Echo Of Danger

The boy nodded, but then he burrowed his head against his mother’s chest. Her arms tightened around him.

“I’ll show you out.” Jason conducted Carmichaels to the door. In a way, he sympathized with the man’s frustration. He had a murder to solve, and the only potential witness couldn’t remember. But Jason had to protect his client, even if it threw a roadblock in the way of the investigation.

When he’d closed the door behind the police chief, Jason turned back into the room. He was just in time to hear Kevin’s voice, trembling a little. “Mommy, why did everyone look so funny when I said to ask Dixie? She’d know what happened. Why don’t you ask her?”

Tears shone in Deidre’s eyes, but she managed to maintain her calm. “I’m afraid we can’t. You see, Dixie got hurt that night, too.”

He looked up at her, frowning a little as if he struggled to understand. “Did she go to the hospital, like me?”

“Yes. She went in an ambulance, like you did. But she was hurt a lot worse than you were, Kev.” She stroked his head, and Jason could see her fingers shaking. “I’m afraid Dixie didn’t make it. She died.”

Kevin didn’t move for a moment. Then his lips began to tremble, and tears welled in his eyes. “Like...like Daddy?”

A spasm of pain crossed Deidre’s face. “Yes. Like Daddy.”

Kevin began to cry...huge, wrenching sobs that shook his whole body. He buried his face against his mother’s chest, clinging to her.

Deidre held him close, rocking back and forth. Above her son’s head, Deidre’s gaze met his, and Jason saw the anguish there. It ripped at his own heart, too.

* * *

ONCE KEVIN WAS tucked up in bed that evening, Deidre found it impossible just to kiss him good-night and leave the room. Usually he was the one who tried to prolong bedtime. Now it was she who suggested another story, another song.

But when he drifted off in the middle of a favorite book, she knew she had to let him rest. If she curled up on the bed next to him, as she very much wanted to do, she’d be telling him there was something to be afraid of. She couldn’t plant that idea in his mind.

Bending down, Deidre kissed Kevin’s soft cheek. He snuggled into the pillow, and his breath came slow and even. She forced herself to slip out of the room.

Stopping in the hallway, Deidre glanced down the stairs, seeming for an instant to see it the way Kevin must have that night, stretching out endlessly, with only the glow of the table lamp to dispel the darkness.

She ought to go down to the workroom and catch up on orders, but for the first time it seemed very far away. Finally, she went to the linen closet. It took her a couple of minutes to unearth the baby monitor she’d stowed on the top shelf ages ago. Setting the base just outside Kevin’s door, she carried the wireless receiver down with her. Kevin would be humiliated at the idea, but he need never know, and at least she’d hear him if he woke up.

Even with the precaution of the monitor, Deidre found it hard to concentrate when she reached the computer. There were several orders waiting for confirmation, and a few inquiries about special orders—mostly people who wanted an item made with a particular design or color. Focus eluded her. If she wasn’t thinking about Kevin, she was reliving the events of the afternoon.

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.”