LITMIR.BIZ

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Sarah cooed as Amy Joy continued to fuss. “Did that big guy scare you?”

      “It was your screaming that scared her in the first place,” he said, inspecting some drool on his freshly pressed uniform shirt to try and settle his nerves. When he abruptly looked up, he caught Kelsey’s gaze. His heart shifted at the indecision there. She must be unsure about him, too.

      It made it easier to take charge.

      “Welcome home, Kel.” With that simple greeting, he tentatively held out his arms. Miraculously, she slipped into them. As she pecked his jaw, he had to fight off a shiver. Seemed rude not to kiss her back, so he pressed his mouth to her forehead, the safest convenient spot.

      Not so safe after all. The brief contact was enough to pick up her familiar body scent mingled with a sweet cologne. Heat rippled clear through him.

      She pulled back, appearing more relaxed as she addressed the driver unloading her two suitcases from the storage compartment underneath the bus. Sarah, meanwhile, had put the wailing baby back in the buggy and was paying off the musicians.

      The girls met back at point Ethan, now transformed into a dazed uniformed statue.

      “I am so sorry, Kel,” Sarah gushed. “I had planned to go over to the café with you, but Amy Joy won’t stop crying so I should take her home. Can you drop by later? Anyone can tell you where we live.”

      Kelsey smiled. “I know where you live. The old Hawkins house on Earle Street. I recognized the address all along.”

      “Oh! Sure.” Sarah looked sheepish as she gripped the buggy’s handle. “Come over as soon as you can.”

      Watching Sarah zip off, Kelsey shifted awkwardly, aware of Ethan lingering beside her. She hadn’t expected to be one-on-one with her special ex-next-door neighbor this soon. “Well, guess I’ll go look up Mom.”

      Ethan apparently took this as a signal to grasp her larger suitcase.

      “What are you doing, Ethan?”

      “Coming along.”

      “Oh. You don’t have to.”

      “I want to.” His warm inviting smile suggested he truly did.

      The Cozy Home Café was a mere half block down Harvester near Sixth Street. The Closed sign hung in the glass door but Kelsey jiggled the knob anyway. “She knew I was coming!”

      Of course she must have known. But she hadn’t mentioned it to Ethan, or likely anyone else, for the news had only hit the streets yesterday. Like Sarah, Clare probably worried about the negative fallout. She had good reason to be a little jittery. To this day there were people who wouldn’t eat in her café because of the accident. Some because they were related to the kids who’d died, and others who merely hoped to please grief-stricken Lewis in return for a favor from his bank or newspaper. Ethan didn’t believe Lewis was still pressing anyone to avoid the Cozy Home after all these years, but he wasn’t openly endorsing the place either. Ethan had once offered to intervene with him on Clare’s behalf, and she’d become very indignant, claimed she had plenty of business. He’d let the issue lie after that.

      “She’ll be right back,” he said quickly, sensing Kelsey’s dismay. “Look, there’s a note saying as much taped to the glass. In the meantime, let’s try not to leave a panic-stricken first impression.” He gently guided her out of the doorway into the sunshine.

      “As if I’m guilty of something, you mean?”

      “Well, yes.”

      “So those scowls I’m spotting aren’t squints in the sunshine. People are still upset with me over the crash.”

      He hesitated. “Not everybody.”

      “How many? Give me a percentage.”

      “I can’t, Kel. It’s not like there are town-hall meetings on the subject. I’m only suggesting you hold your chin up and smile, like a bright successful woman out for a walk with a bright successful man.”

      “You mean you?”

      He tapped the badge pinned to his shirt. “Sure, me.”

      “Where will we go?” she asked bleakly.

      “To the sheriff’s office.”

      “Great. They’ll think you’re arresting me!”

      That did it for Ethan. He busted out laughing.

      “So you think that’s funny?” She swatted his arm.

      “Uh-oh, striking an officer. Now I do have reason to arrest you.” He gently took her elbow. “Come along quietly and take your medicine. Which at the station, amounts to a very poor cup of coffee.”

      The police station was part of the municipal complex that took up most of Seventh Street. Kelsey decided the historic limestone courthouse at the corner of Harvester, with later additions running the length of Seventh, looked much the same as it had a decade ago. It was best described as patchwork architecture, last brought up to date in the seventies. The newer station and county offices, made of aluminum, steel and red brick, were utilitarian one-level extensions, with a mutual basement housing file rooms and jail cells.

      Kelsey had seen the inside of a jail cell only once.

      After the accident she’d been hospitalized a week while doctors had tended her injuries—cracked ribs, severe skin abrasion, a broken arm, sprained ankle and a very nasty bruise to the head.

      Sheriff Roger Norton, no doubt prodded hard by Lewis Cutler, haunted the hospital like a ghoul, taking every opportunity to pop in and interrogate her. Kelsey desperately wanted to help, but she simply couldn’t remember anything. It was a kindly nurse named Nancy Farr who finally advised Clare to hire her attorney husband, Jacob, after she overheard Norton and Lewis Cutler discussing manslaughter charges.

      Clare didn’t believe they were serious until Sheriff Norton had tossed Kelsey in jail within an hour of her release from hospital. Clare had just gotten her tucked in bed with a bowl of hot soup and her TV remote when the doorbell rang.

      He could hold Kelsey for twenty-four hours on suspicion of murder. It was up to her to start talking, confess to what she’d done.

      That was when Clare phoned Jacob Farr. He oversaw Kelsey’s official statement, which described being picked up in Brad’s Jetta, stopping by the Cutlers’ for some home movies and attending the grand march with all their friends. The prom itself was completely lost to her, as were the two hours leading up to the accident. Try as she might, she couldn’t recapture those memories. The doctors concluded that, due to her head injury, she likely never would.

      Kelsey was jailed the full twenty-four. Ultimately, the sheriff had no choice but to release or charge her. Meanwhile, her tough Madison attorney had badgered him and the county prosecutor to examine the plain hard facts on paper, and ignore Lewis Cutler’s thirst for vengeance. Even if Brad had been teaching Kelsey to drive a stick shift that spring, nobody had seen her behind the wheel of the Cutlers’ Jetta that night. While Kelsey had earned some speeding tickets driving her mother’s car, she’d never been cited for recklessness. Kelsey had been no wilder than her peers, no matter what the petty rumors had said. In the end, Jacob Farr had convinced them a judge would blast their case out of court.

      Now, as Ethan escorted her into the lobby of the station, she averted her gaze from the scarred black steel door that led to the cells.

      “Uncomfortable?” Ethan asked gently.

      Kelsey realized she was shuddering from head to toe. “I’m fine,” she lied.

      “Ready for some rotten coffee? Or maybe some water?”

      “No thanks.”

      Ethan grinned, removed the suitcase from her grip, and set both pieces out of the way near the water cooler. “Come and sit.”

      Kelsey was about to take a chair near the clerk manning

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