Free Hand of Fate by Lis Wiehl Page A

roast.
    "Say excuse me," Nic cautioned, as Makayla heaped potatoes on her plate.
    Her daughter grinned unrepentantly. Her braids bounced as she lunged forward for a roll.
    "So will Makayla be staying with us for a while?" Nic's father asked. Lloyd Hedges was a tall, slender man with big eyes made even bigger by his narrow face.
    "I'm afraid so. They're putting together a task force to figure out exactly what happened." Nic tried to hide her pride at the next bit of news. "I've been appointed the case agent." She had lobbied hard for it, pointing out to John Drood, the special agent in charge, that Jim Fate had reached out to her and Allison just before he was killed.
    "Congratulations," Berenice said. "I think." She knew what long hours such an assignment meant.
    "Why can't I just stay home by myself instead of coming here after school?" Makayla said. "I'm almost ten. And everybody thinks I'm at least twelve."
    Makayla already came up to Nic's nose. She had another striking feature: her unusual green eyes. Even strangers commented on them and sometimes asked where she had gotten them.
    No matter how much she tried to pretend Makayla was all hers, there were times when the truth slapped Nic in the face. The green eyes, the height, the paler hue of her skin--all came from Makayla's daddy.
    But Nic had sworn to herself that Makayla would never, ever know that.
    Or him.
    Nic shook her head. "It doesn't matter what you look like. Wha t m atters is how old you really are. And in this state you have to be twelve before you can stay home alone. Besides, in the next couple of weeks there are probably going to be times when I don't come home until after midnight. Your grandma will feed you and make sure you brush your teeth and do your homework."
    "And say your prayers before you go to sleep," Mama added, giving Nic a significant look.
    Nic didn't rise to the bait. She was mostly silent through dinner, her mind going back through everything that had happened during the day. Was it really just this morning that the Bratz Bandits trial had begun? It seemed like a week ago.
    She mentally retraced her route down the stairs with Mrs. Lofland, and then back into the courthouse. She again saw Mrs. Lofland safely into a taxi--paying the driver herself over the older woman's protests--and then walked with Leif back to the FBI office. It had been a rare sunny day, the kind that made you think that spring was just around the corner. February could be cruel like that.
    But as they walked through the nearly empty streets, past abandoned cars and even an empty stroller, Nic only had eyes for Leif. "Did you ever listen to his show?" Leif had asked.
    "The Hand of Fate? Not really. Too one-sided for me. He made sure he always had the last word. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the last time I listened to him, he was saying that food companies could be counted on to do a good job of policing themselves because they wouldn't want to kill off their own customers. And that the big-government advocates were using Chicken Little tactics to scare consumers. Well, hello, I am scared. I've got a child to raise. Peanut butter is pretty much 50 percent of Makayla's diet. And that one company had rats and mold and all kinds of things it doesn't bear thinking about. I say, bring on the nanny state." She realized Leif was grinning at her. "What?"
    He shook his head, looking amused. "I just don't think I've ever seen you get that riled up."
    "And I don't like to feel like that. If I'm going to listen to the radio, I'd rather listen to some jams, not something that's going to raise my blood pressure. But don't worry. Just because I want the food policed doesn't mean I won't do a good job on this."
    Leif's expression turned serious. "Don't worry. Everybody knows that if you give Nicole Hedges a case, you had better stand back, because she'll go after it with a vengeance."
    Back at the office, Nic had immediately been engulfed in a series of meetings and phone calls and