Mother-Daughter Murder Night(20)
“No. Not that.”
Beth closed her eyes. Maybe the sheriffs had found another suspect to harass. Or maybe they were busy gathering evidence against Jack, conjuring up a story that she was an unreliable teenager who let a tourist die on her watch. Beth wondered what they might dig up. Would someone at the Kayak Shack talk about the time Jack marooned a group of tourists in the flood zone at king tide? Or would they find out she lied about meeting Ricardo? When Beth opened her eyes again, Jack was right up in her face.
“Mom, listen. They’re going to open the slough tomorrow. I want to go out there. In the morning, before school. Is that okay? I mean, they haven’t figured out yet what happened, but it must be safe if they’re opening it, right?”
Beth looked at her daughter, a 105-pound tangle of nerves and hair. “Honey, those detectives still have questions about you. Our priority has to be keeping you safe. What if something else happens?”
“Like what if someone else dies?”
The toaster dinged, and Beth flinched. She’d been so focused on her fears about the detectives that she hadn’t even considered the possibility the murderer could still be out there. Hearing it out loud made it an even scarier prospect.
“I just want you far from trouble,” she said, retrieving her waffles and returning to the sofa.
“Why am I being punished if I didn’t do anything?”
“I know you didn’t. But they don’t.” Beth wondered if her mother had made any headway yet on finding them a good lawyer.
“Mom, don’t I look even more guilty if I stop going out there? Isn’t it, like, a sign? If I change my routine?”
“The only thing it’s a sign of is that you listen to your mother.”
Jack’s eyes went dark. “It’s not like I’m some scared bunny rabbit.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know how to take care of myself.”
“Honey, I’m not saying you don’t. But this is serious. Can we just take this one step at a time?”
“Please, Mom. I need to get back in the water. Remember when I fell off my bike and you told me to get on it again? And the first time it was weird, but then after six times it felt totally normal? I think that’s what I need to do now or—”
Jack’s voice broke, and she collapsed into her mother’s shoulder. “Every time I close my eyes, I see him. I see the mud and the pickleweed and his red life jacket. It’s like the slough isn’t my place anymore.”
Beth stroked her daughter’s hair. Jack’s head rose and fell with Beth’s even breaths. “It’s awful when someone dies. Even someone you didn’t know very well.”
“I only met him once.” Jack’s voice was muffled against Beth’s sweater.
Then, the girl looked up. “How do you deal with it? Seeing death every day?”
“It isn’t every day. And it usually isn’t shocking, like what happened to that young man.” In a soft voice, Beth told her daughter about the patient who had passed away the night before. A gentle rancher who’d lived across the slough with his cows and his vegetable garden, a man who was pleased to hear about Jack going out to paddle every day. A man who lived long and died without pain. Beth’s words formed a monotone lullaby, softening death into something both far away and ordinary, with no hard edges, no surprises.
*
Lana sat at the table, stone-faced and silent. She couldn’t buy the fairy tale Beth was spinning. Every ragged breath she took reminded her of the tumors attacking her lungs, death rattling its alarm clock against her rib cage. Half of her wished she could escape to Los Angeles, to toast a real estate deal with cut crystal in a restaurant that would never dream of serving waffles for dinner. The other half of her wished she could slide onto the couch, join the embrace, maybe even offer something heartfelt to her girls.
But heartfelt wasn’t going to make this go away. Beth was right. The detectives were going to come back, and Lana wanted to be prepared. Nicoletti’s dismissive words still rattled in her ears, most of all that horrible, nasal ma’am, flattening her into something used up and worthless.
Lana hated being invisible. It was only slightly less terrifying than being dead.
She wasn’t going to just sit there waiting for the detectives to move along. She might be sick, but she wasn’t incapable. She was going to find a way to clear Jack.
She just needed to figure out how.
Chapter Twelve
Lana’s first day as an amateur detective began with a whimper. She woke up late. Groggy. After a coughing fit that left her heaving over the bathroom sink, she pulled on her robe, dumped honey into her tea, took her morning pills, and got back into bed.
But Lana was a woman who had renegotiated a contract during her daughter’s bat mitzvah. If she knew how to do anything, it was how to work. She downed her tea, got back up, and hauled out her neglected boxes of files and office supplies from under the bed. She wiped the dust off her chamber of commerce award for “fearless real estate mogul” and put it on the desk, alongside a stack of favorite books that used to line the shelves of her office. Then she pulled out a pen and a legal pad to take notes. She resisted the impulse to write a header across the top announcing her intention to find the true murderer and clear Jack’s name. She settled for neatly inking the date into the corner.