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“Good,” Stephen grunted, eyeing the barbecue sauce that was simmering on the stove.
The temperature still hovered near eighty, and a hummingbird was flitting near the open blossoms of the clematis that draped over the eaves of the back porch. Bees droned while a woodpecker drilled loudly in a nearby oak tree and the muted sound of traffic reached her ears.
“Is he eatin’ with us?” Stephen asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Good.”
“He is your uncle,” she reminded him gently. And he’s your brother-in-law, whether you like it or not, she told herself. J.D. had signed his six-month lease, given her a check and started carting his few belongings up the stairs. His limp was noticeable, but just barely, and she wondered if his brush with death had been the cause for his reconciliation with his father. Or had it been because Carlo had lost his eldest son?
Her heart squeezed at the thought of the accident that had taken Philip’s life. Guilt, ever her companion, encroached upon her, wrapping its fingers around her heart. She had loved Philip once, but it had been such a long time ago.
“So why did you have to see the counselor today?” Stephen asked for the first time. He rubbed one elbow with the fingers of the opposite hand, a nervous trait he’d developed from the time he was four years old.
“She just wanted to talk to me.”
The cat cried at the back door.
“Come on in, you,” Tiffany said with a smile, then noticed as she held open the screen door that the small tear in the mesh was getting larger. Sooner or later it would have to be fixed. Charcoal streaked inside.
“I know she wanted to talk to you. But why?” Deftly plucking a bunch of grapes from a bowl on the table, Stephen leaned insolently against the door frame and began plopping the juicy bits of fruit into his mouth.
This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for, because deep down, though she would never admit it, she was scared. Scared to death.
“Well, she started out by asking about you—you know, just checking on how things were going.”
“She just saw me the other day.”
“I know, but she had a few more questions. She’s worried about you, Stephen, and frankly, so am I.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
If only she could believe it. Oh, Lord, how she wanted to trust her boy. “She had a few questions about your relationship with Mr. Wells.”
He froze for a second, then spat the seed from his grape into the sink. “I worked for him. Big deal.”
“What do you know about him? They think you know something about why he disappeared,” she said, finally admitting what the juvenile officer had implied. It was ridiculous, of course. It had to be. Isaac Wells had disappeared over a month ago, vanished without a trace. Whether it was foul play or by his own intention, no one knew what had happened to the elderly man. It was the biggest mystery Bittersweet had seen in years. Though Tiffany believed without a doubt that her son was innocent of any wrongdoing, she wanted to hear it from Stephen himself.
“I don’t know nothin’.”
“That’s what I said, but now someone, and I don’t know who, has come forward and said that he…well, or she, for that matter, saw you out at the Wells place on the day that Isaac disappeared.”
Stephen blanched, and Tiffany’s heart seemed to fall through the floor. “Someone saw me?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Then they’re lyin’. I wasn’t near the place.”
“You’re sure?”
“Don’t you believe me?” he cried, licking his lips nervously, his eyes round with an unnamed fear.
She ached to trust him. “Of course I do, but—”
“But what?” Stephen interrupted.
“But it’s your word against this other person’s.”
