Within Range. Janice Kay Johnson
suppose you’ll find me there. If I pack up and check out right away, I won’t have to pay for another night here.”
“Then I’ll meet you at the house.”
Just to make her day better.
Setting down the phone, she bent to kiss Jacob. “We’re going home, kiddo. You finish putting your puzzle together while I pack.”
He lifted his head. “Hot dog?”
“You’re hungry?”
He nodded vigorously. Hot dogs were his current favorite food, although mac and cheese was right up there, too. While staying here, they’d eaten makeshift breakfasts in the room, gone out to lunch each day and used room service for dinner. Darkness felt too dangerous; they were safer staying behind locked doors.
Fortunately, she was pretty sure there were hot dogs in the freezer at home. “We’ll have lunch. Maybe a hot dog.”
It didn’t take her ten minutes to throw everything into the suitcase. Jacob was fascinated by the lobby attendant who insisted on taking both the suitcase and potty seat out to her car.
In the past year, he’d gone through a stage of being painfully shy with everyone for no discernible reason, just recently becoming more curious and ready to grin at complete strangers. Maybe earlier she’d infected him with her tension, and as she felt safer his confidence returned. Kids undoubtedly reacted to their parents’ subtlest cues.
She locked the car even before she started it, as she always did. As she drove out of the lot, she craned her neck trying to see if anyone was paying attention to them. Disconcerted, she saw that Jacob, too, was turning to look around.
With this being a working day, there wasn’t much activity. From what she’d been told, tourist season didn’t really boom for another week or two, once schools let out. You wouldn’t know that looking at the windsurfing business next door, though. She knew vaguely that they rented small boats as well as windsurfing equipment. Like much of the rest of June, today was sunny but still chilly, and she could see multicolored sails swelling with the wind out on the choppy water. If someone over there was keeping an eye out for her, she’d never be able to pick him out.
She was quite sure nobody followed her home—but then, Richard or anyone he hired wouldn’t have to follow her to know where she was going. Leaving their stuff in the car, she carried Jacob inside, setting him down on the sofa with his blue bunny.
“Wait right there for me,” she said sternly.
He bounced on his butt. “Hurry, Mommy.”
Battling extreme reluctance, she steeled herself to look in the kitchen. She couldn’t let Jacob see the blood...
But the vinyl floor was spotless. No dead body, no blood.
Well, she’d known the body would be taken away, but she didn’t think police officers would clean up crime scenes.
Helen stared. Squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. Still clean. She’d scrub the floor herself once Jacob was napping, just to be sure, but somebody had done this for her.
Thinking of the man who managed to be both unrelenting and occasionally thoughtful, she had a good idea who’d done it. The kindness weakened her, even if he’d been thinking about Jacob and not her at all.
“I want hot dog,” her son reminded her.
Helen laughed. “Okay, okay!”
She raced through the house, looking in closets and pushing the shower curtain aside before dashing out to get their bags. She didn’t see a soul. Everyone must be at work, and even Iris’s car was missing.
Fortunately, Helen found buns in the freezer as well as an unopened package of hot dogs. If she heated a can of baked beans and peeled some carrots, the meal would be perfectly adequate.
Jacob hadn’t gotten through half of his hot dog and one carrot stick when the doorbell rang. He started wriggling like an eel to slither out of his high chair.
“No way,” she told him, but had to lift him out to go to the front door. Escape artist that he was, she couldn’t leave him alone for a second when he was high enough to take a fall. He’d figure out how to unsnap the belt anytime now, she felt sure.
Hand on the dead bolt, she raised her voice. “Who is it?”
“Detective Renner.”
With the usual mixed feelings he inspired, she unlocked and opened the door. Jacob bounced in her arms. As soon as he saw the detective, he grinned and exclaimed, “Boo!”
Renner laughed. “Boo to you, too.”
Just as well that no two-year-old could grasp the concept of a police officer, or wonder why he kept wanting to talk to mommy.
“We’re finishing lunch,” she said.
“No problem.”
When they got to the kitchen and she lifted Jacob to put him in his high chair, he struggled.
“No!”
The debate was short. He was done with lunch, or just refused to be confined again, she wasn’t sure. She had to find one of those plastic seats that would boost him to table height. He’d be a lot happier. It amazed her that her thoughts could seamlessly shift to ordinary mommy mode under the circumstances.
Helen didn’t let Jacob watch much TV but decided to make an exception. He climbed up onto the sofa, grabbing his blankie, while she pulled up a video.
She turned to see that Renner waited in the doorway to the kitchen, watching. Of course he was; she might be hiding a cache of diamonds in the cushions of the couch along with all the crumbs.
Her shoulder brushed his arm when she hurried into the kitchen. Finding she’d lost her own appetite, she cleared the table, then decided grudgingly that she ought to at least offer him a cup of coffee.
“Instant,” she warned.
“That’s fine.” His mouth quirked. “I’m not picky.”
Dumping a spoonful of grounds in her own mug, she said, “A cappuccino would taste really good right now. Unfortunately, having one regularly is not in my budget.”
“You can dump a lot of money really fast at those coffee drive-throughs,” he agreed. “Although—” He stopped so fast, she almost heard the brakes screeching.
“Although what?” She eyed him suspiciously.
He gave his head a shake. “I was going to say something completely inappropriate. Can we forget about it?”
Inappropriate? What could he have been thinking? Her cheeks felt warm, but she needed to know. Still hovering at the stove, she asked, “If I absolve you in advance, will you tell me?”
“You can afford the calories. That’s what I was thinking.”
Oh, good, nice to know he thought she was too skinny. Stress had a way of doing that to her, and she lived with a steady dose. Even pregnant, she’d had trouble gaining enough weight.
He wouldn’t have been thinking any such thing unless he’d noticed her body in a way that had nothing to do with any crime committed. The recognition he might be attracted to her was only momentary. Yes, he was undeniably sexy. But if all went well, she wouldn’t see him again, because she and Jacob would be as far away as she could manage, as soon as possible.
Emotions flat again, she poured water into the mugs and carried them to the table. Renner declined her offer of milk and sugar, both of which she dumped generously in her mug.
“I should be fat,” she said lightly. “Hot dogs, cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese. We don’t eat the way I did before I had Jacob.”
The detective laughed. “I’m sure.” He was nice enough not to mention that the foods she’d named also happened to be cheap, not just appealing