The three of them moved toward the church slowly, keeping pace with Guy's still-awkward use of the crutches. The cast on his leg went from his hip to his toe.
Suddenly, Michelle, walking with her head ducked, looked up and saw me. There was a momentary hesitation, then her face came alive with recognition and something else, a kind of light I had never seen in Michelle Owens before. She abandoned Delcia and her father and came rushing toward me, throwing herself at me from three feet away, locking her arms around my neck.
'Thank you,' she said over and over, her lips muffled against my chest. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.'
I've saved people's lives before, on occasion, but I don't quite know how to handle that kind of effusive gratitude.
'You're welcome,' I said, prying her arms away and holding her at arm's length so I could look at her. When I did, I was shocked. Michelle had come to Joey Rothman's funeral, her lover's funeral. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Her skin was still pale from her ordeal, yet there was a glow of happiness in her eyes that was unmistakable. I saw more joy in her face, more animation, than I had seen during the entire month we had spent together at Ironwood Ranch. What the hell was going on?
Suddenly, her face darkened as though a shadow had fallen across it. 'I'm sorry about Ringo,' she said.
'Ringo?'
'I was keeping him in my room until Friday. That's when Joey was supposed to leave, and I didn't have a roommate right then. I fed Ringo that morning. I mean, I gave him the mouse. I didn't like it, but Joey asked me to.
'But then later, when I found out what had happened to Joey and my dad told me we were leaving, I didn't know what to do. I knew Dad would never let me take him home, and I couldn't just turn him loose, so before we left, I took him to your room and left him along with the extra mice. I didn't know what else to do. If Ringo got out, I must not have tied the knot in the pillowcase tightly enough.'
Michelle stopped talking abruptly while the brimming tears in her eyes threatened to become a full-fledged deluge.
'It's all right,' I said easily. 'It wasn't a problem. He didn't hurt me.'
Much, I thought to myself, but I felt a sudden rush of relief as part of the burden I had been carrying around was lifted from my shoulders. Ringo's presence in my darkened cabin had been an accident, not some kind of deliberate plot. Joey Rothman hadn't tried to kill me after all.
Delcia Reyes-Gonzales and Guy Owens stopped behind Michelle.
'Is she here?' Delcia asked.
I shook my head. 'No.'
Owens let go of the crossbar of one crutch and held out his hand. 'Good to see you,' he said gruffly.
'Yes,' I said awkwardly, 'same here.'
'Where's Rhonda?' he asked, looking around.
So Delcia hadn't told them that Rhonda Attwood was among the missing. She was leaving me to do the dirty work.
'She's not here yet, but we're expecting her any minute.'
Owens glanced down at Michelle and the absolute tenderness of it, the stupid hang-dog devotion in his gaze, put a huge lump in my throat.
'Do you have any idea where she's going to sit inside?' Guy Owens asked. 'Misha thought we ought to sit with her. Under the circumstances, that's probably the right thing to do. With these damn crutches, though, I'd like to go on in and get settled.'
I'm a slow learner, but I do catch on-eventually. Guy Owens had changed his mind. Michelle was there glowing with happiness because she hadn't had a D amp; C. She was going to have Joey Rothman's baby after all, and she was going to keep it.
From the sound of things, she wouldn't be doing it alone, either. Michelle would have not one but two doting grandparents to help her.
For a moment I was almost overwhelmed by the immensity of the job my own mother had done, raising me alone. When I was born, my mother had been only a few months older than Michelle Owens was now. No one had lifted a finger to help her.
I found my voice eventually and gave Michelle a gentle shove on the shoulder and pushed her toward her father.
'You two go on inside. Sit somewhere close to the front. I'll wait out here for Rhonda and tell her to look for you when she gets here.'
Guy Owens nodded and started away, taking Michelle with him. 'I'll go too,' Delcia said.
The three of them disappeared into the church. The door had no more than closed behind them when a shiny gray stretch limo pulled up and stopped. The driver hurried around to open the door and the Rothmans clambered out-JoJo, Marsha, and Jennifer. Jennifer waved a downcast, halfhearted wave to me as she went past. JoJo Rothman nodded stiffly, but Marsha walked past with her eyes lowered and her shoulders hunched.
The change in her was alarming. Grief had aged her. In the few days since I had seen her last, she seemed to have closed the more-than-ten-year gap between Rhonda Attwood and herself.
Strange, I thought, seeing how badly she was taking it. Ironic for a stepmother to be so much more affected than Joey's biological mother. And yet, as she walked by I wondered if, for all its apparent ravages, Marsha's grief wasn't like the post-funeral food being prepared in the kitchen-appropriate but just for show, because it was expected.
Without pausing to chat with anyone, the three Rothmans disappeared into the church.
By two-thirty, other guests began to filter into the parking lot and mill around the doorway. I noticed a news camera or two, but it wasn't as blatant as I've seen at times. At least I didn't see anybody shoving a microphone in one of the mourners' faces.
But there was still no sign of Rhonda. Not by two forty-five, not by two-fifty. Even Ralph Ames was beginning to show impatience as he paced back and forth. 'Something's wrong,' he said ominously. 'Something's terribly wrong.'
I felt it too, but I didn't know what to do about it.
At five to three the black-robed minister once more appeared in the doorway. 'Aren't you a friend of the mother's?' he asked.
I nodded.
'Where is she?' he demanded.
'I don't now.'
'If she isn't here is five minutes, I'm starting without her.'
'That's fine,' I said 'Go ahead.'
He glared at me for a moment and went back inside, closing the door on the melancholy organ music that had followed him outside.
'What are we going to do?' Ralph asked.
I shrugged. 'Wait inside, I guess.'
At three o'clock we went to stand inside the vestibule where, although the ushers had closed the doors into the sanctuary, we could still hear the electronically amplified voice of the minister.
I can remember my mother telling me once that she did some of her best thinking in church. As the service droned on, the haze before my eyes started to clear.
In my mind's eye I saw Rhonda Attwood and Marsha Rothman, so alike and yet so dissimilar, standing side by side. Marsha wore her grief outwardly for all to see. Rhonda pretended hers didn't exist, but it did. I knew it was there, but it had become such an integral part of her life that she carried it like a forgotten piece of jewelry, a wedding ring, for instance, that becomes a permanent part of the hand that wears it.
Flashes of Rhonda Attwood spun through my head like so many still photographs. Rhonda driving the Fiat up the mountainside. Rhonda in bed. Rhonda sitting in the chair sketching my portrait. Rhonda holding a gun. Rhonda kneeling over the briefcase twirling the lock. Rhonda telling me about JoJo's attachment to his discarded briefcases…
