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“There is something more, Mrs. Santini,” he said, and there was a solemnity in his voice she hadn’t heard before. She was instantly wary, her fingers tightening around the receiver.
“Yes?”
“As I said, the boys were fighting about something—who knows what, maybe even a girl. At least that’s what the clerk at the Mini Mart thought she heard, but there was some discussion about Isaac Wells.”
Tiffany froze. “Pardon me?”
“The man who disappeared. Owned a place on the county road just out of town.”
“I know who he is,” she said, trying to keep the irritation and, well, the fear, from her voice. Deep inside she began to tremble. “I just don’t see what he has to do with Stephen.”
“Probably nothing. But when we emptied your son’s pockets—just part of procedure, you know—he had a set of keys on him.”
“Keys?” she repeated, having trouble finding her voice. “To my h
ouse,” she said, but knew she was only hoping against hope. Stephen had one key. Only one. No set.
The sergeant hesitated. “Maybe. But the chain is unique and engraved.” She closed her eyes because she knew what was coming. “Initials I.X.W. I’m thinkin’ it could be for Isaac Xavier Wells.”
“I see.”
“Talk to your boy.”
“I will,” she promised as she hung up and felt as if the weight of the world had just been dumped upon her shoulders. None of this was making any sense. Why was Stephen still hanging out with Miles Dean? What was he doing with that set of keys? What was the fight about? And, what could Stephen have to do with the old man whom he’d worked for, the man who’d disappeared?
She walked to the back door and noticed John Cawthorne’s wedding invitation on the counter. By the end of the week her father—well, if that’s what you could call the snake-in-the-grass John Cawthome—would be getting married. But Tiffany couldn’t think of that now. Suddenly she had more important dungs to consider.
“Mommy!” Christina shouted from the backyard.
Tiffany managed a tight smile as she opened the window over the sink. “What’s up kiddo?”
All smudges and bright eyes, Christina, standing beneath a shade tree, proudly showed off her latest creation of mud and grass piled high in the tinfoil plate that had once held a chicken potpie. A clump of pansies had been thrown on to the top for color. “Lookie!”
“It’s beautiful,” Tiffany said as Charcoal mewed loudly at the back door.
“You want a bite?”
“You bet,” she lied, trying to push her worries about her son far to the back of her mind. She’d deal with Stephen when he arrived home. “A big bite.” She pushed open the screen door. Charcoal slunk into the kitchen.
Christina, holding out her prize, started to run up the back steps.
“Watch out!”
Too late. With a shriek Christina stumbled over one of Stephen’s in-line skates and pitched headlong on to the porch. Tin pie plate, grass and clumps of mud flew into the air.
Tiffany was through the door in a second, picking up her daughter just as Christina took in a huge breath and let out another wail guaranteed to wake the dead in the entire Rogue River Valley. Tears streamed and blood began to trickle from a raspberry-like scratch on Christina’s knee.
“Mom-meeee!” Christina sobbed as Tiffany held her.
“Shh, baby, you’ll be fine.” Tiffany hauled her daughter into the house to the small bathroom off the kitchen.
“It hurts!”
“I know, I know, but Mommy will fix it.”
In the medicine cabinet she found antiseptic and a clean washcloth. As Christina, seated on the edge of the counter, wriggled and sucked in her breath, Tiffany washed each scratch and cut on her knee and chin.
The doorbell rang.
