art deco hawk on the side of a skyscraper. She was wearing running clothes, her lithe, muscular body on display for all.
When she was married to Red Simmons, Thora had dressed conservatively. Fashionably, yes, but never pushing the envelope of taste. After a suitable period of mourning, though-about the time she'd started seeing Chris-she had subtly begun changing her style. In the beginning, Chris had approved. The new look revealed more of her beauty and signaled an engagement with life that she'd sorely needed. But lately Thora had begun wearing things he would never have imagined she would buy, much less wear in public: ultrashort shorts; transparent tops meant to be worn with an outer garment, but worn alone; and push-up bras (when she wore bras at all). Chris had kidded her about this, hoping she'd get the hint, but Thora had continued to wear the stuff, so he'd shut up. He didn't feel he had the right to control the way she dressed. Maybe he was getting old, losing touch with the times. And until today, it hadn't seemed that big a deal. Nothing had, really. Only the issue of Thora getting pregnant had been disturbing enough to rob him of sleep.
'Coach Grant,' he called to his assistant, another team father. 'Let's run some bases and then call it a day.'
The boys cheered, and their parents started rising from blankets and chairs, packing up ice chests and babies for the trek home. Chris ran the boys for five minutes, then circled them and led them in a team shout that reverberated off a thick stand of oak trees to the west. The boys packed the gear-a team tradition-and then everyone headed for his family car.
Ben walked beside Chris as they tromped toward the Mercedes. Chris tried to blank his mind but couldn't. Too many things were surfacing after a period of unconscious repression. Like the Mercedes. Last Christmas, Thora had bought herself an SL55 AMG. Hardly anyone in town knew how expensive this car really was. Several local doctors owned Benzes, but most were in the $50,000 to $80,000 range. Thora's SL had cost $145,000. Chris didn't begrudge her the car-it was her money, after all-but while she was married to Red Simmons, she had driven a Toyota Avalon: forty grand, fully loaded. She'd also worn a Timex watch. Chris had sometimes joked with her about it while she was on nursing duty. But a month ago, a Patek Philippe had quietly appeared on her wrist. He had no idea how much the watch cost, but the jewels on its bezel told him it was probably something north of $20,000- more than several fathers watching this practice earned in a year.
'Big Ben!' cried Thora, moving out from behind the SL's door with a grin and bending to hug her sweaty son. 'You didn't miss a catch the whole time I was here!'
Ben shrugged. 'I play first base, Mom. You can't play first if you miss balls.'
Chris wished he could see Thora's eyes, but the sunglasses hid them completely. She gave Ben a quick squeeze, then straightened and gave Chris her thousand-watt smile. His gaze went to the Patek Philippe.
'You picked up Ben early today,' she said.
'Yeah. I knew rounds were going to take a while, so I decided to do them after practice.'
She nodded but said nothing.
He wasn't sure where to go next, but Ben saved him by asking, 'Can we go to La Fiesta, Mom?'
Thora glanced at Chris over the tops of her sunglasses, but he couldn't read her meaning. La Fiesta was a family-oriented Mexican restaurant with low prices and fast service; thus it was always loud and crowded.
'I really need to get to the hospital,' Chris said. 'You guys go, though.'
Thora shook her head. 'We've got plenty of food at home, and it's a lot healthier than Mexican. I made chicken salad this afternoon.'
Ben rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose.
Chris almost said,
Chris and Ben tossed the two bulging canvas bags into his pickup. Then Chris gave Ben a high five, hugged Thora lightly to his side, and climbed into the truck. 'I won't be too late,' he said through the open window.
As though in answer, Thora took off her sunglasses. Her sea-blue eyes cut right through his feigned nonchalance. Her gaze had always caused a physical reaction in his chest, something between a fluttering and radiant warmth. (It caused a reaction lower down, as well.) Now that gaze held an unspoken question, but he broke eye contact, lifted his hand in a wave, then backed onto the road and drove north toward town.
CHAPTER 5
Alex Morse drove her rented Corolla into the parking lot of the Days Inn, pulled up to the door of room 125, and shut off the engine. When she opened the door of her room, her sister's calico cat mewed and dropped soundlessly from the bathroom counter to the carpet. Alex paid five extra dollars per night so that Meggie could stay in the hotel room. She only had Grace's cat because Jamie had begged her to take it after the funeral. Jamie loved Meggie, but his father did not, and the boy had been afraid that his dad would take her to the pound as soon as Alex flew back to Charlotte. Since Alex knew that Bill Fennell was quite capable of this small act of brutality, she'd accepted the burden. To her surprise, the bright-eyed calico had helped to ease the loneliness of the past five weeks. Alex took off her shoulder holster, massaged the wet place where it had lain against her ribs, then knelt and rubbed Meggie's chin with a bent knuckle. When she poured some food into the plastic dish by the bathroom door, the cat began eating voraciously.
Alex had checked into the Days Inn five days ago, and she'd done what she could to make a home of her room. Her notebook computer sat humming on the desk, its screen saver an ever-changing montage of photos shot on the cruise she'd taken with Grace to celebrate Grace's thirtieth birthday. Beside the computer stood a photo of Jamie wearing his Jackson Academy basketball uniform-a gangly ten-year-old with auburn hair, a freckled, unfinished face, and deep-set eyes that projected heartbreaking uncertainty.
Looking at this picture, she remembered how frantic Jamie had been the morning after his mother died, when Alex told him she had to take him back to his father. Running off with him after Grace's death had been an act of desperation, and in the eyes of the law, kidnapping. If Alex had kept Jamie, Bill wouldn't have hesitated to have her arrested, and he would probably have done so the previous night had he been able to locate her. Many times since that day Alex had regretted returning Jamie, but she had enough experience to know that a successful custody kidnapping required careful planning and preparation. In the five weeks since that day, she had actually taken several steps in that direction. And if her efforts to prove Bill's complicity in Grace's murder should fail-which without Dr. Shepard's help was likely-then she would be ready to take drastic action.
On a low dresser beside the motel desk lay several neat stacks of paper, all relating to her mother's medical care. There were lists of oral medications and chemotherapy drugs; treatment schedules; bills to be paid by the insurance company; bills from private physicians for the fees the insurance company didn't cover; test results from the University Medical Center and from the lab of the private oncologist; and of course the correspondence between Grace and various cancer specialists around the world. Grace had dealt with their mother's cancer the way she'd dealt with every other crisis: she'd declared war on it. And she'd carried on that war with the implacable persistence of Sherman burning his way across the South. Woe betide the insurance clerk who made an error on a bill addressed to Margaret Morse; Grace's retribution was swift and sure. But now the running of that campaign had passed to Alex, and by Grace's standard she was doing a piss-poor job.
Her cardinal sin? She was not at her mother's bedside. Instead, she was camped out a hundred miles southeast, in Natchez, Mississippi, while paid nurses-
