Free Aurora 06 - A Fool And His Honey by Charlaine Harris Page B

puzzlement and anxiety.
    “Would you like to tell me about this?” Martin asked him.
    “That must be the money Craig stole,” his best friend said hesitantly. Then Rory fell silent, his eyes fixed on the money.
    If there’d been a jug of water handy I’d have thrown it on him.
    “Would you care to explain a little further?” Martin’s voice was deceptively mild.
    Rory looked pretty darn reluctant to start explaining, but we were both waiting and I think he knew we would not change the subject.
    “When Regina was expecting,” Rory began, “Craig began thinking of all the things the baby was gonna need, and I guess he just kinda went crazy, since he couldn’t get them for her, so he robbed a convenience store.”
    “In Corinth?” Martin asked.
    I sat down with my burden to listen to this latest fairy tale. Hayden wasn’t interested. He made little smacking noises. I looked down to discover he was asleep, with his tiny fist jammed into his mouth. I eased him into his infant seat to give my arms a rest.
    “No, sir,” said Rory. “He went across the state line into Pennsylvania somewhere. I don’t know the exact town.”
    For an appreciable length of time we just sat staring at Rory, who ducked his head and blushed at our critical scrutiny. I eyed the telephone, tempted once again to pick it up and call the sheriff to come get this fool.
    But Martin shook his head, reading my thoughts.
    “You were out of jail when Regina had the baby?” I asked.
    Rory looked as though a lightbulb were appearing over his head.
    “No, ma’am. I was in the jail.”
    “Was Craig in jail when Regina had the baby?”
    “No, ma’am. Craig got out a few days before I did.”
    “But Craig was back in jail for the past. . . ?”
    “Well, we got picked up again two weeks ago. About.”
    I now understood why the police beat people who wouldn’t confess. I knew somewhere in that cute, empty head lay the truth. And I wanted it badly enough to extract it with red-hot pincers, or at least so I told myself. I could tell by the way Martin was clenching his hands that he felt the same way, and I was willing to bet that under other circumstances Martin could make Rory talk.
    “We’ll have to talk about this more, later,” I told them both.
    I’ve never been trained to be a detective of any kind, but I’m a reasonably observant person, and this money was not the jumble of rumpled bills of all denominations you’d get if you robbed a convenience store. This was the kind of money you’d get at a bank, two one-hundred-dollar bills, the rest in twenties: a compact little bundle, smooth and flat.

Chapter Five
    Lunch that day was a real tense meal. I heated up soup and made grilled-cheese sandwiches, and we sat together at the kitchen table in uneasy silence. For once in my life, I wanted the phone to ring. Maybe the highway patrol would stop Regina’s car. Martin had asked Cindy to try to discover the name of the cruise line with which Barby had sailed, and getting Barby here would be a great relief. Or my mother might tell me more about John’s prognosis. I had so much to worry about my thoughts were running around inside my head like hamsters.
    Just as I began the dishes, I heard Hayden stirring, and this time he woke up ready to raise the roof.
    I put a bottle in the microwave before I left the kitchen. I was getting numb from the unaccustomed responsibility for this baby. I had never been so tired in my life, and every time I heard him tune up to cry, I leaped into action to stave off any more wailing. My stomach clenched every time he made a noise.
    An hour later, I had changed Hayden, fed Hayden, burped Hayden—in short, fulfilled my part of the bargain. But he wouldn’t go back to sleep. In my opinion, he should be out of the picture until the next feeding-changing-burping cycle; but it was one he didn’t seem to share. Not knowing what else to do, I was holding the baby, sitting on the couch in the library, staring down at