With Child. Janice Johnson Kay
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else. She put on her robe and shuffled out to the kitchen simply because going through the motions of living was all she knew how to do.
The smell of coffee brewing and bacon frying filled her nostrils before she’d taken a step into the kitchen. If she hadn’t already emptied her stomach, she wouldn’t have been able to bear either. As it was, after a brief hesitation she continued into the kitchen, made bright by a skylight and a double set of French doors opening onto the back patio. Although she could hardly have made a sound, Quinn turned from the stove and gave her an appraising look.
“How are you?”
He couldn’t tell? She only shook her head and sat down at the table set for two in front of the French doors. She and Dean had loved eating here rather than in the more formal dining room. The table was just as she’d left it last night, set with woven place mats from Guatemala and a vase of daffodils.
“Coffee?” Quinn asked.
“No, thank you.”
“Juice?”
She almost said no, but she had to eat and drink for the baby’s sake.
“Thank you.”
He brought her cranberry juice and a plate of scrambled eggs—not fried, thank heavens—and bacon. Mindy tried not to look at the bacon.
Quinn added a plate of buttered toast to the middle of the table and jam still in its jar. He sat down across from her with his own breakfast.
When she didn’t immediately pick up her fork, he ordered, “Eat.”
She complied because she’d already decided she had to eat and because she didn’t care one way or the other. Neither spoke. She managed to finish the eggs and most of one piece of toast before she pushed her plate away. Quinn’s appetite didn’t seem much better, despite the spread he’d cooked.
“Dickerson called this morning. They’ve already made an arrest.”
From a great distance, she stared at him. “What?”
“Two punks. Nineteen and twenty-one.” He talked about a meth lab and two strung-out young men who had in an instant snuffed out Dean’s life.
“How…”
“You mean, how did they make the arrest so fast? Dean. The minute he saw a burglary in progress, he called it in. We had the license-plate number.”
She did remember them talking about that last night. It just hadn’t sunk in.
“Do you think he knew…”
A nerve jumped beside Quinn’s eye. “Things like that happen fast. He probably saw that they were young, got out of his pickup to confront them, and one of them pulled a gun.”
She nodded, wanting to believe he was right, that it had happened so quickly Dean hadn’t had time for fear. She hoped he’d died instantly.
“His body…” Again, Mindy hardly knew what she was asking. Where his body was, she supposed, and what she was supposed to do to plan a funeral.
Quinn understood. “They’re doing an autopsy today, and then I imagine his body will be released.” He suggested a funeral home and they talked about when and where to hold the funeral. It was as if they were planning a bake sale, concentrating on details so they didn’t have to think about what the occasion was really for: lowering Dean’s body into a grave.
“Do you have people you need to call?” he finally asked.
“Yes, I suppose… His friends…”
He raised his brows. “I’ll let them know.”
Mindy felt a twinge of resentment at his sense of entitlement but then felt guilty. Quinn was surely grieving as much as she was.
She nodded and stood, picking up her plate. “I think I might lie down again.”
Was she imagining the disdain in his eyes?
“It’s ten-thirty.”
She stopped in the middle of the kitchen. “So?”
“There are arrangements to be made.”
“Dean…” She swallowed. “Dean hasn’t been dead twelve hours. Arrangements can wait.” She continued to the sink, set her plate down hard enough it clunked and kept walking. Out of the kitchen, to the bathroom—barely pregnant, and already she had to pee incessantly—and then back to the guest bedroom, where she climbed in and curled into a fetal position on her side.
The pillow was almost flat where her head had been when she’d awakened this morning. The sheets felt cold again and smelled faintly of fabric softener. She’d washed them just a couple of weeks ago, after Quinn had stayed over. As she’d always done when Quinn was around, that evening Mindy had tried hard to be friendly but finally made excuses and went upstairs to watch a video and then read in bed, leaving the men to their beer and basketball. She would hear shouts of laughter once she left them, and an easiness to their voices they didn’t have when she was present. Had Dean been aware how strained the relationship was between his best friend and his wife? He had to have noticed something, but he’d never said a word to her beyond, a few times, trying to explain Quinn.
“He had a rough childhood.”
“Any rougher than yours?” she remembered asking, a hint of tartness in her tone. “You grew up in a foster home, too.”
“Yes, but before that I knew my mother loved me.” Dean had frowned, his usually laughing face serious. “I trusted her. Quinn never had anyone he could trust.”
He hadn’t wanted to tell her too much, and Mindy did understand. Quinn was a very private man, and would probably hate to find out Dean had said even as much as he had.
“Get Quinn to tell you someday,” Dean suggested.
He couldn’t have realized the disdain Quinn felt for her, or he wouldn’t say something so ludicrous. But he had felt the tension; she’d sensed he was working extra hard to keep conversation light and flowing when Quinn was over.
She really should make some calls, Mindy thought drearily. Quinn must hate feeling obligated to stay even this long. If she had a friend coming over, he could leave in good conscience.
But it wasn’t as if she’d asked him to stay. He could go home any time he wanted. She wished he would go.
Mindy felt a pang of guilt, because the truth was she’d been grateful last night that he was staying. She’d even been grateful that he had come with Sergeant Dickerson to give her the news. It had been possible to cry on him because she knew that, in his own way, he loved Dean, too.
Perhaps he would just leave, now that he’d realized she was done weeping on his shoulder. If she closed her eyes, and shut out the world, perhaps when she awakened the next time, he’d be gone. And she could cry again, and drift through the empty house, and try to imagine life in it without Dean.
WHY WAS HE SURPRISED that she left the dirty work to him?
Quinn drove home that afternoon to collect some clean clothes and toiletries, phoned in to clear a couple of days from work, then went back to Dean’s house to do jobs that should have belonged to Dean’s widow.
Sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, he called the funeral home, then flipped open Dean’s address book. Starting with the As, he methodically worked his way through, leaving messages some of the time, speaking to a few people.
Yes, it was a terrible tragedy. Dean’s wife was prostrate. The funeral would probably be Saturday; they would notify everybody once they knew for sure.
Quinn hesitated when he flipped the page to the names that began with G and H. He’d have to call the Howies. Dean had stayed in closer touch with them than he had. They’d been at Dean’s wedding, of course, but otherwise it had been…oh, hell, two or three years since Quinn had called them. They