thirteen. He doesn’t know anything about this. Stay away from him,” she warned.
The detective finally left after that and as the door closed behind her, Janet scurried to the front window and peeked through the curtains, watching her pull away from the curb in a silver SUV. Then she glanced down the street, wondering if anyone had seen the detective come to her door. Luckily, no one was around and the cop wasn’t driving a squad car.
Damn.
She turned from the window and her eye caught the picture of her and Chris’s wedding day, fifteen years earlier. They both looked so happy. She was all in white and her hair was long. She looked so incredibly young.
Touching her hair now, she wondered if she should grow it out again. She’d had gardenias in her hair for the picture, but she’d always worn headbands at that time. Headbands with bows had been Chris’s favorite. And Mary Jane’s with anklets. That had really turned him on and she remembered those times in the bedroom where he’d suddenly pushed her down and tickled her silly, ripping at her clothes until they were naked and he was driving into her and grunting like an animal. He never bothered to take off her shoes and socks.
A coldness settled into her lower back and she shuddered. Well, sex had never been her thing, really, despite what she’d said to that detective. Chris, too. They’d just loved each other a lot, though. They really had.
A tear slid down her cheek as she finished rolling out the dough for the cookies. She was just finishing up the last batch when she heard a car pull into her drive, then the front door flew open and slammed shut. “Chris?” she called.
She heard her son’s heavy footsteps clomp down the hall to his room and then another door opened and slammed shut.
“Chris?” she called again, then with a sigh arranged the cookies on a plate and took them to his room. She knocked on the panels of his door, resenting his rule to knock before entering.
“Yeah?” he demanded, surly. He was always surly these days.
“I made you some cookies.”
She tried the handle and he yelled, “Don’t come in! I’m getting dressed!”
“Good heavens, Chris. I’m just trying to do something nice.”
“Just . . . don’t.”
“Fine.” She left the cookie plate on the floor in front of his room with a clatter. “I won’t tell you about the female detective who came by earlier, then.”
She was barely back in the kitchen before her son appeared in the room, staring at her through dark eyes so much like his father’s—except Chris Jr.’s were open windows to his soul where his father’s had been . . . opaque, harder to read.
“What detective?” he demanded.
“Detective September Rafferty with the Laurelton Police Department. She took over your father’s case from that other one who didn’t do anything. Frankly, I don’t think she’s much better.”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I remember. You didn’t want me to come into your room and talk to you. I see you’re still wearing the same clothes you left in this morning.”
“Mom, what did she say?”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“What did she say about Dad?” he persisted. “Do they know who did it—and why?” He was so intense that Janet found herself sorry she’d said anything.
“Didn’t you even try the cookies?” she asked.
“If I eat one will you stop stalling?”
“Christopher!” she said, hurt.
“Was it someone on his route?”
“What? No. What are you talking about?”
He turned away, thinking hard. “You were upset with Mrs. Bernstein.”
“Good heavens, Chris. I was upset with her, but I don’t think she’s a killer .”
“Not her . . . that other guy . . .”
“Who?” she couldn’t help asking. Hearing herself, she said, unnerved, “They don’t know who did it.” She’d wanted Chris to come and talk to her, so she’d used the detective, but now she wished she hadn’t said anything.
“What
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