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“I know, but the officer on the phone said you were found with keys that might belong to Mr. Wells.”
Stephen paled to the color of chalk.
“No way.”
“They have the keys down at the station. With Mr. Wells’s initials on them.” She paused at the door, and her son, chewing nervously on the corner of his lip, nearly ran into her. “You want to explain?”
“They weren’t mine.”
“Then whose?”
His jaw worked in agitation. “I—I don’t know.”
“Stephen—”
“I mean it, Mom. I found ’em. In, in, the park when I was in-line skating.”
“And you didn’t tell me or turn them in to the police?” Oh, how she wanted to believe him, but this was way too much of a coincidence.
“No.”
“You know that the police are going to take those keys out to Mr. Wells’s place. If any of them fit in the locks of his house or his cars, they’ll have a lot more questions for you. A lot.”
Stephen’s lips clamped together, and Tiffany realized it was useless to argue with him at this moment. She’d give him a little time to think things over, but then she intended to get to the bottom of whatever it was that was bothering him.
“Wait for me in the car,” she told her son, and stopped at the back porch where Christina, her small hand fitted snugly in J.D.’s large one, was skipping toward the house.
“Unca Jay says we can get ice cream,” she announced.
“Does he?”
“After dinner.”
“That’ll be a while, honey. I’ve got to run Stephen to the clinic. Come along.”
She reached for Christina’s hand, but her strong-willed daughter thrust out her little bandaged chin. “Ice cream,” she ordered.
“In a while.”
“Now.”
“Come on, Christina,” Tiffany said, exasperated. Who was J.D. to try and interfere? Give it a rest, she reminded herself. He was just trying to help.
Or was he? She didn’t trust her brother-in-law’s motives. This sudden change of heart about his brother’s family had to be phony or, at the very least, exaggerated. Nervous sweat broke out between her shoulders.
“I’ll come with you,” J.D. offered.
“You don’t have to—”
“Come! Come!” Christina cried merrily as she tugged at J.D.’s arm.
“I want to,” he said, his eyes serious as his gaze caught her. “I’ll watch Christina while you get Stephen stitched up.”
“You don’t have to take care of us, you know,” she retorted, feeling cornered. “This... We…aren’t your duty. Don’t you have work or something better to do?”
“Than look after my brother’s kids?”
“They don’t need looking after. They have a mother.”
