A Family Kind of Gal

  “I see you’re busy,” John said as he set his cup on a table. “Just remember I’d love to see all of you at the wedding tomorrow.”

  “You mean that?” Stephen asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  The boy looked at his mother. “We goin’?”

  “No.” She wasn’t going to change her mind.

  “Give it some thought,” John countered, and for a ridiculous second, Tiffany felt sorry for him.

  “I can’t imagine I’d change my mind.”

  If possible, Stephen’s eyes narrowed more suspiciously. Christina asked, “What wedding? You mean with brides?”

  John grabbed his beat-up hat and bent down on one knee. “That’s right, but only one bride. Her name’s Brynnie, and she would think it was just great if you were there,” he said to Chrissie, then straightened. “If all of you were there.”

  Stephen’s head tipped to one side as he eyed the stranger who was his grandfather.

  “Don’t count on it,” Tiffany said, but the ice in her voice had melted, and she felt a ridiculous stab of guilt for being so cold. “We’re busy.”

  “Sure.” He smiled sadly but didn’t accuse her of the lie. “I’ll be seein’ ya.”

  With that he squared his hat on his head and was out the door in a minute.

  “Weird guy,” Stephen said as he walked to the window and stared outside. Through the glass Tiffany saw the man who had sired and abandoned her climb into a shiny silver truck—so new it still sported temporary plates. “He’s rich, right?”

  “Rumored to be.”

  “Maybe you should be nice to him, you know. Go to that wedding.”

  “So that I’m in the will?” she said and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think so, Stephen. Money isn’t everything.”

  “But he is your dad.”

  “That depends on what you think a father is,” she said. “Now, let me get Christina dressed and you go in and have breakfast. Then you and I had better talk.”

  “About what?”

  She picked up her daughter and started for the stairs. “We’ll start with Miles Dean and end up with Isaac Wells.”

  “I told you everything I know.”

  “So I forgot. You can tell me again. Come on, Chrissie, time for a bath.”

  “I don’t want a bath.”

  “Too bad.” Tiffany chuckled as she climbed the stairs and touched the tip of her daughter’s nose. “You need one. Big-time.”

  * * *

  “J.D. Santini.” J.D. extended his hand to the lanky man on the other side of the desk in the small office. The building was quiet; the other businesses on the second floor had shut down for the weekend. “I appreciate you coming in to meet me. I hear this is a busy weekend for your family.”

  Jarrod Smith lifted a shoulder. “I come from a big family. There’s always something going on.” A sardonic smile sliced his square jaw. “Mom’s getting married, and yeah, it’s a big deal, but it’s not the first time or the second. Have a seat.” Jarrod waved toward one of the two empty chairs facing his old metal desk. J.D. settled into a plastic cushion that protested against his weight.

  “I’ll get straight to the point. I heard that you’re running your own personal investigation into Isaac Wells’s disappearance.”

  Jarrod nodded. His eyes bored into J.D.’s. This man was intense.

  “Well, the police are sniffing around my nephew, I think, and I want to find out why.” J.D. sketched out his relationship to Tiffany and her children and his concerns for Stephen.

  “Rumor has it the kid mixed it up with Miles Dean yesterday,” Jarrod said.

  “Ended up with a shiner that won’t quit.”

  “And the police found a set of keys on him. Keys they think belong to Isaac Wells.”

  “The boy didn’t do anything to the old man.”

  “No one’s proved anything was done to him. Isaac might have just up and taken off on his own,” Jarrod reminded J.D. as he picked up a pencil and turned it thoughtfully between his fingers. “But I agree with you. Ever since Tiffany Santini moved down here, her boy’s had more than his share of scrapes with the law. Until now they’ve been minor. Nothing like the Wells mess.”

  J.D. relaxed a little. Smith seemed to be on his wavelength. “So what happened to Isaac?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Jarrod admitted. “People usually don’t just disappear without a trace. Sooner or later he’ll turn up.”

  “Alive?”

  “We can only hope.”

  J.D.’s stomach knotted. What had Stephen gotten himself into? He reached into his back pocket and slid out his checkbook. The pain in his leg twinged a bit. “What kind of a retainer do you want to prove that the kid’s innocent?”

  Jarrod snorted. “I’m already working on the case.”

  “I know, but everyone needs incentive.” He snagged a pen from a cup on the desk.

  With a smile that bordered on evil, the investigator shook his head. “Believe me, I’ve got plenty.” He stood and thrust out his hand again. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  J.D. had no choice but to take the man’s hand. “I’d feel better if we had some kind of agreement.”

  “You’ve got my word. That’s good enough,” Smith insisted. “Trust me, I’m going to find out what happened to Isaac, come hell or high water.”

  * * *

  “Okay, kiddo, I want the entire story. Beginning to end,” Tiffany insisted as she nosed her car into traffic. Mrs. Ellingsworth was watching Christina, and she and Stephen were alone, on their way to do some errands. He hadn’t wanted to accompany her, not with so many questions hanging in the air, but she had forced the issue and won.

  “’Bout what?”

  “Let’s start with yesterday,” she said as they drove along the tree-lined street. Joggers and dogs ran on the sidewalks, dodging mothers with strollers near the park. “Do the keys the police found on you belong to Isaac Wells?”

  Staring out the passenger window, Stephen lifted a shoulder.

  “Do they? And don’t give me any song and dance about you finding them in the park. That’s not what happened, and we both know it.”

  “Okay,” he said, rebellion flaring in his eyes. “They were his.”

  Her heart plummeted. “Oh, Stephen.”

  “You wanted to know.”

  “I need to know the truth.” Her hands began to sweat. “Let’s hear it.”

  He sighed as if pained. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Wrong. It’s a very big deal. The man is missing. No one knows where he is or even if he’s dead or alive. And you lied to me.”

  “It was nothing, okay?” Frowning, he flipped his hair out of his eyes. He rubbed his elbow with the hand of his other arm. “I told you that Miles Dean had dared me to take ’em.”

  “Right, but you said that you didn’t. That you saw Mr. Wells on the porch and changed your mind.”

  Stephen worried his lower lip with his teeth. “I did see Mr. Wells. On the porch, just like I said. But that was after I’d swiped the keys. He didn’t say nothin’ to me, just stared me down, and I took off.”

  Her insides twisted. “You have to tell the police the truth.”

  “I know.” He stared out the passenger window, and his shoulders slumped in resignation.

  “Why didn’t you before?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. “Because...because Miles told me if I so much as breathed a word of it, he’d kill us.”

  “You gave him the keys?”

  “No.” He was emphatic as he shook his head. “I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel right about it, so I hid ’em in a box in my room. Then I thought I’d sneak ’em out to the ranch and put ’em back, but…I never got around to it. There was all that yellow tape around the house, savin’ it was a crime scene and...” He shrugged. “I thought I’d wipe ’em clean of any fingerprints and toss ’em into the creek. I was gonna do it when I ran into Miles at the Mini Mart.”

&nbsp
; Calm down, Tiffany, she told herself as her fingers held on to the steering wheel in a death grip and she felt sweat dampen her spine. Don’t judge, don’t yell, just listen. “Okay. What did Miles want with the keys?”

  “Don’t know.” Stephen was as pale as death, but he appeared to be telling the truth.

  “Is he planning on stealing one of Mr. Wells’s cars?”

  “Who knows? It doesn’t matter. I never gave him the keys.”

  “Thank God.” She braked at the hardware store where she had planned to pick up some supplies, but thought better of it. “Let’s go down to the police station. You can tell Sergeant Pearson what you just told me.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes, way.” She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Slowing at the intersection, she waited for the red light to change, then took a right. The police station was in the older part of town, not far from the park.

  Stephen squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “Mom, please, don’t make me do this.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Stephen.”

  “But Miles will kill me.”

  “I doubt it,” she said, though she knew the older boy’s reputation for violence. Miles was a tough kid who was angry at the world. “I’ll handle Miles.”

  Stephen snorted as the courthouse came into view. Old brown brick, the building was three stories and housed the circuit court, the parks-and-recreation department, the mayor’s office, library and, of course, the police station. “I hate this place,” Stephen grumbled as she glided into a parking spot beneath the spreading branches of a maple tree.

  “Good. Then let’s avoid it. All you have to do is stay out of trouble.” She cut the engine, pulled her cell phone from her purse and called Ellie so that the older woman wouldn’t worry if they were gone longer than expected. “We’ll come home as soon as we’re done here,” Tiffany promised her.

  “Oh, good gracious.” Ellie, who believed Stephen was an angel, was worried. “Don’t let them bully him into saying anything he doesn’t want to.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Well, I’ll be here with Christina. Now, don’t you worry about us.”

  “I won’t.” She hung up, flipped the telephone closed and stuffed it into her purse. “Okay, kid, you’re on,” she said to her son as she opened the car door. Mumbling under his breath, Stephen reluctantly climbed out of the car. She started for the building, then stopped dead in her tracks as she spied Katie Kinkaid, her younger half sister, striding across the hot asphalt.

  “Oh, great.”

  “What?” Stephen asked, his attention drawn to the redheaded woman fast approaching. “Uh-oh.”

  “Tiffany!” Katie waved one hand frantically in the air. Wearing a pair of khaki slacks, a white scoop-neck T-shirt and tan jacket, she headed toward them, the heels of her sandals slapping against the pavement. In her right hand she hauled an oversize leather briefcase.

  “This is the one who’s your half sister, right?” Stephen whispered.

  “One of them.”

  “The other one’s ‘the princess.’”

  “We shouldn’t call Bliss that.”

  “You named her.”

  “I know, I know. Shh.” She pasted a plastic smile on her lips. “Hi, Katie.”

  “Hi.” Katie’s wide smile was bright and infectious. Her green eyes sparkled, reflecting the afternoon sunlight. “Oh, gee, what happened to you?” she asked, cocking her head for a better view of Stephen’s injuries.

  “Nothin’.”

  “Doesn’t look like ‘nothin” to me,” Katie said, her face suddenly a mask of worry.

  “A disagreement down at the Mini Mart,” Tiffany clarified, and Katie’s eyes rounded.

  “That was you? Gosh, I get to write about it, you know. Along with the obits and gardening news, I type up the police reports, and while I was getting the info, I heard there was a scuffle down at the Mini Mart yesterday, but I didn’t know who was involved.” She touched Stephen’s temple, and he jerked away. “Of course, if I’d really wanted to know, all I would have had to do was have coffee down at Millie’s, I guess.”

  “It’ll be in the paper?” Stephen was horrified.

  “Nope. Because you weren’t cited. Looks like you lucked out this time... Well, maybe not, judging from the size of that shiner. I’ll bet it hurts.”

  “A little.” Stephen was noncommittal.

  “Well, be careful, would you? You’ve got a dynamite face, and I’d hate to see it all banged up before you were twenty.” Adjusting the strap of her briefcase, she faced Tiffany. “I heard John came to see you this morning.”

  Tiffany nodded and steeled herself for the onslaught she felt was coming. “He showed up around nine, I think.”

  “I told him it was a mistake.”

  “Did you?”

  “Hey, we all have to handle this the way we think is best. I’m going to the wedding, of course, even though I’m not sure I totally approve. But it is both my mother and father, and if they can find some happiness together... Well—” she turned her free palm skyward “—so be it.”

  “If that’s the way you feel.” Tiffany wished her own emotions were so easily defined. Ever since seeing her father this morning, she’d been in knots, second-guessing herself.

  “It is. I’d like to see Mom happy.”

  “Will this do it?” Tiffany asked, trying not to sound as skeptical as she felt.

  “Time will tell, but I can’t see any reason to rain on their parade. Sure, John was a jerk—” She slid a glance at Stephen, but Tiffany waved her concern aside.

  “Stephen knows the story.”

  “Then he realizes that his grandfather made some mistakes in his life. Major mistakes. But now he’s trying to rectify them. I figure why not give the guy a chance.”

  “I can think of a few reasons.”

  “Yeah, I suppose, but I figure it’s time to let bygones be bygones.”

  “I don’t think I can,” Tiffany admitted, though she felt a tiny twinge of guilt.

  “Hey, whatever you want to do is your business. But the wedding could be fun. At least the reception out at Cawthorne Acres will be. If you don’t have anything better to do, why don’t you and the kids show up? Josh, my son—you probably know him from school, Stephen. He’s some kind of cousin to you, and he’d love it if another boy around his age came.”

  Tiffany couldn’t find a way to say no without getting into another argument. “I—I’ll think about it.”

  “Do.” Katie checked her watch and sucked some air between her teeth. “Oops. I’m late already. See ya.” Half jogging to an ancient convertible, she climbed inside. With a clank, pop and cloud of black smoke, the car started. Waving, Katie wheeled out of the lot.

  “Wow,” Stephen said, watching Katie, her red hair flying, disappear around a corner.

  “She’s a real go-getter.” Squinting against the midday sun, Tiffany added, “I didn’t know we were related until we moved down here.”

  “You always said you wished you had a sister or a brother,” Stephen reminded her. “Every time Chrissie bugs me and I tell her to get lost, you tell me how bad it was for you growing up without any other kids.”

  “I do, don’t I?” Tiffany said, touched by the irony of her predicament. Throughout her childhood and awkward teenage years, she’d felt so alone growing up with only her mother and a grandmother as family—three women who depended solely upon each other. Every night on her knees by her twin bed, she’d prayed for a sister or a brother.

  Or a father.

  Old, forgotten loneliness crawled into her heart—the same painful feeling of being alone in the world she’d hoped would disappear when she married. She’d bound herself to an older man, from an established family, with two kids of his own, and had hoped to raise three or four children of her own and become part of a huge, chaotic and happy family. Philip had come up with his own plans. More children hadn’t been a part of them.

  Clearing her throat, she turned
toward the police station. “Come on, kiddo. We’d better get this over with.”

  Stephen looked as if he’d just as soon drop dead, but they walked past parked cars and spindly trees until they came to the wide double doors of the century-old building.

  “This is a waste of time,” Stephen grumbled.

  “I don’t think so.” She pushed the door open. “Come on.”

  Inside the police station there was no air-conditioning, and the few windows that were open were barred or screened, reminding Tiffany of where they were. The offices were now smoke free, but the walls and ceilings were stained by years of cigarette smoke that had hung cloudlike in the corridors and rooms. Stephen’s feet seemed to drag on the industrial carpet, but they made their way through a maze of hallways to Sergeant Pearson’s battle-scarred desk. Papers, memos, photographs and books were piled high. Three near-empty coffeecups were placed strategically around a computer screen.

  A thick-set man with a crew cut that didn’t much hide the tact that he was going bald, Pearson sat at his desk. He cradled the earpiece of his phone between a meaty shoulder and his squat neck, and managed to scribble notes on a legal pad covered with doodles.

  “Uh-huh… And what time was that…? About eight last night? That’s when the dog started barking?” He held up one finger, indicating that he was about through with his call, then waved them into the two molded-plastic chairs tucked between his desk and a partition separating his space from the next cubicle. “Don’t worry. We’ll look into it,” he promised the person on the phone, then hung up and shuffled his papers to one side of the desk. “Stephen. Ms. Santini. What can I do for you?” he asked. He leaned back in his chair.

  “Stephen has something he wants to tell you.”

  “Is that right?” Ted Pearson’s smile wasn’t the least bit friendly. “Good. Since the keys we found on Stephen yesterday fit into the ignitions of several of Isaac Wells’s cars, I think it’s time we had a chat.” He raised his voice. “Jack, you want to come hear this?” he asked, and a tall rangy man appeared from behind the partition. “This is Detective Ramsey. He’s been working on the Wells case.”

  “Call me Jack.” He shook hands with Tiffany and Stephen.