Page 124 of Not a Word

But the woman kept standing there, not two feet away from him. Like she sensed his presence.

Crane thought, Looks like Option Number 1.

Forty-Four

The mall wasn’t going to happen, but McCabe thought she might be able to make it up to her daughter if she brought home pizza. A pepperoni for herself, and a sausage and onions for Moira. McCabe couldn’t handle the onions.

She set the two pizza boxes on the kitchen counter and called out her daughter’s name.

“Dinner!”

She heard Moira thumping her way down the stairs. So, still pissed, McCabe thought. Maybe she should have bought a container of Kawartha Dairy’s Death by Chocolate ice cream too. The pizza alone wasn’t going to make up for the canceled outing.

Moira sauntered into the kitchen, opened one pizza box lid and then the other. Her stone face cracked slightly when she saw the sausage and onion.

“I didn’t forget,” McCabe said. “You wanna grab some plates?”

Moira went to the cupboard, got two plates, and put them on the counter. Transferred two slices of her pizza to one, two slices of her mother’s to the other. Moira ate standing, while her mother took her plate to the table after grabbing a bottled water from the fridge. She put her phone on the table next to her food.

“Can you let me know how long the silent treatment’s going to last? If it’s going to be a while I’ll turn on the news.”

“You totally embarrassed me,” Moira said.

Okay, here we go.

“I’m not five years old. You can’t treat me like I am. All kinds of stuff goes on around me that I can’t control. Kids are always drinking or smoking or doing whatever. Just ’cause you found me where people were doing something doesn’t make me a crackhead.”

“I know you’re not a crackhead.”

“You don’t trust me.”

McCabe sighed. “That’s not the issue. You’re just not old enough to know how to make smart decisions.”

“So I’m stupid.”

“I never said that. And you could have saved yourself the embarrassment if you’d come home when you were supposed to or had answered my texts.”

Moira rolled her eyes. “I have to be this perfect kid because my mom’s a cop. Kids are scared to hang out with me. I had to tell everybody it was okay to do whatever they wanted so they wouldn’t think I was going to rat them out. I almost wanted them to get wasted so when nothing happened they’d know I was okay with it. And then what happens? You showed up. You can guess what they had to be thinking.”

McCabe took her napkin and dabbed a drop of grease on top of a piece of pepperoni.

“I hear ya,” she said and sighed. “Okay? I hear ya. Truce?”

Moira considered it. “I guess.”

They each took a bite and were quiet for a moment.

“I heard you say Chartwell on the phone today,” Moira said. “Before you went out.”

“Okay.”

“Gage is a friend.”

“Gage Chartwell?”

Moira nodded. “It was his grandfather who killed that woman and then himself.”

“Jesus,” her mother said. “You know him.”