Free Murder Crops Up by Lora Roberts Page A

were at his house, or talking about books in my living room. At times, I’d found it stifling, too. I had felt bad about the relief his departure for Seattle caused me, bad because his dad’s illness was a cause of distress, not relief. And while I missed him, missed those creamy cups of conviviality, I also welcomed the quiet, the lack of demand.
    Now Amy would come and shatter that. She would have to sleep in the middle of everything, on the lumpy old sofa bed in my living room. Her teenaged debris would be everywhere—hair equipment, makeup bags bulging with weird colors, jangly heaps of costume jewelry, jeans and T-shirts so frayed you would think them overdue for the ragbag. She did try to keep it all straight, but her definition of tidy and mine came from different dictionaries.
    Waiting for the water to boil, I wandered through the living room. Drake’s abrupt departure had caught his living room in its usual chaotic state. He limited his organizational efforts to the kitchen.
    This was one reason why we often sat in my living room in the evening. Years of living in my VW bus have made me very sensitive to clutter. My house is small and I don’t have a lot of stuff, so cleaning is a relatively simple process. Drake’s living room overflows with stacks—books in teetering piles, videotapes in and out of cases, newspapers and journals piled on opposing ends of the coffee table, and a sofa draped with whatever he puts down on his way through the room—a shirt, a stack of files, a basketball, a towel.
    Despite the peace and quiet I’d craved, I suddenly felt an overwhelming longing to see Paul lounging on the sofa—after having pushed all the junk down to one end.
    The kettle whistled. I was pouring hot water on a tea bag of lemon balm and peppermint when Amy called back.
    “I can be there tomorrow around noon. Is that okay?” Her voice was anxious.
    “It’s fast.”
    “I don’t care how early I have to get up. It’s worth it to get away from here.”
    “Amy, is something—going on, something I should know about? Because—”
    “Don’t worry, Aunt Liz.” Her laugh was brittle. “Everything will be fine, once I get to California.”
    That sounded like famous last words.
     

Chapter 9
     
    "Amy's a dear girl,” Bridget said, passing me the bowl of green beans, “but should she be coming to visit just now? It’s not a particularly good time, is it?”
    She wasn’t more specific about why it wasn’t a good time because the three adults at the Montrose dinner table were outnumbered by the four children. Corky, the eldest at seven, had his ears pricked up under his blazing thatch of curly red hair. He passionately resented the unfairness of a world where adults could know things that children could not. He frequently managed to find out, and garble, any secrets he suspected his mom of keeping from him.
    Sam, the next oldest at five, didn’t care about the meaningless bibble-babble around him. He ate stolidly through a large helping of spaghetti before beginning on his salad. The garlic bread lay on his plate, untouched. He would eat it last. I knew his patterns because I’d minded the four Montrose offspring while Bridget and Emery had been in Hawaii not long before.
    Mick, the youngest boy, had graduated at three to a booster seat on a regular chair. He loved the freedom of climbing up and down on his own during meals, and made use of it way too often for my delicate spinster nerves. Bridget was oblivious, however, and even Emery did no more than haul Mick back by his shirttail when he attempted to leave the room.
    “Do you need a high chair again?” Emery spoke sternly when he plunked his son back into the booster seat, but his hand smoothing Mick’s straight brown hair was tender. “We all sit at the table during meals. That includes you."
    Mick looked at him thoughtfully. “Okay,” he said at last. He rarely spoke in more than monosyllables, although Bridget had been assured by his