except that it wasn’t as well kept. It showed signs of neglect, needed paint, and the lawn was a weed patch.

Mordecai did everything he could to ensure he wouldn’t lose track of the boy. He pulled over and memorized the address, the directions, the license plate number of the pickup truck. It was nearly noon. He whispered, “Can I go and search for Lizzie now?”

No.

He swallowed, lowering his head. “The school might have phoned for me. God knows Nancy Stillwater has to be quite ill by now.”

You have your cell phone.

“They may have left a message on the machine. If I don’t return the call, they’ll hire someone else.”

Your lack of faith will be punished, Mordecai!

Pain—splitting, racking, blinding pain—blazed through his skull. Mordecai slammed his palms to either side of his head, squeezed his eyes shut tight and grated his teeth. Pressure built inside his head as if it were being inflated, until finally it felt as if it would surely burst.

And then it was gone.

He lay limp against the seat of the car, panting, trembling, his cheeks damp with tears. “All right. All right. I’ll stay.”’

Use the cell to check your messages, and keep your eyes on the boy.

“Yes, yes. I’ll obey.”

Friday

“No, Bryan, you cannot stay home. I let you slide in the city, but that’s over. You’re going to school. You’re going to register, and you’re going to take classes. This is your senior year. It’s important.”

Beth couldn’t help but hear Joshua’s raised voice as she stepped up onto the porch to join Maude for their morning tea. The front door was open. The screen door was closed, but sound traveled right through that. Maude looked up, shaking her head sadly. She was in the middle of her morning injection—one before every meal was the routine—and she pulled the hypodermic from her arm and set it on the tray table.

“Important to you, maybe,” Bryan said. He wasn’t shouting, but he wasn’t quiet, either.

“No, Bry, it’s important to you. To your future. I told you before we left Manhattan, you’d have to register at the high school here.”

“And I told you to forget about it.”

“If you keep letting school slide, Bryan, you’ll never get into a good college.”

“I don’t give a damn about college.”

“Since when?”

“Just leave me alone, okay?”

Beth went slowly to her chair as Maude poured their tea. “Doesn’t sound like they’re doing too well, Maude.”

“They aren’t. But it will get better.”

“Maybe we should, uh, close the door. Give ’em a little privacy?” Beth suggested, with a nod toward the still-open front door.

“Well now, if I close the door, how are we gonna know how to help those two?”

“What do you mean, ‘we’?”

Maude just shushed her as the voices rose again.

“Bryan, you had a ninety-eight average your junior year. You were talking about applying to Ivy League schools, for God’s sake. What happened to that?”

“Gee, I don’t know, Dad. I can’t imagine what could have happened between then and now, can you?”

Beth winced. “Ouch. That was a bull’s-eye.”

For a moment, Josh didn’t reply. Probably reeling from the blow his son had just landed. Then, his tone gentler than before, he said, “All right, I know what happened. Your mom died. And that’s the most horrible thing that could ever happen to a kid. But, Bryan, you can’t die with her. She wouldn’t want that, and you know it. If she were here right now, she’d be telling you to knock it the hell off. You have to find a way to pick up the pieces and move on with your life.”

“Like you have, you mean?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

No reply.

“Bry, don’t think for one minute that I didn’t care about your mother. I loved her once. We created a son together.”

“You wouldn’t know it to look at you, though. Her dying hasn’t made one ripple in your life, has it, Dad?”

There was a loud bang, the slamming of a door, and it made Beth jerk in reaction. Moments later, footsteps came down the stairs. Through the open door, Beth saw Joshua stop at the bottom of the stairway, push a hand through his hair and close his eyes briefly. He looked haggard. She felt sorry for him. Not as much as she did for his son, though.

“Good morning, Josh,” Maude called.

Josh looked their way, his glance sliding from Maude to land on Beth. Sighing, he came out to join them on the porch.

“I’m sorry about all that,” he said. “Not a very pleasant way to start the day for you.”

“For you, either,” Maude said.

“Or for Bryan,” Beth said. Josh shot her a look, his lips thin.

“Join us for a cup of tea, Joshua. One of my homemade medicinals. Just the right blend to sooth your nerves.” Maude was pouring before she finished speaking, and Beth noticed for the first time that she had set three cups on the tray table, where there were usually only two. And there was a white plastic lawn chair against the wall.

Josh sank into it and accepted the cup Maude handed him. “If I can’t even get the kid to go to school…” He sighed, sipping the tea, not finishing the thought. “This is good, Maude. How did you know I’d need my nerves soothed this morning?”

“Made it for Beth—chamomile and honey. I thought she seemed a little edgy yesterday.”

“I was not edgy.”

Maude shrugged. “You’re always edgy when there’s a male of the species within twenty feet of you, girl.” She winked at Josh. “Thinks you’re all up to no good, I guess.”

“Most of us are.” He smiled a little, his eyes actually teasing her as he took another sip of his tea. “This is really hitting the spot.”

“Maude has a tea and a platitude for just about every imaginable occasion,” Beth said. “But I imagine you already knew that.”

“You’d be surprised how little I know about her,” he said.

“No, I wouldn’t.” She dropped the statement, then let it hang there while he tried to figure out what it meant. Bryan’s footsteps came tromping down the stairs, across the floor and into the kitchen. Joshua sighed, his eyes clouding with real worry, and Beth took pity. “I do some private tutoring, you know.”

“Do you?” He looked her in the eyes, and she got the feeling he had already known that. Probably Maude had filled him in. “If that’s an offer, Beth, I accept. Assuming I can convince Bryan to go along with it.”

“He seemed willing enough yesterday, when I spoke to him about it.”

His brows bent together. “He talked to you about tutoring him?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Agreed to start at noon today.”

“Well, why the hell didn’t he just say so, instead of arguing with me?”

Beth tipped her head to one side. “Maybe because you didn’t ask.”

His face darkened. “So this is all my fault?”

“Not all, Joshua. But of the two of you, he’s the one who just lost his mother. And you’re the adult. The only one in the world who can swoop in and pick up the pieces of his broken life for him.”

“Don’t you think that’s what I’ve been trying to do?”

He stopped himself there, literally seemed to bite off the rest of his tirade before it could spill out, held up a hand, closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s stress, and I’ve got no business taking it out on you. Are you all right?”

He was searching her face now, his expression remorseful and almost…tender. As if he thought she were so fragile an angry word or two from him could reduce her to tears. “Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be?”