Cop by Her Side. Janice Kay Johnson

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      He sank heavily back into the chair. “Couple hours. How about you?”

      Jane bent down to hug Alexis. “Your daughter had nightmares.” Lots of nightmares. “But we survived, didn’t we, pumpkin?”

      “Uh-huh. I didn’t want to be alone last night.” Alexis and Bree had their own bedrooms now, but they’d shared a room until about a year ago. “So finally I went to bed with Auntie Jane.”

      Drew gave her a wry smile. “Lucky Auntie Jane.”

      “She said she couldn’t sleep, either.” Alexis followed Jane. “I can have jam, right?”

      “You bet. Can I have some of those waffles, too?”

      The little girl nodded. “But what if they’re all gone?”

      “Then we’ll grocery shop today.”

      “Or you’ll eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow,” her father said, giving her an admonitory look.

      She looked mulish. “I only like waffles.”

      While the waffles toasted, Jane asked what the plan was for today.

      “I think I’ll take Alexis to her day camp,” he said.

      His daughter let out a wail, threw herself from her chair and ran to him. Her arms clamped around his waist and she buried her face in his torso. “No! I don’t want to go. Don’t make me go, Daddy. Please. I want to be with you.”

      The look he cast Jane was so hopeless, she felt an anguished pang.

      He smoothed his hand over his daughter’s hair, the same brown as his. “I have to go back to the hospital. And Jane has a job.”

      “I can go to the hospital, too, can’t I?” Alexis pleaded. “I’ll be good. Really, really, really good.”

      The waffles popped up and Jane began buttering. “Lots of jam or a little?” she asked.

      Alexis ignored her. “Please, Daddy.”

      Jane slapped huckleberry jam on both waffles, stuck two more in the toaster, then carried the plates to the table.

      Alexis had lost interest in the second course of her breakfast. She kept weeping and pleading. Drew kept explaining that he couldn’t take her, that she wouldn’t be allowed back where Mommy was and she couldn’t stay by herself in the waiting room.

      Jane wanted to do something truly useful today. Scour the woods around the accident site again. Knock on doors. Go on TV with a plea. Something. “You can stay with me today, Alexis,” she offered instead.

      Her niece sobbed wildly. “I want to go with Daddy!”

      He rose abruptly, pulled her arms from around him and almost ran from the room.

      Alexis dropped to the floor and began to drum her heels while she cried. Wow. Jane hadn’t ever seen a kid actually do that. She knew how her father would have reacted if she or Lissa had ever tried it.

      Jane looked after Drew, wanting to follow him, but what he needed most from her was for her to take care of Alexis.

      Which did not necessarily mean rewarding a temper tantrum with sympathy, no matter how well Jane understood a little girl’s terror and need to cling to her one remaining parent.

      The two waffles in the toaster popped up, and Jane hadn’t even taken a bite of her first one. She had an attack of guilt for being such a pig. Poor Drew probably hadn’t had a bite, and here she was wanting to stuff her face to make up for missing dinner.

      “I’m going to eat your waffle, too, if you don’t want it,” she said, pitching her voice above the wails.

      Alexis cried harder.

      Jane sat down, staring at her breakfast and discovering suddenly that her stomach was churning. Sighing, she pushed the plate away and stood, going to Alexis and picking her up.

      * * *

      DÉJÀ VU.

      With no windows in the small room where Clay assumed family members were brought when the news wasn’t good, day could just as well be night. He had used this same room to interview Drew yesterday evening. Now they were at it again.

      Seeing his ravaged face, Clay felt some sympathy for the guy. But not so much that he wasn’t going to push today, and push hard. Clay couldn’t get the missing little girl out of his mind. If Drew Wilson had a secret, he was, by God, going to spill it.

      “Let’s talk again about what your wife said before she left. Had she told you in advance that she needed to do an errand? Say, the evening before, or that morning?”

      The chair scraped as Drew lurched back. “I’ve told you and told you!”

      “Tell me again.”

      “No! Why would she give me a lot of notice that, oh, gee, she needed some hair gel and tampons and she was going to run to the pharmacy?”

      “Is that what she said she needed?” Clay asked thoughtfully. “Was it that time of month for her?”

      The other man let out a hoarse sound. “How would I know? She didn’t say, I didn’t ask. We didn’t—”

      Clay watched for every twitch on that face. “Did you sleep together the night before?”

      “Yes!” A flush spread on his cheeks. “We just didn’t—”

      Was the embarrassment because this guy was too repressed to talk about sex, or had he and his wife not had sex in so long, he’d lost track of anything like monthly cycles? If it was the second, that had a whole lot to say about the state of the marriage.

      Clay made a point of relaxing in his chair, letting that subject go, if only temporarily. “Okay. So when did she tell you she needed to run an errand?”

      “Five minutes before she went.” A nerve twitched beside his eye. “Longer than that, I guess,” he said reluctantly. “She and Bree went at it for a while.”

      Clay walked him through the scene. Melissa had already had her purse over her shoulder and her keys in her hand when she announced that she was going out for a few things. Drew had asked where. Rite Aid, she said. Had she asked if he needed anything? Drew claimed not to remember, which meant no. He’d been the one to say, “Will you buy me some athlete’s foot powder?” Right after that discussion, their daughter had pounced. She wanted to go. Mom said no. Bree pleaded. Drew had finally asked his wife why she couldn’t take Bree since it was just a short errand. Clay saw the way his face tightened. His answers became more and more terse. Something about that squabble had bothered Drew, or the whole thing had blown up into a major fight. But the more Clay drilled, the more evasive Drew got.

      Clay circled back with more questions about the guy’s job hunt, his wife’s job, how she felt about the possibility of selling their home and moving. Had all this created some tension in the marriage?

      Jane’s brother-in-law СКАЧАТЬ