Echo of Danger Page 8

  She still hadn’t managed to talk to Jason about what Judith had said. But it had hardly been the time when he was so helpful in dealing with Chief Carmichaels, and so sympathetic while she told Kevin about Dixie.

  It seemed unfair. Kevin had experienced too much loss in his young life. Not that losing Dixie compared to his father’s death, but he had loved her, too.

  And she had loved Dixie, too. Their friendship had been different from hers with Judith, of course, even though she’d known them both as children. But where Judith shared her values, Dixie had been much more of a free spirit.

  In her own way, Dixie had helped her through the painful time after Frank’s death. Dixie’s core of solid warmth was as dependable as it was surprising to people who judged her only on her exterior. Now she was gone, and tears clogged Deidre’s throat at the thought.

  Deidre pushed away from the computer and rubbed her temples. Life would even out again. She knew that. But right at the moment, it was difficult to believe.

  The telephone rang. Deidre frowned at the displayed number for a moment. It wasn’t one she recognized, and she answered cautiously.

  “Deidre? Is that you, Deidre? It’s Lillian James.”

  Dixie’s mother. Deidre’s throat tightened. She should have called her. “Lillian, I’m so sorry. So very sorry about Dixie.”

  “Letting me get that call from the police... I’d think the least you could have done was call me yourself.”

  Deidre stiffened. She’d forgotten what a negative person Dixie’s mother was. She’d always had something to complain about. But in this case...

  “I’m sorry, Lillian, but the police insisted they had to be the ones to give you the news. I know what a shock it must have been.”

  “You don’t know what it was like, hearing news like that in the middle of the night.” Lillian’s tone sharpened. “Terrible, and I didn’t have a soul there with me to help. You just don’t know.”

  Actually she did, but there was little point in saying so.

  “Poor Dixie. My poor little girl.” Her voice quavered. “It’s not right. Why haven’t the police done something about it?”

  Deidre rubbed her forehead again. “I’m sure they’re doing their best to find the person responsible.”

  “Heartless, that’s what they are,” Lillian continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “They were on the phone again today asking me what arrangements I’d made. As if I could be thinking of that when I was flat out with shock.”

  “It’s hard on you, I know.” She tried to remember where Dixie had said her mother was living now. Somewhere near Pittsburgh, she thought. “Would you like me to refer you to a funeral director here? I’m sure they...”

  “I can’t!” Lillian’s voice rose to a wail. “Nobody can expect me to do that. I’m too shaken up to even think about it.”

  “But Dixie is your daughter. Surely you want to do this last thing for her.” Maybe that was a stupid thing to say, but she couldn’t come up with anything else.

  “I can’t. I just can’t. That’s why I called you. You were Dixie’s closest friend. You’ll do it, won’t you?”

  Unable to sit still any longer, Deidre paced across the room, the phone pressed to her ear. “I really don’t think that’s possible. Kevin just came home from the hospital, and...”

  “Poor little lamb. He loved Dixie, too. I’m sure he’d want you to do it.”

  Deidre clamped her lips together to hold back a sharp retort. She stopped in her pacing at the side window, staring out blankly as she tried to think of the proper response. Unfortunately, she knew what it would come to in the end. She wasn’t capable of refusing.

  Dixie had never minced any words about her relationship with her mother. She’s a manipulator. Dixie’s voice seemed to ring in her mind. She goes through life using people. Well, I’m done letting her do that to me anymore.

  Maybe Dixie could have managed that, but Deidre didn’t have her toughness. She glanced idly toward the building next door, toward the darkened windows of Dixie’s apartment, letting Lillian’s complaints flow on unheeded.

  Averting her eyes from the windows, she noticed the clump of rhododendron at the corner of her property nearest the street. Its immense purple blossoms nearly hid the car that was parked at the curb.

  No, not parked. Someone was sitting in it, though all she could make out was a man-size shadow. Her nerves seemed to snap to attention. What was he doing there?

  “Deidre, did you hear me?” Lillian’s voice was sharp in her ear. Deidre dropped the curtain she’d pulled back and moved away from the window. She was jumping at shadows.

  “What did you say?” She forced herself to concentrate on Dixie’s mother.

  Lillian sighed. “I said you’re the logical person to make the arrangements for Dixie. After all, you were her best friend. And she died in your house.”

  Deidre realized she was rubbing her forehead again. She’d give it until she’d finished this phone call. If the man was still there, she’d call the police and tell them someone was watching the house.

  “I suppose you want me to clear out her apartment, too.” There was a certain amount of sarcasm in her tone, and she pulled herself up short. No matter how they’d gotten along, Lillian had lost her only child.

  “Sure, that would be great,” Lillian said quickly. “I don’t want the stuff. You can sell it and just send me the money.”

  “What about the funeral costs?” Deidre moved close to the window again, but this time she just pulled the edge of the curtain back an inch or two so she could see out.

  The car was still there, and it seemed to her that the man was leaning forward, peering intently at her house. She dropped the curtain back into place, her hand closing into a fist. If Frank were here, he’d laugh at her for being afraid of the dark. This was the time of day she missed him the most. The house felt empty without him.

  “Funeral costs?” Lillian contrived to sound as if she’d never heard the phrase. “I thought you’d want to take care of that. Seeing as how you were such good friends and all.”

  Deidre found she was clenching her teeth so tightly that her head throbbed. Somehow she didn’t think anything she said was going to force Lillian to take on this responsibility, but Deidre would be darned if she was going to pay all the costs, as well.

  “I’ll deal with everything,” she said, suddenly eager to escape the call, “once I receive written authorization from you allowing me power of attorney. And any money in Dixie’s account or realized from selling her personal belongings will go toward the funeral expenses.”

  She was surprised at her own temerity. Something about the thought that she was being spied on seemed to bring out the nerve Dixie had always said she didn’t have.

  “Well, I’d have thought...” The whine trailed off. “All right, then.” The final words were snapped, and the call ended.

  Fingers trembling a little, Deidre clutched the phone as she went to the window. If the car still sat there, she’d call the police.

  The instant she pulled the curtain back again, the car began to move. It glided down the street and out of her field of vision.

  She couldn’t very well call the police and tell them that the vehicle had been there and now was gone. But the incident left an indefinable apprehension prickling along her skin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, the previous night’s fears struck Deidre as foolish. She hadn’t escaped the thoughts entirely, but they’d been superseded by her pleasure that Kevin seemed almost back to normal again.

  Deidre couldn’t as easily get rid of her dread regarding making the funeral arrangements for Dixie, and she knew perfectly well why. It had been only a year since she’d done that for Frank. This new grief seemed to have renewed her pain over his loss. Seeing the f
uneral director again, choosing the casket and the flowers, arranging the service—how did she do all of that without reliving the worst days of her life?

  She had to, that was all. So she would do it, one step at a time.

  She moved to the window of the workroom for a quick look. Kevin and Benjamin were playing an unskilled version of baseball in the backyard while she and Judith packed orders for shipment.

  “I did just take a look at the boys,” Judith reminded her, voice gentle.

  “I know, I know.” She turned away from the sight of Kevin hurling a plastic ball toward Benjamin. At least, that was where it was intended to go. It landed in the middle of the flower bed instead. “I don’t know why the ball always has to land in the middle of that clump of irises. They’ll never bloom at the rate at which Kevin is stepping on them.”

  “Irises are sturdy. They’ll straighten up in no time, just like Kevin is doing.” Judith whipped a strip of packaging tape around the box she held with a practiced hand.

  “He is better today.” Her spirits rose at the fact. “‘Have him take it easy for a few days,’ the doctor said. You’d think she’d never met Kev.”

  “Five-year-old boys have only two speeds. Asleep and running full tilt.” Judith chuckled. “Men aren’t much better. Remember when Eli had that bad flu last winter? The minute his fever broke, I caught him trying to head out to the barn for the milking. I practically had to sit on him to keep him in.”

  Deidre nodded, smiling. She remembered how worried Judith had been, too. She and Eli were two halves of a whole, and having him so sick had shaken her. Deidre picked up a pair of wooden birds and began wrapping them in Bubble Wrap. She and Frank had been a pair, too. If he’d been in the house last night, she wouldn’t have noticed half a dozen cars parked out front.

  The memory disrupted the even rhythm of the packing, and Judith gave her a sharp look. “Is something wrong? Something more, I mean.”

  Deidre avoided her eyes. Somehow she didn’t want to talk about that car or the person in it who’d sped away when she’d looked out. Talking about it might make it seem more threatening than it was.

  “Now that we’re home, I’m finding it hard not to be reminded of what happened here.”

  Judith gave that her usual grave consideration. “Ja, I see how that would be. Still, this house has seen a lot in all the years since your grandfather built it. Sorrow, but happiness, as well. Much more happiness, ain’t so?”

  As usual, Judith’s perspective steadied her. In the long history of this home, it had seen plenty of love and joy. Maybe that was strong enough to counteract the taint of murder. Deidre managed a smile. “I don’t know if houses can have feelings, but that’s a good thought.”

  “I’ve always thought a home takes on the character of the people who live in it, ain’t so?” Judith affixed the last label to a package. “Your house has a feeling of wilkom. Of hospitality. One bad happening can’t change it.”

  Deidre hoped she was right. “I know that, right now, with the sun streaming in the windows and the boys yelling outside. But at night, when I’ve put Kevin to bed, he seems...well, too far away. I guess I’ll get over it, but right now I’m behaving like a new mother, tiptoeing into the bedroom to be sure the baby is still breathing.”

  “Ach, I did that, too.” Judith studied her for a moment. “Would you want me to come and spend the night for a couple of nights? Eli can manage fine, and I’d be glad to.”

  Deidre clasped her hand for a moment in gratitude for the offer. But of course she couldn’t accept. “No, I don’t want you leaving your family to fend for themselves so you can babysit me. The last thing I want is to make Kevin feel as though there’s something to be afraid of.”

  Before Judith could argue, the pop of the plastic bat hitting the ball caught Deidre’s attention. “Don’t tell me one of them finally managed to connect with the ball.” She headed for the window, but Judith reached it first.

  “Not on their own,” she said. “They have company.”

  Deidre pushed the curtain back to look out. She might have known. There was a certain persistence about Jason that was difficult to deflect.

  She stood watching him for a moment. His face was relaxed and smiling as he showed Benjamin something about holding the bat, his big hands covering the boy’s small ones. His expression wasn’t remotely like the look he generally turned on her, which came more under the heading of wary and suspicious. Come to think of it, that made his determination to be involved in their lives even more of a puzzle than it already was.

  “It’s wonderfully kind of him to take so much trouble with the boys.” Judith reached for her bonnet. “I’d best be getting home to put supper on. I’ll komm tomorrow.”

  “I’ll walk out with you.” She knew only too well that Kevin, who had not yet mastered discretion, was only too likely to blurt out something she’d rather not have anyone hear. “Why not let Benjy stay for another half hour? I’ll watch him walk home across the field.” Watching him would be impossible in late summer, when corn turned the field into an impenetrable forest of stalks, but now she’d be able to see the boy all the way to the farmhouse door.

  “Sounds gut.” They went out together, and Kevin came running to her.

  “I hit the ball, Mommy!”

  She caught him, mindful of the urge to sweep him safely into her arms. “No running, Kevin. Remember? Not until the doctor says it’s okay.”

  “I’ll remember. But did you see me hit the ball?”

  “That’s great. And I think Benjamin did, too, right?” She smiled at Benjy, who gave her a gap-toothed grin. His fair skin had already picked up a smattering of freckles.

  “They’re pretty good, both of them.” Jason smiled from one boy to the other. “Does Echo Falls have a baseball team?”

  “Not one that takes five-year-olds.” A fact for which she was very thankful. She’d heard from friends who had older children about the endless games their kids played.

  “We can get really good before we’re old enough to try out.” Kevin was the eternal optimist. “Right, Benjy?”

  Benjy, whose English was a bit spotty, just grinned, and she wasn’t sure he’d understood. In any event, although the Amish kids played ball, they seldom joined actual leagues.

  “I must be going.” Judith bent to give Benjamin a rapid string of instructions in Pennsylvania Dutch, most of which Deidre could follow. Then, with a wave, she set off toward home.

  “Did you understand all that?” Jason’s eyebrows had lifted. “Pennsylvania Dutch, was it?”

  She nodded. “Most of it. I’ve been hearing it all my life, after all. Kevin knows a fair amount, and with what English Benjy knows, they manage to communicate pretty well.”

  “I’ve noticed.” The boys had devised a game of walking around and around the bat that they held upright in between them. “They do a nice job of entertaining themselves.”

  Deidre wondered whether there was an implied criticism in the words. “I curtail the electronics as much as possible. I’d like Kev to have the kind of childhood his father and I had here in Echo Falls. Isn’t that natural?”

  Jason shrugged. “Maybe so. Most parents I’ve run into seem to want their kids to be up on all the latest. Prepares them for the world they’ll live in, I’d think.”

  She was tempted to make a retort about his obviously childless life, but restrained herself. Like most people not possessed of children, he thought he knew it all. He’d lose that belief after a few short weeks of parenthood.

  “I’m not worried about Kevin being left behind,” she said, her voice cool.

  “No, I guess not. He’s a sharp kid.” His voice changed a little. “Did you realize the police were in your friend’s apartment today?”

  Deidre shook her head. “I suppose they have to go through her things. I wasn�
��t able to tell them where her ex-husband is, but she probably had his address written down somewhere.”

  “I imagine it’s more than that on their minds. They’d be looking for any indication of who she might have been involved with.”

  The idea made her feel as if something crawled on her skin. Poor Dixie, to have her private life dragged out into public. The newspaper stories were bad enough with their speculation. Everyone in town would be talking about it, wondering who could have done it. Her preoccupation with Kevin had insulated her from much of the gossip, but it had to be flying.

  Jason glanced at the boys, still occupied by their game and surely getting very dizzy by now. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about something that has me puzzled.”

  “Yes?” She prepared to rebuff any further comments about her parenting.

  “Why on earth is the town called Echo Falls?” He sounded aggrieved. “I haven’t seen anything resembling a waterfall since I’ve been here.”

  Deidre let the smile spread across her face. “You have. You just haven’t noticed it.” She called to her son. “Kev, Jason wants to know where Echo Falls is.”

  Kevin abandoned the game, letting the bat fall. “It’s right there. Can’t you see it?” He pointed toward the ridge that soared upward from the valley floor.

  Shielding his gaze with his hand, Jason peered toward the ridge. “Where?”

  Deidre pointed. “Do you see that little dip in the line of the ridge? It’s actually a cleft separating two ridges. Just drop your gaze down from there and look for the glint of something bright. Now that the trees are leafing out, it’s harder to spot.”

  “Well, I see something, but it can’t be much of a falls. What is it...three feet high?”

  “Actually it’s close to ninety feet.” Deidre was enjoying herself. “Not terribly wide, but very powerful.”

  “It’s huge,” Kev said, making an exaggerated gesture. “Wait till you get up close. It’s loud, too. You’ll see.”