Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

I noted the change of subject. “A ceramic one, yes. For the corner of the deck. We talked about that last time, if you remember.”

“Oh, right. Right.”

Something wacky was happening, but I didn’t know what.

Clearly flustered, Lindsey fidgeted in her seat and couldn’t keep her hands still. Her eyes danced from me to the board to the floor and back again.

This might be the perfect time to get information out of her. “Have you and Bill been married long?”

She smiled. “Twelve years.”

“Really? You don’t look old enough to be married twelve years!”

I was such a liar. She looked forty if a day.

She blushed clear to the roots of her blonde highlights.

“You’re sweet. Thanks. I’m forty-three.”

“Leah was your younger sister, then?”

A cloud passed over her eyes, and for a second I didn’t Digging Up Trouble

15

think she was going to answer me. Finally, she said, “Yes.”

“It must have been hard.”

“Hardest on Riley, I think,” Lindsey murmured. “To lose his mom.”

Kevin too, I figured. He’d grieved a long time for his first wife. Five years.

I put my hands in my lap, crossed my fingers. “What exactly happened to her?”

“Boating accident.”

I knew that already. I pressed. “Did it crash?”

“Hasn’t Kevin told you all this?”

Busted.

“Um, well, he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Neither do I, Nina. No offense.”

This conversation was going downhill fast. “None taken,”

I said, thinking fast, grasping at straws.

I completely ignored my use of that particular cliché. It fit.

“It’s just that since coming to work for you and Bill, Riley’s been talking about his mom a lot. He has questions I can’t answer.”

I was going to burn in hell for my lies. I made a mental note to head to confession at St. Valentine’s as soon as possible.

Then I remembered I hated confession.

Maybe I’d just do some acts of kindness on my own as penance. God would accept that, wouldn’t He?

Probably I was going to hell.

“Have him come to talk to me. My door is always open.”

To him. Her point was clear. She was done talking to me about it.

Great. I’d taken on this job to get more information about Leah and her death, and I’d just gotten shafted. Now I was stuck with a nightmare of a job and no answers.

This was what I got for snooping.

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“Well, what’s Bill doing tomorrow?” I loved hearing the ways people tricked unknowing spouses to leave the house while the makeover took place.

“Bill?” she asked, her eyebrows dipping in confusion.

“Oh, he’ll be at work, right?” I remembered Riley worked tomorrow, a Friday, which meant it was a day Bill would be there.

“In the afternoon,” she said.

My shoulders stiffened. “Not the morning?”

“Oh, no. The restaurant doesn’t open till eleven. Bill likes to sleep late.”

My crew was due to arrive at six-thirty, the trucks at seven. This wasn’t good, and I told Lindsey so. “Unless he knows about the makeover?” Some people did that. People who just wanted their yard done in a day, but I tried to only take on clients who wanted the surprise, to keep the integrity of the business.

“Oh!” Her hands fluttered again. “Right. He’s, um, going, um, fishing. First light.”

My eyebrows jumped up to my hairline. “Fishing.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “He loves it.” Grabbing her purse, she said, “I’ve got to go, Nina. See you tomorrow.”

I stood and walked her to the front door, all the while trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Frenzied chiming filled the air as she thrust open the door, practically ran to her Escalade.

I turned to Tam.

“You have that look,” she said.

“What look?”

“Like you’re trying to figure out impossible calculus equations.”

Calculus. Ugh. I’d flunked that my senior year of high school and had only scraped by my freshman year of college.

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And only then because I’d had a crush on my math tutor and wanted to please him.

“I get the weirdest feeling with her.” The Escalade fish-tailed out of the TBS parking lot.

“Like?” Tam asked.

“It’s just that some of the things she’s said don’t jell. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid.”

“You are a paranoid kind of person.”

“Thanks.”

Smiling sweetly, she said, “No problem.”

Shaking my head, I walked back into my office. The phone rang and my hopeful gaze jumped to the clock. Bobby usually called on his lunch break, at eleven-fifteen.

It was only ten-thirty.

Bobby MacKenna was Riley’s vice principal during the school year. During the summer he helped out with his family’s business—house painting. We’d been “dating” for almost six weeks now.

One of these days he was going to want to sleep with me.

Okay, okay. I needed to reword that. One of these days he was going to get sick of waiting for me to let him sleep with me.

I just hadn’t been ready. How on earth could I let another man share my bed when I still had feelings for Kevin?

Homicide detective Kevin Quinn. Who in ten days would be my ex-husband.

Granted, I didn’t quite know what those feelings were, but they were there. And until I figured them out, it wouldn’t be fair to Bobby to pursue anything deeper, and it wouldn’t be fair to me.

Then I thought about losing him, and my heart ached.

Jeez. A girl couldn’t win.

“Nina?”

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I turned and found Tam in the doorway, twisting her hands over her extended belly.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “The baby? Now?”

“No, no. I’m fine,” she said, looking anything but.

My heart sank to my toes. “Then what?”

“There’s been an accident. With Riley.”

Three

White-knuckled, Tam clenched the steering wheel. “He’s fine. Just fine. Everything’s fine.”

She drove because I was still shaking. My hands, my legs . . . Even my teeth chattered.

Riley.

Oh dear God. Please.

“Tell me again what Mr. Cabrera said?”

“Some sort of car accident, Nina. Riley was on his skateboard. He’ll be fine. Just fine.”

“Was he wearing his helmet?” I couldn’t count the number of times I had to remind him to wear that helmet. He hated it. Called it “not cool.”

Better not cool than dead, I’d told him.

Oh Lord, oh Lord.

Tam swerved out of the high-speed lane, into the center lane, and back into the left lane on I-275 eastbound. Horns honked in our wake. “I don’t know.” She pressed harder on the gas pedal.

“Oh no,” she said.

“What?”

Then I heard it. The too familiar whoop-whoop of a police 20

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car. I spun to look out the back window. Sure enough, a silver cruiser was right behind us.

Tam slowed and pulled off onto the berm. “Let me take care of this,” she said, fluffing her curls.

Oh dear God.

With all the praying I was doing today, I definitely needed to visit St. Valentine’s soon. Maybe I ought to make an appointment to see Father Keesler. I would need a while.

Tam’s window slid down and she looked out at the officer peering in.

“Where’s the fire?” he asked.

Original, I couldn’t help but think sarcastically, but luckily kept my big mouth shut.

“Not fire, officer, water.”

“Water?” he questioned.

“Mine broke! The baby’s coming!” She motioned to her rather large belly. “I feel like I need to push!”