LITMIR.BIZ

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consistently negative, Melissa secretly thought Olivia and Ashley might be right—her sensitivities were psychosomatic. Deep down, her sisters agreed, Melissa was afraid to open her heart, lest it be broken. It was a wonder, they further maintained, that she didn’t sneeze whenever she encountered a man, given her wariness in the arena of love and romance.

      There might be some truth to that theory, too, she thought now. She adored the children in the family, and that felt risky enough, considering the shape the world was in.

      How could she afford to love a man? Or compound her fretful concerns by letting herself care for an animal? Especially considering that critters had very short life spans, compared to humans.

      Feeling a little demoralized, Melissa logged off her computer, pulled her purse from the large bottom drawer of her desk, and sighed with relief because the workday was over. Not that she’d really done much work.

      It troubled her conscience, accepting a paycheck mostly for warming a desk chair all day; in the O’Ballivan family, going clear back to old Sam, the founding father of today’s ever-expanding clan, character was measured by the kind of contribution a person made. Slackers were not admired.

      Telling herself she didn’t need to be admired anyway, dammit, Melissa left her office, locking up behind her. She paused, passing Andrea’s deserted desk, frowned at the ivy plant slowly drying up in one corner.

      It wasn’t her plant, she reminded herself.

      It is a living thing, and it is thirsty, that self retorted silently.

      With a sigh, Melissa put down her purse, searched until she found the empty coffee tin Andrea used as a watering can—when she remembered to water the indoor foliage, which was a crapshoot—filled the humble vessel at the sink in the women’s restroom, returned to the cubicle and carefully doused the ivy.

      It seemed to rally, right before her eyes, that bedraggled snippet of greenery, standing up a little straighter, stretching its fragile limbs a bit wider instead of shriveling. Melissa made a mental note to speak to Andrea about the subtleties of responsibility—she wasn’t a bad kid. Just sort of—distracted all the time. And little wonder, given all she’d been through.

      Andrea had arrived in Stone Creek as a runaway, when she was just fourteen, riding the same bus that had probably brought Byron Cahill back to town that very afternoon. Out of money and out of options, she’d spent her first night sleeping behind the potted rosebushes in the garden center at the local discount store.

      Upon discovering her there, first thing the next morning, the clerk had called Tom Parker, a natural thing to do. Especially since Andrea sat cross-legged against the wall, stubbornly refusing to come out.

      Tom had soon arrived, accompanied by his portly mixed-breed retriever, Elvis, who pushed his way right through those spiky-spined rosebushes to lick Andrea’s face in friendly consolation. After a while, Tom—or had it been Elvis?—managed to persuade Andrea to take a chance on the kindness of strangers and leave her erstwhile hiding place.

      Over breakfast at the Lucky Horseshoe Café, since closed, the girl had confided in Tom, told him about her less-than-wholesome home life, down in Phoenix. Her mother was on drugs, she claimed, and her stepfather, who had done time for a variety of crimes, was about to get out of jail. Rather than be at his mercy, Andrea said, she’d decided to take off, try to make it on her own.

      Of course, Tom checked the story out, and it held up to scrutiny, so agencies were consulted and legal steps were taken, and Andrea moved in with the elderly Crockett sisters, Mamie and Marge, who lived directly across the street from Tom’s aunt Ona, she of Parade-Committee fame, as a foster child. Andrea still lived in the small apartment above the Crocketts’ detached garage, proudly paying rent and looking after the old ladies and their many cats.

      Melissa was thinking all these thoughts as she left the courthouse, head bent, rummaging through her purse for her car keys as she crossed the gravel lot.

      “Did you get my email?”

      The question jolted Melissa and she came to an abrupt halt, her heart scrabbling in her throat.

      “Velda,” Melissa said, when she had regained enough breath to speak. “You scared me.”

      Byron’s mother, probably in her early fifties and emaciated almost to the point of anorexia, stood near the roadster, dappled in the leaf shadows of the oak tree. Velda wore an old cotton blouse without sleeves, plastic flip-flops and jeans so well-worn that the fabric couldn’t have been described as blue, but only as a hint of that color.

      “Sorry,” Velda said, her voice scratchy from several decades of smoking unfiltered cigarettes and half again that much regret, probably, her expression insincere. Lines spiked out around her mouth, giving her lips a pursed look. “I wouldn’t want to do that. Scare anybody, I mean.”

      “Good,” Melissa said, steady enough by then to be annoyed instead of frightened.

      Velda stood between Melissa and the driver’s-side door of the car, her skinny arms folded. Her hair was iron-gray, with faint streaks of yellow, and fell well past her shoulders. Pink plastic barrettes, shaped like little hearts, held the locks back at the sides of her head, creating an unfortunate effect of attempted girlishness.

      “Did you get my email?” Velda asked again.

      “Yes,” Melissa replied, holding her keys in her right hand. “And I answered it. The situation is really pretty simple, Velda. As long as Byron stays out of trouble, he won’t have to worry about my office or the police.”

      Velda smiled wanly, shrugged her bony shoulders. She sidled out of Melissa’s way, rather than stepping, as if it would be too much trouble to lift her feet. Clearly, there was more she wanted to say.

      Melissa got behind the wheel of her car and turned the key in the ignition, but she didn’t drive away. She waited.

      “It’s hard enough for him,” Velda went on, at last, as if Melissa hadn’t said anything at all, “knowing that poor young girl died because of what he did. Byron’s got to live with that for the rest of his life. But he’s not some hardened criminal, that’s all I’m saying. He’s not some monster everybody ought to be afraid of.”

      As she’d spoken, Velda had curled her fingers along the edge of the car window, so the knuckles whitened.

      Melissa sighed, something softening inside her, and patted Velda’s hand. “Byron is your son,” she said quietly, looking straight up into the faded-denim blue of the other woman’s eyes, “and you love him. I understand that. But, Velda, the best thing you can probably do to help Byron right now is to lighten up a little. Give him some time—and some space—to adjust to being back on the outside.”

      Tears welled up in Velda’s eyes; she sniffled once and stared off into some invisible distance for a long moment before looking back at Melissa. Her voice was very small when she spoke.

      “Byron wasn’t on the bus,” she said slowly. “He was supposed to be on that bus, and he wasn’t.”

      Melissa felt a mild charge of something that might have been alarm. “Maybe there was some kind of delay on the other end—didn’t he call you?”

      Velda’s expression was rueful. The bitterness was back. “Call me? Not everybody can afford a cell phone, you know.”

      Melissa looked around. Except for Tom’s cruiser, the roadster was the only vehicle in the lot. “Where’s your car?”

      “It’s broken down,” Velda said, still with that tinge of resentful irony. “That’s why I was late getting over to the station to meet the bus. It was gone when I got there, and there was no sign of Byron. I asked inside the station, and Al told me he didn’t see my boy get off.”

      “Get in,” Melissa said, nodding to indicate the passenger seat, leaning to move her purse to the floorboards so Velda would have room to sit down.

      Velda hesitated, then rounded the hood of the car and opened the door.

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