Читать книгу: «Point Of Departure», страница 2

“Three strikes and you’re out,” she muttered.

Policzki glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Having a bad day, are we?”

“They postponed the court date on the Moldonado case. Again.”

Arturo Moldonado, a soft-spoken supermarket meat cutter who’d lived in the same East Boston apartment for two decades, was known for taking in strays—both the human and the animal variety—and handing out penny candy to the neighborhood kids. One day last October, he’d come home early and discovered his wife in bed with a twenty-two-year-old college dropout friend of their son. Upon seeing his inamorata engaged in steamy passion with another, much younger and more virile man, Moldonado had tiptoed to the kitchen and taken out a meat cleaver—which, in consideration of his occupation, he kept razor sharp—then returned to the bedroom and the still unsuspecting couple, and proceeded to hack them into a jillion pieces. Afterward, he’d called 911, then sat calmly on the couch with the bloody cleaver and waited for the authorities to come and take him away.

“You can’t control the court calendar,” Policzki said. “They’ll do what they’re going to do. All we can do is roll with it.”

His logic was flawless. And maddening. “That isn’t even the worst of it,” Lorna said, rubbing at her throbbing temple. “It’s those crazy people I call relatives that have me one step from the edge and peering down into the abyss.”

“Oh,” he said as the light dawned. “Wedding stuff.”

“Yes, wedding stuff! You know what I did today? I spent my lunch hour watching my nineteen-year-old daughter try on wedding dresses. Do you have any frigging idea how much those things cost?”

Policzki made a noncommittal grunt of sympathy. Of course he was noncommittal, she thought irritably. He didn’t have a clue how much wedding dresses cost. He lived at home with his mother and banked all his money. “Too damn much,” she said, answering her own question. “That’s how much. All for a kid who has her head in the clouds and doesn’t have a clue what life is really about.”

And that was the crux of the matter: Krissy was too young to get married. She was nineteen years old, barely out of high school. A baby. She was also headstrong and determined, so the wedding preparations rolled merrily along, gathering momentum and gaining in size, until they threatened to crush anybody who failed to jump out of the way.

“Silk and taffeta,” Lorna grumbled. “Tulle and organza. What the hell is organza, anyway?”

“I haven’t a clue.”

She glanced out the window, down a darkened side street. “Ed and I got married at city hall. I wore a navy-blue suit and carried a bouquet of carnations. We spent our wedding night at a hotel in Revere, then got up and went to work the next day. We did not—I repeat not—spend two weeks on Maui. Who the hell was the idiot that decided the bride’s parents are supposed to pay for the wedding?”

“The tradition dates back to ancient times,” Policzki said, “when the bride’s family was expected to provide a dowry to the family of the groom, presumably in payment for taking her off their hands.”

Lorna snorted. “If I’d known that was all it took, I’d have gladly paid Derek to take her off my hands. He’s welcome to all of her—the nose ring, the messy room, the Real World addiction. The posters of Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom. He’s an easygoing kid. I could’ve paid him off for a tenth of what this wedding will cost me. They could’ve eloped. Think of the money I would have saved.”

“I think this is it.” Policzki pulled up to the curb behind an aging Volvo wagon. Soft light spilled through a bay window of the South End town house onto the shrubbery below, giving the place the cozy, inviting look of a Thomas Kinkade painting. A shadow moved behind a curtained window. Policzki turned off the engine, and by silent agreement, they simultaneously opened their doors and stepped out of the car.

The day’s warmth had given way to a crisp, clear evening. As they moved briskly toward the front door of the house, Lorna said, “So I’ll be good cop and you can be bad cop.”

“How come I never get to be good cop?”

“Are you kidding, Policzki? With that grim expression of yours, you’d scare people half to death. Tell me. Do you take the face off when you go to bed at night, or is this a 24–7 kind of thing?”

“Hey, that’s not fair. I love babies and flowers and puppies.”

“I know. You’re just incredibly earnest. Or incredibly dedicated. Or incredibly something.”

They climbed the steps and Lorna rang the bell. Muffled footsteps approached and the door opened.

Lorna’s first thought was that Sam Winslow—if, indeed, the man standing in the open doorway, outlined by soft lamplight, was Sam Winslow—was a sinfully handsome man, with coal-black hair worn to his shoulders, electric blue eyes and a lean, craggy face topped by cheekbones sharp enough to slice diamonds. Somewhere in the vicinity of forty, if the wisps of gray at his temples were any indication, he could be a model—or a stand-in for George Clooney—if he ever tired of teaching. She could imagine him in a magazine layout, standing in a room full of glamorous and playful people, wearing Armani and sipping from a glass of Chivas Regal.

Christ on a crutch. His female students must be tripping over their own feet just to get close to him. Probably a few of the male ones were, too.

He eyed them warily. “Yes?”

“Sam Winslow?” Policzki said.

“Yes.”

The young detective held up his badge. “Policzki and Abrams, Boston PD. Is your wife home, sir?”

“My wife? I—no, actually, she’s not. What’s this about?”

“May we come in?”

“It’s dinnertime. I really don’t think—”

“Professor Winslow,” Lorna said, “there was an incident this afternoon involving your wife. I think you’d better let us in.”

“An incident?” He hesitated, looked momentarily nonplussed. Then he nodded and moved away from the door.

Winslow closed the door behind them, cleared his throat and ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. “What’s this about?” he repeated.

“Professor Winslow,” Lorna said, “when was the last time you spoke with your wife?”

“This morning,” he said. “We had breakfast together. Then she went her way and I went mine. You still haven’t told me what’s going on. What kind of incident?”

“It’s almost seven o’clock,” Policzki said. “Your wife isn’t home, and you haven’t spoken to her since this morning. Is this your typical daily routine?”

“Kaye works crazy hours. Look, I wish you people would tell me what the hell is going on. Is Kaye in some kind of trouble? Has something happened to her?”

“Your wife had an appointment this afternoon to show a house on Commonwealth Avenue,” Lorna said, watching his eyes carefully for even the merest flicker of recognition. Or guilt. But she saw neither. “When the client arrived, Mrs. Winslow wasn’t there.”

Winslow wrinkled his brow in puzzlement and ran a hand along his jaw. “I don’t understand. You mean she never showed up?”

“Oh, she showed up,” Policzki said. “Her briefcase was there. Her PDA and her wallet were there. But no Kaye. We did find somebody else there, though.”

Winslow crossed his arms. “Who?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Lorna said. “Whoever he was, he’d been shot in the head. Does your wife own a gun, Professor?”

Two

Winslow’s color wasn’t good. He sat on a cream leather sofa, directly across from Lorna, who’d snagged herself a comfy armchair, while Policzki wandered the room, taking a casual inventory of its contents. The professor had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, but to Policzki he still looked like something that should be hung out to dry on a wash day morning. His pallor might be due to the shock of learning that his wife was missing. On the other hand, it could be traced to a more sinister source. Guilt had a way of taking its toll on a man.

“The very suggestion is ludicrous,” Winslow said.

Lorna leaned back in her chair. “Why is it ludicrous?”

“A, we don’t own a gun. And B, even if we did, there’s not a chance in hell that Kaye would ever shoot it. She’d be too worried about breaking a nail or getting her hands dirty.”

His ears attuned to every nuance of their conversation, Policzki studied the collection of African tribal masks that hung on the wall above the fireplace mantel. They looked like the genuine article. Somebody—presumably the good professor—had done a good deal more traveling in his lifetime than had Douglas Policzki of Somerville, Massachusetts. Six semesters spent at an Arizona university was hardly in the same league as a trip to the Dark Continent.

The Winslows had eclectic tastes. An antique open-fronted china cabinet housed a large collection of Hummel figurines. At least the Winslows kept them all in one place. Policzki’s mother collected Hummels, and she had dozens of them scattered all over the house, an excess of cuteness so saccharine it made his teeth ache.

“My wife did not kill anybody,” Winslow said. “There has to be some other explanation. Have you talked to the owner of the building? Maybe this dead guy is one of the Worthingtons.”

Policzki picked up one of the offending objects, a dimpled boy in knee pants and tight curls who carried a shepherd’s crook. Odd, he thought, absently running his thumb over its cool, smooth surface, that Winslow should seem more interested in the dead man than in his missing wife.

“Technically, the house is owned collectively by the Worthington heirs,” Lorna said. “The executor of the estate, Bruce Worthington, is out of the country right now, traveling in Europe. We’re trying to reach him.”

Policzki set down Little Boy Blue, leaned against the china cabinet and crossed his arms.

“Maybe…” Winslow’s brows drew together in concentration. “Maybe she witnessed something that frightened her. Maybe she saw the killer.” His skin, taut across his cheekbones, seemed almost too small for his face. Too tight. “Maybe,” he said, “she’s hiding from someone.”

Policzki met Lorna’s gaze and held it for an instant. She leaned closer to the professor, elbows braced on her knees. “What makes you say that?”

Winslow loosened his tie a little further, but it did nothing to heighten his color. He still looked like somebody’s washed-out bed linens. “No particular reason. I’m just thinking out loud. Trying to come up with some logical explanation.”

“Have you noticed anything unusual about your wife’s behavior lately? Any personality changes? Has she seemed more irritable than usual? More nervous? More secretive?”

“None of the above,” Winslow said. “Kaye’s just been her usual self.”

“Which is?”

“I’m not sure I understand the question, Detective.”

“If you could describe your wife to me in one word, what would it be?”

“Ah. I see. I’d probably say driven.”

“Driven?”

Winslow shifted position, digging his backside deeper into the sofa’s plush cushions. “My wife’s enough of a workaholic to make the rest of us look like slackers. I know it sounds like a cliché, but Kaye eats, drinks and breathes real estate. She’s never off duty. Evenings, weekends, holidays. If she’s not out showing properties, she’s on the phone, drumming up business.”

“I’d think,” Policzki said, “that might cause friction in the household.”

Winslow blinked a couple of times, as though he’d forgotten there was a third person in the room. “Friction?”

“Well,” Policzki said, his gaze focused directly on the professor’s face, “if my wife worked 24–7, after a while I’d start to feel neglected.”

“I’m not neglected. There’s nothing wrong with my marriage, if that’s what you’re implying. Kaye and I are adults. I understand the importance of her job, and she understands the importance of mine. We do our best to accommodate each other’s needs.”

Across the room, Lorna crossed shapely legs and adjusted the hem of her skirt. “Then you don’t fight at all?” she said.

“Of course we fight. All couples fight.”

“Of course,” she agreed. “About what?”

Had Winslow gone even paler, or was it a trick of the light? “I don’t know,” he said. “What does any couple fight about? Maybe I left the toilet seat cover up again, or she left the cap off the toothpaste. Or I forgot to pick up milk on the way home.”

Policzki stepped away from the china cabinet and stood behind Lorna’s chair. “Tolstoy once said that all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Winslow’s mouth thinned and his eyes lost some of their warmth. “We’re not unhappy, Detective.”

Soothingly, Lorna said, “Nobody said you were.”

“He implied it. I’m trying to be cooperative.”

“And we appreciate it,” Lorna said. “Let’s change direction for a minute. What was your wife wearing when she left the house this morning?”

“Ah…let me think.” Winslow ran the fingers of both hands through his hair while he thought about it. “A red suit,” he said finally. “Yeah, that’s it. A red suit and matching heels. White silk chemise top underneath.”

“Any jewelry?”

“Just her wedding ring. A wide gold band with a single marquise-cut diamond. One carat. Oh, and her Rolex. She never leaves the house without it.”

“Just like American Express. Karl Malden would be proud. And she was driving her car this morning? The red 2005 BMW?”

“That’s right.”

“Dr. Winslow,” Policzki said, “where were you this afternoon between, say, two and four?”

He wasn’t imagining the hostility he saw in Winslow’s eyes. It was real. But he had to give the guy points for control. “I was in my office,” Winslow said. “Working. I teach two classes every Tuesday. I spent the time between classes doing online research for a paper I’m presenting at a symposium in Kansas City next month.”

“Is there anybody who can vouch for your presence? Did anybody see you there? Did you talk to anybody, take any phone calls, while you were there?”

A muscle twitched in Winslow’s jaw. He looked at Lorna as if seeking support. When it didn’t come, he said, “No. I kept the door shut to discourage interruptions. If I leave it open, I don’t get any work done.”

“So you have no alibi for the time in question. That could pose a problem, Professor, if we don’t locate your wife.”

“Look…” Winslow’s eyes suddenly went damp. “You have to know how worried I am about Kaye. If something’s happened to her—” He closed his eyes and shook his head. A single tear escaped from the corner of his eye. Policzki watched in fascination as it trickled down his cheek. “No,” he said after a moment of silence, “I won’t even go there. Not yet. I refuse to believe that anything’s happened to her. There’s a reasonable explanation for all of this. I don’t know what it is yet, but we’ll find it.”

Gently, Lorna said, “Does your wife have any enemies, Professor? Anybody you can think of who might wish her harm?”

He looked at her, blinked a couple of times. “Enemies? What possible reason could anyone have for wishing my wife harm?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

Winslow had begun to perspire profusely. The underarms of his shirt were ringed with sweat. “No,” he said, his voice a little shakier than before. “I’m not aware of any enemies who might wish her harm.”

“She hasn’t mentioned anything about problems at work?” Lorna said. “A tiff with a co-worker, a disgruntled client? A deal that went south? A competitor who thinks Winslow & DeLucca is horning in on his territory and wants to even the odds?”

“She hasn’t said anything to me. You should probably talk to Mia. If anything like that was going on, Mia would know.”

“Who’s Mia?”

“Mia DeLucca. My sister. She and Kaye are business partners.”

Lorna and Policzki exchanged glances. “Call her,” Lorna said. “Get her over here.”

Mia DeLucca sat in a line of cars at the tollbooth, inching her way forward, one car length at a time, in mortal danger of being asphyxiated by exhaust fumes. Ahead of her, Boston rose like the Emerald City, a breathtaking vista of twinkling lights and soaring buildings. Behind her lay ninety miles of turnpike, ninety miles of brutal, bumper-to-bumper traffic, ninety miles of crazed Massachusetts drivers, at least half of them fueled by road rage.

The trip from Springfield had been a nightmare. After eight hours of tedious real estate seminars, all she wanted was to go home and soak in a hot bubble bath. But she’d been expected to eat dinner with the rest of the presenters before they went their separate ways, so she’d made the best of it and splurged on a meal of shrimp scampi and a single glass of white wine. Even taking into account the ninety minutes that dinner took from start to finish, she still would’ve made it home by seven-thirty if fate hadn’t intervened in the form of a semi truck that had jackknifed and overturned on the Mass Pike somewhere near Framingham. It had taken over an hour for emergency personnel to right it, while Mia and nine trillion other drivers sat at a standstill.

When she realized how late she would be, she’d called Kevin from her cell phone so he wouldn’t worry. She should have known better. Her son had expressed sympathy in typical unfocused teenage fashion, meaning he was wrapped up in some computer game and hadn’t been thinking about her at all. He’d undoubtedly forget her existence again the instant he hung up the phone. It was a good thing that she planned to amass a fortune in real estate before she retired. If Kevin was responsible for taking care of her in her old age, she’d probably end up living in a refrigerator box on some downtown street corner. Her son would be too busy playing Grand Theft Auto to remember the aged crone who’d given birth to him all those years ago.

The line of cars inched closer to the tolls, and as her engine shuddered in protest, Mia drummed her fingernails on the steering wheel. Somewhere between Springfield and Boston, her odometer had rolled past three hundred thousand miles. It was nearing time to send the ancient Blazer to the boneyard, but she was loath to spend the money on a new car. At least the old girl was paid for. Embarrassing to drive, but paid for. The previous owner, a twenty-year-old kid from Revere, had pimped it out with shiny black paint, chrome wheels and opaque, black-tinted windows. Kev, of course, loved the damn thing. He called it her Mafia staff car.

Kaye, on the other hand, was forever hounding her to buy a new car. Her sister-in-law was a strong proponent of the you-have-to-look-successful-to-be-successful philosophy. That might work fine for Kaye, who drove a flashy BMW and dressed like Ivana Trump. But Kaye wasn’t feeding and clothing a seventeen-year-old boy with a hollow leg and feet that wouldn’t stop growing. She wasn’t paying off student loans and a killer mortgage. And she certainly wasn’t going it alone. She had a husband to help pay the bills, a husband who was solid, respectable and gainfully employed.

Mia finally reached the tollbooth. The toll taker, a sallow-faced man in his sixties, wordlessly took the five-dollar bill she offered, and shoved the change into her hand with sullen impatience. Checking her rearview mirror, she pulled away from the tolls, changed lanes and shot across town through the Big Dig tunnel in a quarter of the time it had taken back in the days of the elevated expressway. She took a downtown exit and quickly found herself in the heart of the North End. Boston’s Little Italy, with its narrow, congested streets, its restaurants and its pastry and butcher shops, possessed an old-world charm and a warm, neighborhood feel Mia hadn’t known existed until she had married Nick and moved here. Now, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

She climbed the hill and turned onto her street, found a tiny opening at the curb only two houses down from her own, and squeezed into it. Shutting off the engine, she studied her house, assessing its curb appeal, admiring the brick and stone exterior, the bay windows, the freshly painted front door. She’d bought the house seven months ago, and still the sight of it sent a tiny thrill down her spine. She hadn’t been in the market for a house; she’d originally brought a client here, a thirtyish yuppie banker looking to invest in the recently fashionable North End. He’d wanted something he could buy cheaply, renovate and turn over in five or six years. The house had just come on the market, and the asking price, while a little steep, still didn’t reflect the skyrocketing prices she’d been seeing all over the Greater Boston Area.

The house hadn’t been what her client was looking for. Too expensive, too much work to be done. But Mia had walked through the front door and fallen instantly in love. The house might need work, but she was handy with a hammer and a paintbrush. She’d walked from room to room, picturing what she could do with the place even as she extolled its virtues to her client and prayed he wouldn’t love it the way she did.

It was the courtyard that sold her. It was exquisite, a sun-dappled oasis tucked away behind the house, accessible to the street only by a narrow alley that ended in a locked wrought-iron gate. Although it had been a blustery February day when she’d looked at the house, she had seen the tiny courtyard’s potential. She could picture it blooming in a riot of color, with tubs of pink and white impatiens and long wooden planters overflowing with red geraniums. A park bench over here, maybe some kind of water fountain over there, with cascading sprays of greenery everywhere.

She’d grown up without flowers, without any of the feminine touches a mother would have brought to her life. Johnny Winslow hadn’t exactly been Martha Stewart. Mia’s old man had been too busy drinking and committing the petty crimes that kept him on a first-name basis with various members of the local constabulary to place any stock in something as frivolous as flowers. Or any home decor more exotic than a tableful of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles.

Mia had gone home that night and spent hours crunching numbers. Winslow & DeLucca was doing well, but she and Kaye had agreed at the start of their partnership not to bleed it dry. They lived on their personal commissions and filtered most of the agency’s share right back into the firm. The real estate business was notoriously unpredictable, and she had to be sure she had enough money tucked away to cover the next dry spell. In another year, Kevin would be off to college, and Mia didn’t even want to think about what that would cost.

She’d weighed her options and her finances carefully. It had been close, but in the end, the little courtyard, with its old-world charm, had won out. In the morning, she’d gone into the office, called the listing Realtor and made an offer. It had been accepted immediately. Four weeks later, she’d signed papers and the previous owner had handed over the keys. Now she had a home that belonged to her (or would, after 356 more payments), a never-ending renovation project that filled every hour of her spare time, and a hefty mortgage that kept her awake at night thinking up creative ways to put more cash into her bank account. Fear of starvation, she’d discovered, was a powerful motivator.

She found Kevin at his desk, his lanky six-foot-three frame hunched over a gargantuan computer monitor. He handled the joy stick with rapid and accurate movements as the vroom-vroom of racing automobile engines, accompanied by squealing tires and a frenzy of gunshots, poured from the wall-mounted speakers. Pausing in the open doorway, Mia made a sweeping assessment of his room: the empty pizza box beside his desk; the clunky size-thirteen sneakers—bought a month ago and probably already outgrown—carelessly discarded in the middle of the floor; the dog-eared Star Wars poster; the dirty socks collecting dust bunnies beneath the unmade bed. Kev’s housekeeping skills might be lacking, but this was his space. As long as there were no drugs hidden in his underwear drawer, as long as the dirty socks eventually got washed and nothing was growing under the bed, she let him keep his room the way he wanted it.

Leaning against the door frame, she said, “Killed any bad guys lately?”

“Shit! I mean, shoot.” Kevin glanced warily over his shoulder. “Geez, Mom, you just got me killed. Now I have to start all over again.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me for the intrusion.”

“You could at least knock first. You scared the crap out of me.” Finally remembering the manners she’d drilled into his head since birth, he leaned back in his chair, swiveled in her direction and said, “So how was the seminar?”

“Have you ever watched paint dry? Multiply that times ten, and you’ll have an idea.”

His grin was quick and broad. “Sorta like sitting through Miss Crandall’s English class.”

“Sorta like that.”

“So,” he said, “I have something to ask you.”

Cautiously, she nodded. “Okay. Ask.”

“Michelle’s family is flying down to Tampa for the Columbus Day weekend. They’re leaving on Thursday night. They invited me to come along. Can I go?”

“They’re flying all the way to Tampa for three days?”

“Three days, four nights. They do it all the time. They have a condo down there, and it’s right on the beach. There’s plenty of room. I’d have my own room and everything. It would be really cool, Mom. The sun, the sand, the swaying palm trees.”

The sex, she thought, but didn’t say it. What kind of supervision would the Olsons provide? Would it be sufficient to keep Kevin from sneaking into Michelle’s bedroom while the rest of the family was asleep? She knew the kids were deeply involved, and she’d spoken to Kevin some time ago about safe sex. Mia wasn’t sure if their relationship had reached that level yet, but if it hadn’t, it was bound to in the near future. Anybody who looked at the two of them together could tell. One of Mia’s biggest fears was that Michelle would get pregnant and both their young lives would be ruined. Could she trust her son to exercise good judgment?

Mia took a deep breath. “Who’s paying for your plane ticket?”

It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask, and they both knew it. But because it was the opening she’d provided, he jumped into it eagerly. “Don’t worry, Mom, I already told them I’d pay for it myself. I knew you wouldn’t want me to let them take on the extra expense. This time of year, a ticket to Florida’s pretty cheap if you buy it online. I have enough money saved up. I already talked to Denny. He says I can have the time off from work. And all my teachers are giving me my assignments early so I won’t miss anything important.”

Her son was one clever boy. He’d covered all the bases. “Let me think about it,” she said. “How soon do you have to have an answer?”

“Tomorrow. Mr. Olson needs to know how many tickets to buy.”

“I’ll let you know in the morning. Right now, I’m taking a hot bath.”

She started to move away from the doorway, but his voice stopped her. “Mom?”

Mia turned back to her son, waited. “I know what you’re worried about,” he said, raising his gaze to hers. “Michelle and I are seventeen years old. We’re smart and we’re careful.” A flush spread across his cheeks, but he bravely continued. “We respect each other, and we don’t take chances. We know how much we have to lose. So please don’t worry about us. We know what we’re doing, and we’re acting like responsible adults.”

Well. It looked as if she had her answer. Something tightened inside Mia’s chest, and she felt a momentary urge to cry over the realization that her son was sexually active. He was so young. It seemed just yesterday he was taking his first steps, learning to ride a bike, becoming an Eagle Scout. Was he emotionally mature enough to handle a sexual relationship? Who would guide him through those shark-infested waters? For the first time in Kevin’s young life, she felt totally inadequate as a parent. She’d done well, raising him alone after Nick died, but there were times when a boy needed a father, and this was one of them.

Mia stepped back into her son’s room, leaned over his chair and gave him a hug. “I’m proud of you,” she said.

Most kids his age, male kids anyway, would have struggled to escape, but not Kevin. He hugged her back with the same enthusiasm with which he faced everything in life. “Thanks, Mom,” he said. “I’m pretty proud of you, too.”

Kevin DeLucca was his own person. He didn’t let peer pressure influence him, and he didn’t give a rat’s behind that it wasn’t cool to actually like your parents. Most adolescents were sullen and sulky, but Kevin was sunny and upbeat. His and Mia’s relationship was based on trust, mostly because he had never given her any reason not to trust him. Mia knew how lucky she was to have a son like that.

“I’ll talk to you in the morning,” she promised. “Don’t stay up too late.”

She’d just started to run her bath when the phone rang. It was past ten o’clock, late for a phone call, and for an instant, the old fear crept up through her, fanning out in a wall of flame across her chest and tightening around her throat. Back in the day, back when she was a kid, a call after 10:00 p.m. invariably meant that Dad was in trouble again. Back in jail on a D&D, occasionally something worse.

But those days were in the distant past. It had been fifteen years since she’d last seen Johnny Winslow, nearly as long since a late-night phone call meant trouble. It was probably just Bev, calling to remind her about an early morning appointment. Or one of Kev’s buddies who’d chosen to ignore her no-calls-after-nine-o’clock rule.

Kevin’s voice yanked her back to the present. “Mom,” he yelled, “it’s for you.”

Tying her soft flannel robe more tightly around her, she eyed the claw-foot bathtub with great longing before turning off the taps and padding barefoot into her bedroom. “I’ve got it,” she said into the telephone receiver, and heard the click as Kevin hung up. “Hello?”