Dropping onto the bed, Grace stared up at the ceiling, searching for an answer to that question. She was definitely apprehensive about being here. But for now, in this moment, she seemed to belong in Evonne’s space. And not having to hurry off somewhere or finish something felt good.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“How long are you planning to stay?”
“I’ve got the house for three months. But I’m not sure I’ll last the whole time.”
“Please tell me you were going to call Mom.”
“I was. I just—I’ve been busy.”
“A phone call only takes a minute.”
“Molly, don’t start.”
“I won’t, because I’m in too much of a rush. I’ll be late for work if I don’t get a move on.”
“I’ll let you go, then.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.” Grace knew her sister was about to hang up, but she had one more question. “Mol?”
“Yeah?”
“How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Come back here, visit Clay in that…that house, have lunch with Madeline, when you know—”
“I don’t think about it,” her sister interrupted.
How could she not think about it? The man who used to be their stepfather was dead. Ever since Grace had helped drag his body down the porch steps, where Clay loaded it into a wheelbarrow, she’d spent almost every night fearing she’d wake up to find the reverend staring in her bedroom window.
“I know Madeline’s still hoping her father will drive back into town and surprise her someday,” Molly went on. “But you and I know the reverend’s gone, Grace. Gone for good. And the world’s a better place for it.”
“Amen to that,” she murmured. “Except it’s not so simple.”
“It can be if you’ll let it.”
Did she really mean that? If so, how? “What if someone finally figures out what happened? These days, cold cases are solved all the time. Someone could discover the car in the quarry. A storm could unearth something too macabre to imagine. A particularly credible witness could set the conflicting stories straight.”
“Calm down. It’s been eighteen years. We’re fine.”
“The people of Stillwater will never forget, Molly. They thought that bastard could walk on water. They didn’t know him the way we did.”
“They can’t even prove he’s dead. You, of all people, should understand how the legal system works.”
She, of all people… Somehow Molly wasn’t making Grace feel any better. The fact that they were still conspiring to hide what had happened so long ago troubled Grace because it suggested that maybe she was still who she used to be and not who she’d become. “You’d better get to work.”
“We’ll talk later.”
“Fine.” Grace hung up, then walked to the window to gaze down on Evonne’s backyard. She could tell that Evonne’s family didn’t care as much about the garden as Evonne had. It didn’t look as though anyone had tended it since her death.
Grace was going to change that—
Suddenly, she realized that a black SUV had come to a complete stop in the side street just beyond the fence.
“Oops,” she muttered and jumped out of sight. Had the driver seen her? It was possible. She’d hung a sheet over the bare window, but she’d tied it back in the middle of the night, hoping for more air.
Embarrassed, she bit her lip as she wondered what to do about it. But there wasn’t anything she could do.
Whoever it was couldn’t have seen a great deal from that distance, anyway…she hoped.
Putting on a spaghetti-strap T-shirt, some shorts and a pair of Keds, she headed downstairs. She’d call her mother and Madeline in an hour. First, she wanted to start on Evonne’s garden.
Kennedy Archer cursed at the coffee he’d spilled in his lap when he saw the topless woman at the window. Evonne’s house wasn’t on the market yet, so he hadn’t expected to see anyone inside. Least of all a woman as stunning as the dark-haired beauty who’d just flashed him. Especially at six-thirty in the morning. Judging by the way she’d darted out of sight the moment she realized he was there, she hadn’t meant to put on a show. But a body like that was quite a sight for a man who’d been celibate since the death of his wife two years earlier.
“Daddy? You okay?”
Kennedy pressed his cell phone tighter to his ear. As timing would have it, he’d answered his son’s call seconds before noticing movement at the window—and cried out when the coffee scalded him.
“I’m fine, Teddy,” he said, still trying to hold the hot liquid puddling in the crotch of his pants away from his more sensitive parts. “What’s up?”
His son lowered his voice. “I don’t want to stay with Grandma today.”
Kennedy was well aware of that. Heath, his ten-year-old, seemed to handle Camille Archer quite well. Heath rarely complained. But he was calm, patient, deliberate—a bit of an intellectual. Camille always called him her “good boy.”
Teddy, on the other hand, had a completely different personality. Active, headstrong and already opinionated at eight years of age, he challenged his grandmother at every turn. Or that was how Camille interpreted it. They plowed into one power struggle after another. Yet Kennedy knew that with the right touch Teddy wasn’t a difficult child at all. When Raelynn was alive, she’d been very close to their youngest son.
“Where else would you like to go?” he asked.
“Home.”
“You can’t go home. There’s no one to watch you there.”
“What about Lindy?”
Lindy was a sixteen-year-old neighbor. At least Kennedy thought of her as a neighbor. His house sat on quite a bit of land, so there wasn’t anyone in the immediate vicinity. He liked Lindy, but the last time she babysat, she’d invited her boyfriend over and they’d watched R-rated horror movies with the boys.
Kennedy no longer trusted her judgment. “Not Lindy. But you could go to Mrs. Weaver’s.”
“No, I hate it there!”
Kennedy wished Raelynn’s parents hadn’t followed her brother to Florida ten years ago. Teddy got along better with Grandma Horton than Grandma Archer. But, of course, he only saw his other grandparents once or twice a year. “Teddy, we’ve been through this before. Considering our options, my mother’s is the best place for you. Anyway, it’s not all torture. She took you to the zoo in Jackson last week, remember?”