Sophie's Last Stand. Nancy Bartholomew

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      “Good morning!”

      We all turned. Gray Evans stood in the doorway. He was giving Ma the smile, the one that had melted my heart just yesterday, the smile I was trying to avoid thinking about.

      “Hey, y’all,” he said, his voice like molten chocolate. “I knocked, but I figured you didn’t hear me and wouldn’t mind….”

      “What? Get the man a cup of coffee and some cake! Where are your manners?” Ma cried. She was struggling to stand and do it herself, but Joe’s hand was still clamped firmly on her shoulder. Gray moved into the room and over to the table to meet my mother and father.

      “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Gray Evans.” He didn’t add that he was the investigator working on the murder case.

      “The detective,” Darlene said with a sigh. “You know,” she added, looking at Ma, “the detective.”

      Gray didn’t seem to hear her. He was shaking Pa’s hand and pulling up a chair, flirting with my mother and making it seem totally genuine, like he didn’t have a care in the world and this was a social call.

      I watched him, taking in every detail about his appearance. This was the first time I’d noticed the gold shield clipped to his waist, or seen the holster and the thick, black gun protruding from his side. He wore another white shirt, but the pants were a charcoal-gray and the tie today was navy. When I handed him his coffee, his fingers touched mine. A current of electricity seemed to jump from his hand and I willed myself not to feel it. He radiated heat and musk, and it was all I could do not to reach out and lay my palm on his shoulder.

      “So,” Ma was saying, “you know who burned my daughter’s car?”

      Gray shook his head. “Not yet.”

      “Vandals, eh?” Pa was asking.

      Gray looked him in the eye, a look Ma couldn’t see because Gray was turned to face Pa, but I saw it. It was the look between men when they wish to keep their secrets for later.

      “Maybe,” Gray stated, and that was enough for Pa.

      “You think she should move home?” Pa asked.

      “Hey, what did I say?” I interrupted before Gray could answer and possibly ruin my life by accident. “I’m fine. I’m staying here. There’s no danger.”

      But Pa was watching Gray. The detective’s eyes never wavered. “I’ll make sure she’s safe,” he said. “If I think she isn’t, I’ll bring her to you.”

      Marone a mia, you’d think I didn’t exist. You’d think this was the old country. Here they were, two men, discussing my whereabouts and living arrangements like I wasn’t even in the room, like I didn’t count.

      Gray took it a step further and saved himself from certain death at my hands. “Sophie’s a smart woman,” he said. “She took care of herself up North and didn’t seem to fare too poorly. I’m thinking a little town like New Bern won’t be too much of a challenge. She’ll be all right. And, like I said, I’ll be around.”

      He looked at me then, as if it was a statement of fact, as if I hadn’t ever said, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

      Gray stood, smiled and said, “I do need to ask Sophie a few more questions, just nitpicky details and the like for our records.”

      “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go sit out on the front porch.”

      “No need for that, honey,” Pa said, standing up and assuming control of the family. “Your mother and me have to go.” He gave Darlene The Look. “You’d better get to work.”

      Ma, utterly charmed by Gray, didn’t whisper a murmur of protest. “Mr. Detective,” she said, “you eat real Italian ever?”

      Gray gave her everything he had—the smile, the eyes, the works. “Home-cooked Italian? No, ma’am, I can’t say as I ever have.”

      Ma looked scandalized, turned to me and said, “Tonight you bring your detective home for supper, eh?” She didn’t wait for an answer. In Ma’s world, she commanded and we obeyed.

      “Well, Ma, maybe he’s got plans.”

      “No, I don’t have any plans,” Gray answered. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to impose….”

      “Good. It’s settled then,” Ma said, smug in her superiority over my paltry attempt to head off what had to be certain disaster.

      Tonight I would be taking Gray Evans to my parents’ house for dinner, alone with him in a car, forced to sit next to him, to feel the energy between us, doomed, as Darlene would say, by destiny and my mother.

      I shook off the thought of sitting inches away from Gray Evans. “Like a fish needs a bicycle,” I muttered under my breath. Hearing him chuckle, I realized I’d spoken too loudly.

      Pa got everybody moving. Joe personally escorted Darlene to her car, while Gray hung back, carrying mugs and plates to the sink.

      “Don’t,” I said. “I’ll get them later.”

      Gray kept on working. “I don’t mind.”

      But I do, I thought. I mind.

      Order was restored in the kitchen in only a few minutes. Gray poured himself another cup of coffee, easy and relaxed in my home, and then sat down across from me.

      “Joe gave me the note. There probably won’t be any prints on it. It’s been handled, anyway, so that’s not going to give us too much.”

      “I guess I touched it before I realized what it was,” I said.

      “Who looks in their mailbox expecting threats?” he answered. But he peered at me like this was more of a question, as if he were wondering if there’d been others before this one.

      “Nick blames going to prison on me. I know,” I said. I spread my hands, as if warding off Gray’s protest. “It was his own fault, he broke the law, but because I testified, he blames me.”

      “That’s crazy,” Gray said.

      “No, that’s just Nick. He has his own little reality where he never accepts the blame for his actions. In Nick’s world, he was right and I was wrong.” I looked at Gray and thought, what the hell, give him the whole picture. What did I have left to lose? Any chance of a relationship was long gone in my mind. Besides, I reminded myself, this man was taken, even if he didn’t act like it.

      “Nick had a secret life. I thought he was an accountant. He left for work every morning and didn’t come home again until dinnertime. He ate supper and he went back to the office—at least, that’s what he always told me, and I had no reason to doubt him. He had no other life, no friends, no hobbies, no other interests really, other than work. The only socializing we did was with my friends or my family. So it was a total shock to me when the federal agents came to our home with a search warrant.”

      I glanced down into my coffee cup and tried to pretend I was someone else, the woman telling the СКАЧАТЬ