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“You don’t have to thank me.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “I want you back home. I want you well soon.”
“Me too.”
She leaned down and brushed a dry kiss on his lips, then checked her watch. “I need to get a move on. I’ve booked an interview with the minister who’s going to officiate that funeral. God help him. Literally. I mean, what do you say?”
Having only half listened to everything else she’d been rattling off, upon hearing that, he was instantly alert. “The little boy’s funeral?”
Shauna picked up her oversize bag and carried it across the room to the counter where the sink was. “They’ve already announced that it’ll be a private service. Media will be kept a block away from the church. Of all the stories, his is the most poignant because of his age.” She moved aside the garish bouquet to better access the mirror above the sink and began to tweak her hair.
Calder cleared his throat. “Do you know if they have other children?”
“There is no ‘they.’ The mother is a single parent, and whoever the father was”—she spread on lip gloss—“is no longer in the picture. Charlie—not short for Charles, just Charlie—was her only child.”
She capped the lip gloss and zipped the tube into a cloth pouch, which she dropped into her bag, then slid the wide strap onto her shoulder. Turning back to him, she said, “I’ve tried twice to speak with the mother—”
“What’s her name?”
“Portman. Elle Portman.” Her glossy lips twisted into a frown. “She’s got this harpy taking her calls. So far I’ve gotten nowhere with her. Not even when I invoked your name.”
He almost came up out of the bed. “Invokedmyname?”
“I thought if she knew of our connection—”
“Don’t do that again.”
She opened her mouth as though to come back with a retort to his brusque order but must have thought better of it. She waited several beats, then said in a calm and level voice, “I didn’t think you would object.”
“But you didn’t ask, did you? And I object a hell of a lot.”
“I told the woman on the phone that I was a close personal friend of yours. That’s all. If it makes you feel any better, your name didn’t make a dent. She hung up on me.”
“Can you blame her?”
Again she seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, when instead she looked at her watch again. “I’ve stayed too long. You look tired. I’ll check in on you later. Get some rest.”
Then she was gone, eagerly on her way to prepare for her coverage for a curious public of the private funeral of the two-year-old that he couldn’t save.
Chapter 7
Elle pulled into a metered parking slot in front of the precinct office of the sheriff’s department. She’d been asked to appear there at three o’clock. The flags out front were flying at half-staff in honor of the casualties of the Fairground shooting.
It had occurred a week ago today. Over the course of those seven days, it had achieved capitalization status in print and had been designated with a hashtag on social media. News networks were still doing follow-up stories.
But for those not directly involved, it was a notch in history. Millions of people had resumed their everyday lives as though in Elle Portman’s universe there hadn’t been a catastrophic event on the scale of the sun burning out.
She’d arrived ahead of the assigned time, so she let her car idle while she gave herself a few minutes to reflect on the past week.
Glenda had returned to work this morning, but only after Elle had insisted. When pressed, Glenda had admitted that time-sensitive matters were demanding her attention at Foster Real Estate.
“But I hate for you to go to that meeting alone. What do you think it’s about? Did Compton give you a hint?”
“No. When she called this morning, she began by apologizing for imposing on me during this ‘difficult time’ but asked if I could meet with her and Perkins again this afternoon.”
“Asked. But was it optional?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe you should take a lawyer with you, Elle. I could make some calls.”
