The feeling behind his innocuous remark is clear. Once again, it’s an order not a request. But before I can respond, a long, black limousine whispers by and comes to a halt at the driveway to the apartment complex, stopped there by the same uniformed cop who waved me off earlier. A back window slides down and a carefully coiffed gray head peers out at the policeman.
“What’s going on, officer?” an imperious female voice asks.
The limousine is as out of place here as an elephant on a barstool, and that is clearly reflected in the cop’s tone as he counters, “And what is your business here, ma’am?”
The door opens and a woman steps out. “I’m here to see my daughter,” she replies. “Carolyn Delaney.”
Detective Harris and I both react the same way to the woman’s pronouncement. We take two or three steps toward the car. But then, Harris stops, and with a hand on my arm, pulls me to a halt beside him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks.
I gesture toward the woman. “To see Carolyn’s mother.”
“Do you know her?”
“No, but-”
He shakes his head. “You’re not going anywhere near her. You can leave now or you can stay here. Right here. At your car. I’m going to talk to this woman. Alone.”
He’s glaring at me, defying me to argue.
If I piss him off, he might make me leave, and I really want to see how Carolyn’s mother will react to the news of her daughter’s death. I nod and hang back. What he doesn’t know is that I’ll be able to hear every word they say. A vampire thing.
Harris approaches the woman and flashes his badge. “I’m Detective Harris,” he says. “And you are?”
She turns toward him, a look of polite indifference on her face. She’s about five foot, slender but not skinny, silver hair done up in a twist at the back of her head. Her face is pale, thin, regal cheekbones touched with color, a hint of red on her lips. She’s dressed in black slacks and a dark gray wool blazer. A blush of red silk peeks out from the jacket cuffs, and on her feet, black tasseled loafers. Understated elegance. There’s a plain gold band on the ring finger of her left hand, but there are diamond studs the size of garbanzo beans at her ears.
Maybe not so understated.
She clasps her hands together and tilts her head up. “I don’t know that who I am is any of your business, Officer,” she says.
Anger flashes across Harris’ face, but he recovers quickly. He responds, ignoring her sarcasm. “You told the officer that you are here to see your daughter, Carolyn Delaney. Is that correct?”
“And if it is?”
“Then I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Mrs. Delaney.”
“It’s Mrs. Joseph Bernard,” she says. “It hasn’t been Mrs. Delaney for a very long time.” Then she sighs and shakes her head. “What has Carolyn done now?”
Harris softens his voice. “She hasn’t done anything, ma’am. There’s no easy way to say this. Carolyn was killed this afternoon.”
There is no response from Carolyn’s mother to Harris’ words. No gasp. No physical reaction. No change in facial expression or body posture. She stands there staring up at Harris as if waiting in resigned tolerance for the punch line of a bad joke.
It’s Harris who finally breaks the uncomfortable stalemate. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says.
The only acknowledgment of his words is a slight movement of her head and shoulders, not quite a shrug, not quite a nod.
He tries again. “I need to ask you some questions.”
For the first time her eyes shift away from Harris and her gaze falls on me. “Who is that young woman? Is she a friend of Carolyn’s?”
Harris glances back at me. “She said she was an acquaintance of your daughter. Her name is Anna Strong.”
Before Harris can object, Carolyn’s mother is coming at me with quick, determined strides. She stops in front of me. “Anna Strong?” she says quietly.
I nod. “I’m sorry about-”
But that is as far as I get. Faster than I can counter the blow, she slaps me hard across the face.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Of course, she can’t really hurt me, but because I am caught unawares, my head snaps back and my upper teeth puncture my lower lip. She has a gleam of satisfaction on her face as she watches me wipe a trickle of blood off my chin.
It’s the last bit of satisfaction I intend to allow her at my expense.
The sound of the slap, like the crack of gunfire on the still morning air, is more startling than the physical blow itself. Everyone in hearing distance stops what he’s doing and turns to look at us.
Detective Harris, right on her heels, doesn’t react in typical cop fashion to an assault taking place in front of him. He comes to an abrupt halt a few feet from us and just stands there. Watching. It almost makes me as angry as being struck because I know what he’s doing. He’s waiting to see if either of us will say something he can use against us later.
But since Mrs. Bernard must suspect it, too, he’s disappointed. We both stand staring at each other in rigid silence.
Finally, he approaches, pulls her back away from me and holds one arm in gentle restraint. His eyes are on me. “Are you all right, Ms. Strong?”
It would be touching if his expression or voice actually reflected concern. They don’t.
I nod, wiping again at my chin. I almost bring my fingers to my mouth to lick the blood. It might be worth Harris’s shock to see the expression on Mrs. Bernard’s face if I did. But I stop myself, satisfying my rage by simply glaring at the woman.
Harris’s attention turns immediately to Carolyn’s mother. She stands quietly, not struggling, not doing anything, really, except staring back at me. “Would you like to explain why you just assaulted this woman, Mrs. Bernard?”
Her eyes never leave my face. “This woman’s brother ruined my daughter’s life. He was an irresponsible, unprincipled young man who took advantage of a sweet, innocent child. He got her pregnant and abandoned her.”
“Abandoned her?” My voice shakes with fury. “He died . I met your daughter, Mrs. Bernard, when she and Steve were dating. She might have been a lot of things, but sweet and innocent were not among them.”
A spasm of anger contorts her face, and this time, Mrs. Bernard pulls hard against Detective Harris’s restraining arm. “How dare you?” she says with cold menace. “You didn’t know my daughter.”
“And you didn’t know Steve.”
Harris has had enough. He tightens his grip on Mrs. Bernard’s arm and locks me in a steely gaze. “Do you want to press charges?” he asks.
When I shake my head, he says, “Then I suggest you leave, Ms. Strong. If I need anything else from you, I’ll be in touch.”
Leaving is the last thing I want to do. I’ve learned nothing about Carolyn’s death to help me track the men responsible. But I also realize that I have what those men were looking for-the computer. And I suspect I know what they look like-the two at Frey’s apartment.
I have much more than the police.
Not once am I tempted to tell Mrs. Bernard about Trish. After all, not once has she thought to ask about her.
***
My lip has stopped bleeding. I feel the tingle as it repairs itself, the swelling recedes, the torn skin knits together. In about ten minutes, when I touch the place where Carolyn’s mother hit me, there’s not a trace of the wound left.
All that’s left is the sting of anger.
I pull into my parent’s driveway. I use my key to let myself in and find Trish’s hairbrush and Steve’s baby tooth, wrapped in a cotton cocoon, where my mother promised to leave it-on the dining room table.
Unwrapping the tooth, and seeing the fragile, tiny reminder of my family’s loss, I feel another surge of resentment toward Carolyn’s mother. She condemned Steve for what happened to her daughter with no regard for my feelings. I’m glad my parents weren’t there to experience her bitterness. But at least her words confirmed one thing for me. She believes Steve is Trish’s father. So why would Carolyn lie to Trish all these years? It’s obvious there was very little contact between Trish and her grandparents. If there had been, Trish would have learned about Steve a long time ago.