If She Saw

Ah, the one downside to gardening, Kate thought as she got to her feet and dusted off her hands and knees. Thoughts tend to wander. And when that happens, the past starts creeping in, uninvited.

She left the garden, walking across the backyard of her Richmond, Virginia, home and to the back porch. She was careful to kick off her dirt-smeared Keds at the back door. She also dropped her gloves beside them, not wanting to get any dirt in the house. She’d spent the last two days getting the house clean. She was babysitting Michelle, her granddaughter, tonight and even though Melissa wasn’t a neat freak, Kate wanted to have the place sparkling clean. It had been almost thirty years since she’d been in the company of a baby and she didn’t want to take any chances.

She glanced at the clock and frowned. She was expecting company in fifteen minutes. That was yet another negative aspect of gardening: time easily slipped away from you.

She freshened up in the bathroom and then went to the kitchen to put a fresh pot of coffee on. It was about halfway through percolating when the doorbell rang. She answered right away, happy as always to see the two women she had been spending a few hours with at least twice a week over the last year and a half or so.

Jane Patterson stepped through the doorway first, carrying a plate of pastries. They were homemade Danishes and had won the Carytown Cooks contest for two years straight. Clarissa James came in behind her with a large bowl of freshly sliced fruit. They were both dressed in cute outfits that would work either at a brunch at a friend’s house or casual shopping—which was something they both did quite a bit of.

“You’ve been gardening again, haven’t you?” Clarissa asked as they set their food down in the kitchen island.

“How can you tell?” Kate asked.

Clarissa pointed to Kate’s hair, just below the shoulders where it came to a tapered end. Kate reached back and found that she had missed a bit of stray dirt that had somehow ended up in her hair. Clarissa and Jane chuckled at this as Jane took the plastic wrap off of her Danishes.

“Laugh all you want,” Kate said. “You won’t be when those tomato vines are loaded down.”

It was a Friday morning, which automatically made it a good one. The three women situated themselves around Kate’s kitchen island, sitting on barstools and eating their brunch and drinking coffee. And while the company, the food, and the coffee were all good, it was still hard to overlook the missing piece.

Debbie Meade was no longer a part of the group. After her daughter had died, one of three victims of a killer Kate had taken down in the end, Debbie and her husband, Jim, had moved. They were living somewhere out near the beach in North Carolina. Debbie would send pictures of the coast from time to time, just to jokingly rub it in. They had been living there for two months now and seemed to be happy—to be moving on from the tragedy.

The conversation was mostly light and pleasant. Jane talked about how her husband was eyeing retirement next year and had already started planning to write a book. Clarissa shared news about both of her kids, now in their mid-twenties, and how they’d both recently received promotions.

“Speaking of kids,” Clarissa said, “how is Melissa doing? She loving motherhood?”

“Oh yes,” Kate said. “She’s absolutely insane about her little baby girl. A little baby girl that I will be babysitting tonight, in fact.”

“First time?” Jane asked.

“Yes. It’s the first time Melissa and Terry are going somewhere without the baby. Like an actual overnight thing.”

“Has Grandma Mode kicked in yet?” Clarissa asked.

“I don’t know,” Kate said with a smile. “I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

“You know,” Jane said, “you could go back in time and babysit like I used to in high school. I’d bring my boyfriend over with me and as soon as the kids went to bed…”

“That’s pretty disturbing,” Kate said.

“Do you think Allen would be up for it, though?” Clarissa asked.

“I don’t know,” Kate answered, trying to imagine Allen with a baby. They had been dating seriously ever since Kate and her new partner, DeMarco, had wrapped the serial case right here in Richmond—the same case that had taken Debbie Meade’s daughter. There had been no real talk of the future; they hadn’t slept together yet and rarely got physical at all. She was enjoying her time with him, though, but the thought of bringing him into the grandmother part of her life made her uncomfortable.

“Things still going well with you two?” Clarissa asked.

“I think so. The whole dating thing still seems weird to me. I’m too old to date, you know?”

“Hell no,” Jane said. “Don’t get me wrong…I love my husband, my kids, and my life in general. But I’d give anything to be back on that dating scene for just a while, you know? I miss it. Meeting new people, sharing firsts…”

“Yeah, I guess that is pretty nice,” Kate conceded. “Allen finds the idea of dating strange, too. We have fun together but it’s…it gets sort of weird when things start leaning towards the romantic end of things.”

“Blah blah,” Clarissa said. “But do you think of him as your boyfriend?”

“Are we really having this conversation?” Kate asked, starting to feel herself blushing a bit.

“Yes,” Clarissa said. “Us old married ladies need to live vicariously through you.”

“And that also goes for your sort-of job,” Jane said. “How’s that going?”

“No calls for about two weeks, and the last one was just to help with some research. Sorry, girls…it’s not as adventurous as you’re hoping it is.”

“So are you back to being retired?” Clarissa asked.

“Basically. It’s complicated.”

That comment ended the questioning as they delved back into local topics—upcoming movies, a music festival in town, construction on the interstate, and so on. But Kate’s mind had gotten snagged on the topic of work. It was comforting to know that the bureau was still considering her as a resource but she had been hoping for a more active role after she had tied things up with the last case. But so far, she’d only heard from Deputy Director Duran a single time, and that was to get a performance review on DeMarco.

She knew how strange it seemed to her friends that she was still technically an active agent while also leaning into her role as a grandmother. Hell, it was strange to her as well. Throw in a slowly blossoming relationship with Allen and she supposed her life was quite interesting to them.

Honestly, she counted herself lucky. She’d be fifty-six years old at the end of the month and she knew that many women her age would be envious of the life she lived. She always told herself this when she felt the pressing need to be more active at work. And some days, it worked.

And as it just so happened, with her granddaughter coming to visit for the first time since her birth, today was one of those days.

***

One thing that made it difficult to balance her new role as grandmother with her desire to get her hands deep into another case was trying to think like a grandmother. That afternoon, she left her house and walked down to some of the thrifty little shops in the Carytown district of Richmond. She felt like she had to get Michelle a gift to celebrate her first overnight stay at Grandma’s house.

It was hard to push sidearms and suspects aside to focus on stuffed animals and onesies instead. But as she checked out a few shops, it became somewhat easier. She found that she actually enjoyed shopping for her granddaughter, even though she wasn’t even two months old yet and would, honestly, not care about any gift she got. She found it hard not to snatch up every cute thing she found and buy it. After all, wasn’t it the responsibility of a grandmother to spoil her grandchildren?

As she paid for her purchases at the third shop she visited, she received a text. She wasted no time in checking it. Over the last few weeks, she’d had a small hope every time she got a call or a text, thinking it might Duran or someone else within the bureau. She mentally scolded herself when she was disappointed to find that it was not the bureau, but Allen. Once she got over the sting of not being called upon by the bureau again, she realized that she was happy to hear from him—was always happy to hear from him, in fact.

“Allen, you have to help me,” she joked as she answered the phone. “I’m shopping for Michelle and everything I see, I want to buy for her. Is that normal?”

“I don’t know,” Allen said. “Neither of my sons have settled down and made me a grandpa yet.”

“Take it from me. Start saving up.”

Allen chuckled, a sound that Kate was growing to like quite a bit. “So tonight’s the big night, huh?”

“It is. And I know I raised a kid already and I know what to expect, but I’m a little terrified.”

“Ah, you’ll be great. You want to talk terrified…I’m going out with my boys for drinks tonight. And I haven’t had more than two drinks in a single sitting in about five years.”

“Have fun with that.”

“I was wondering if you might want to get together tomorrow for dinner. We can share our survival stories of tonight.”

“I’d like that. You want to come by my place at seven or so?”