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Or had he left on purpose?
No one, including the police, insurance-company investigators or his family, seemed to have much to go on.
Until now. Katie stared at the note with a jaundiced eye.
The letter certainly could be a hoax. The postmark was from Eureka, California, which was barely a hundred miles south. Anyone could have driven down the coast and sent it. His signature—the only part of the missive aside from the address on the envelope that was handwritten in ink—looked authentic, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to forge.
So, now, what to do?
Katie took a long pull from her bottle of soda. A lot of people had been questioned about Isaac’s disappearance. Ray Dean, a local thug who had been in and out of prison several times, was the most current “person of interest” in the case. Ray had recently been paroled, but most of the people in Bittersweet believed it was only a matter of time before he was arrested again for some kind of crime. So how could he be involved? She decided it was time for her to find out.
After letting Blue back into the house, she spent the next couple of hours at her desk writing the story about receiving the letter. She polished the text, then reworked an article about the new school-district administrator and another on the making of applesauce using other fruits and berries to change the color and flavor of an old favorite.
“Not exactly Pulitzer material,” she muttered under her breath, because though the community was interested in the warm folksy articles that the Review was known for, she preferred something meatier, something with a little flash. When she’d completed her work, she emailed the columns to the office, then reviewed her notes on Isaac Wells again.
“Who knows?” she said, snapping off her computer as she heard Josh stirring. Rubbing a crick from her neck, she made her way back to her son’s room and found him dozing again. She folded her arms under her breasts, leaned against the doorjamb and watched him sleeping so peacefully. The sleep of the innocent.
In repose Josh looked a little more like Dave than was usual. Or maybe it was her imagination working overtime. Ever since learning of Dave’s death, she saw flashes of him in their boy. Which was ridiculous. Everyone who met Josh thought he was the spitting image of his mother.
Still, Katie saw the resemblance to his father in the shape of his eyes, the slight bump in his nose, even the way he walked.
And now Dave was gone. Her throat grew thick with memories she’d repressed for over ten years. She’d been young and foolish, anxious to grow up. Dave, just a little older than she was, had had the same wide brown eyes and thick eyebrows he’d given his son. He’d been a quiet boy who had moved from Texas with his mother and father. The first friends he’d made in town had been her half brothers, Nathan and Trevor, two hellions if ever there were any.
Katie sighed as she stared at her son. How could she tell him about his father? That there had been a poignancy, a deep sadness in Dave that had touched her heart? Whereas David Sorenson had been drawn to her wild brothers and their outgoing tomboy of a sister, she’d been attracted to his shy smile and clever, dry wit. Oh, Dave, she thought, why did you have to die? And how? She’d never even asked. So stunned by the news, she hadn’t voiced the question as there hadn’t been much opportunity and she hadn’t been sure she wanted to know.
Guilt, an emotion she tried to ignore, pricked at her mind. Dave, while he was alive, had the right to know that he’d fathered a son, and, dammit, Josh should have met his father. When Dave and his family had left Bittersweet, she’d told him that her period was late, that there was a chance she was pregnant, but that her monthly cycle was irregular. He’d never called and asked what had happened, and by the time she was certain she was carrying his child, her pride was wounded, her heart broken, and she’d refused to try and track him down like some pathetic, unwanted woman. Looking back now, she realized she had probably made a mistake.
Her throat grew tight, and she told herself that no good came from self-recriminations, that she could mentally beat herself up, but what was done was done. She just had to tell Josh the truth, and, of course, inform Ralph and Loretta Sorenson that they were grandparents.
Easier said than done.
A dozen worries skated through her mind. What if they decided they wanted partial custody of Josh, that this boy was all they had left of their only son? Conversely, what if, upon learning that Dave had fathered a child, they didn’t want to deal with Josh and felt that seeing him was too painful a reminder of their late son? What if they didn’t believe her, thought she was lying or, worse yet, was trying to scam them because they were a wealthy family that, after Dave’s death, had no heir?
Just as she chided herself for borrowing trouble, Josh stirred and blinked. “Mom?” he asked around a yawn. He stretched one arm over his head.
“How ya feelin’, bud?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Not great.”
“How about breakfast—or lunch? It’s nearly noon.”
“Whatever.”
He started to climb to his feet and winced. “Ouch.”
“Hey. Use the crutches.”
“I just gotta go to the bathroom,” he complained and hopped on one foot down the hallway.
Don’t nag him, she reminded herself as he managed to shut the bathroom door behind him. He’s gonna be grumpy for a while. He’s in pain, but he’s got to do for himself. Rather than over-mother him, she went to the kitchen and finished her cola. She’d just tossed the empty bottle into a sack on the back porch when she heard the bathroom door open, then the sound of Josh hopping to his room. He muttered something under his breath that she probably didn’t want to hear.
Blue whined at the back door, and while she held it open, she heard the uneven cadence of crutches hitting the floor as Josh hitched his way down the hall. She was wiping the counter when he paused at the archway leading to the dining room. “Is the car okay?” he asked, leaning forward on his crutches in order to scratch the old hound behind his ears.
“We can only hope. The mechanics at Len’s seem to be baffled.” She held up both her hands, showing him that her fingers were crossed.
Blue grunted in pleasure.
“I think we should get a new one.”
