yellow.
He could smell fresh bread, and the allure of whatever she stirred on the stove while she sang along with Fergie. She gave Fergie a run for her money, Brooks thought.
As far as he was concerned, his mother could do damn near anything, and everything.
She had her hair, a gold-streaked brown, braided down her back, with silver beads dangling from her ears. Her bare feet tapped to the beat.
A peace symbol tattoo on her right ankle announced her sixties sensibilities.
“Hello, gorgeous.”
She gasped, then turned around with a laugh, eyes warm and brown. “Hi, handsome. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You can’t hear anything. How many times do I have to tell you kids to keep the music down?”
“It helps the creative process.” But she picked up a remote and muffled Fergie. “What’s up with you?”
“This and that. Where’s Dad?”
“He had a meeting with parents. He’ll be home soon. Stay for dinner?”
“Whatcha got?”
“Minestrone, rosemary bread and a field-greens salad.”
“I’m in.” He opened the fridge, got out a beer, waggled it.
“Well, if you insist.”
“I do.” He got out a second beer, opened them both.
“Now.” She gave him a little poke in the belly. “What’s up? I know your face.”
“You gave it to me.”
“And a fine job I did. You got troubles, sweetie?”
“Not really. Sylbie came by the station this afternoon.”
She took a swallow of beer. “Mmmm.”
“And I know your mmmms. She wanted to hook up tonight.”
“Yet here you are in your mother’s kitchen, opting for minestrone over sex.”
“You make really good minestrone. I lied to her.”
“And you are that rare creature, an honest cop.”
Now he poked her. “You’re just holding on to your flower child’s disdain for authority. Anyway, it’s one thing to lie to a suspect, that’s the job. It’s another just to lie. I don’t like it.”
“I know. Why did you?”
“To avoid a scene, I guess, which is just stupid, as it’s just postponing it. I don’t want to go back to high school. Been there, done that, got the letter jacket. And she doesn’t want me; she wants somebody. The sex is really good, but nothing else is.”
“So you’re looking for more than sex.” Sunny wiped an imaginary tear away. “My boy’s growing up.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But I do know I don’t want it with Sylbie. I’m hoping for the easy way. Somebody else catches her eye and she loses interest.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go back to high school.”
“Yeah. I know I’ve got to fix it, and I should have when she came in today. Pisses me off that I didn’t. So I will.”
“Good. She’s not a happy woman, Brooks. She equates her worth with her looks and sexuality, and she won’t be happy until she doesn’t. I think she could be happy, and make someone happy, once she realizes she has more to offer. You just remember you can fix the problem, but you can’t fix her.”
“You’re right. I’ll work on it.”
“Now, what else. Something else in there.” She tapped his temple.
“I met, officially, Abigail Lowery today.”
“Oh, now, this is good. This is sit-down-and-relate-every-detail good.” She settled down at the breakfast counter, patted the next stool. “I’ve been dying to pin that one down. What’s she like?”
“At first I’d’ve said rude, abrupt and downright unfriendly, but with a little more exposure, I have to put it down to socially awkward.”
“Poor thing.”
“The poor thing carries a Glock on her hip to the fancy market.”
“A gun? When are people going to realize that going around armed is just asking for—”
She broke off when he tapped a finger to her lips.
“I know how you feel about guns, gun control and what you see as a perversion of the Second Amendment, Sunshine.”
She huffed, shrugged. “It can never be too often repeated. But go on.”
He told her about the market, going out to her place, the dog, the locks. By the time he got to his digging into her licenses, and the number of registered handguns she owned, Sunny decided the story called for a second beer.
“What’s she afraid of?”
“See that? Exactly. That’s what I want to know. And as chief of police around these parts, that’s what I need to know. But to finish up, then Sylbie came in.”
Once he’d told her the rest, her outrage over the guns had subsided, and her focus shifted. “That just breaks my heart.”
“What?”
“Honey, she’s so alone. Of course she’s socially awkward when she’s got herself barricaded up by herself, and against God knows what. She’s not sounding like one of those survivalists or those crazies thinking they’ve gotta load up on the guns and locks for the revolution or the Rapture. You said she does programming, and security business. Maybe she found something or invented something. Now the government’s after her.”
“Why is it always the government, Ma?”
“Because I find it often is, that’s why. She could’ve been a cyber spy or something like that.”
“I love you.”
She slitted her eyes, kicked him lightly in the shin. “Now you’re using those fine words to be amused and patronizing.”
He couldn’t quite disguise the smirk. “Let’s just say she didn’t strike me as the espionage type.”
“Well, they’re not supposed to, are they? They’re supposed to blend.”
“In that case, she’s a crappy spy, because she doesn’t blend.”
“All right, maybe she’s on the run from an abusive boyfriend.”
“I didn’t find anything in her record about filing charges.”
“Some women don’t go to the police. Some just run.”
He thought of Missy and her latest black eye. “And some stay. One thing I know, the way she’s loaded up and barricaded, whatever she’s hiding from—if that is the case—it’s bad. And if the bad finds her, it finds her here. I’m responsible for here, and whether she likes it or not, for her.”
“I love you.”
“Was that amusement and patronizing?”
“No.” She cupped his face. “That’s just fact.”
9
As Sunny wound down the road toward Abigail Lowery’s cabin, she doubted her son would approve. But she had a habit of doing as she pleased, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone—unless they deserved it. In any case, her son’s visit there the day before gave her the perfect excuse to drop by.
She parked, mentally clucked her tongue at the gas-guzzling SUV.
Still, she approved of the house, the way it nestled right into the landscape. She could see beds were being prepped for spring planting. And the glimpse of a corner of a greenhouse caught her eye and her envy.
It was a fine morning for a visit, she determined, with spring whispering on the air, the leaves a pretty haze
