Days Like This (23 page)

“It has nothing to do with
daring.  It has to do with ethics.”

“Ethics?  Jesus, Paige, you sound
like my grandmother.  Look at this lipstick.  This shade of pink would be
outstanding on you.  Go ahead.  I dare you.”

Their eyes met, Paige’s cold, Lissa’s
sparkling with excitement.  “Go on,” Lissa taunted.  “Take the lipstick, and I’ll
go with you to the game.”

She knew it was wrong.  This
whole scenario was wrong.  She’d never stolen anything in her life.  But Lissa
had put her on the spot, and she wasn’t one to back down from a dare.  Nobody
on this planet was going to call Paige MacKenzie a chicken and get away with
it.  She closed her fingers over the lipstick, sent a quick, silent message
heavenward. 
I’m sorry, Mom.
 

And slipped it in her pocket.

Lissa winked, and Paige let out
the breath she’d been holding.  They turned together and coolly, casually, as
though they’d just decided to break for lunch, meandered down the aisle toward
the front door.

Paige got there first.  Breath held,
she leaned against the door.  It opened, and she took a single step outside. 
Almost
there.
  She started forward again and was about to clear the threshold when
a hand clamped down on her arm.

And a voice that was definitely
not Lissa’s said, “Not another step, young lady.”

Saturday morning.  Football
weather.  It was one of those blue and gold fall days, so lovely it took her
breath away.  Paige had left on her ten-speed a couple of hours ago for Lissa
Norton’s house.  The two girls were planning to go shopping, followed by the
high school football game, and Casey was enjoying the quiet time.  Paying bills
wasn’t her favorite activity, but it was a necessary evil if she intended to
keep her utilities up and running.  Carole King’s
Tapestry
album playing
on the stereo helped to lessen the pain. 

She was comfortably ensconced at
the desk in her sitting room, checkbook in hand, Leroy snoring at her feet,
when the phone rang.  Casey set down her pen and reached for the receiver.  “Hello?”

“Casey?”  The male voice at the
other end seemed vaguely familiar.  “It’s Ted.”

The name drew a complete blank,
and she searched her mental file cabinets without success.  He must have sensed
her hesitation.  “Ted Burns,” he said.

It clicked.  Cousin Teddy.  Aunt
Hilda’s son, who’d spent the last nine years as one of the town’s two full-time
police officers.  “Oh, Teddy.  Hi.”

He cleared his throat.  “I’m
calling on official business.  Is your husband there?”

She could count on the fingers of
one hand the number of people on the planet that Rob disliked more than her
Cousin Teddy, although she’d never quite understood the reason for his
animosity.  Teddy was a royal pain in the ass, for sure, but Rob generally got
along with everyone.  He would be crushed to know he’d missed Teddy’s call. 

“He’s out of town.  What’s up?”

“I’m not sure I can discuss it
with you.  Legalities, you know.”

It was beginning to come back to
her, the reason Teddy’s invitations to family gatherings somehow kept getting
lost in the mail.  “I’m afraid I’m all you’ve got, since he’s not reachable
right now.  What’s this about, another parking ticket?”

She suspected that for some
inexplicable reason, the animosity ran both ways.  In a town with no more than
two dozen parking meters, it seemed as though Rob had garnered more than his
share of tickets over the past year and a half.

Teddy cleared his throat.  “It’s
about his daughter.  I should be talking to him.  You not being her mother, and
all.”

Panic clutched her insides.  “Paige? 
Is she all right?  Has something happened to her?”

“You’re not her legal guardian. 
I really shouldn’t—”

“Oh, for the love of God, Teddy,
you were at my wedding!  She’s Rob’s daughter, and I’m his wife.  She lives
with us.  If something’s happened to her, I need to know!”

“Well—”  He dragged out the word,
and she wanted to reach through the phone and grab him by the throat.  “I don’t
suppose I have a choice, seeing as how your hubby’s not available.” 

Hubby?
  Good Lord.  If Rob
heard that, he’d probably march down to the police station, wrestle Teddy’s gun
away, and shoot him with it.

“We just picked her and that snotty
little Norton girl up for shoplifting cosmetics from the Five-and-Ten.  Eye
shadow, lipstick, eye liner.”  His soft sound of disdain carried clearly across
the phone line.  “If she was my kid, I wouldn’t be letting her out of the house
wearing that crap smeared all over her face.  But, hey, that’s just me.  I’m a
small-town guy.  I haven’t lived the big-city rock & roll lifestyle like
you two have.”

Outside, a cloud passed across
the face of the sun, erasing her good mood.  “Gee, Teddy, I thought you, of all
people, would realize that eyeliner is a necessary component to our Satanic
rituals here at Ye Auld House of Sodom and Gomorrah.”  At his silence, she
rolled her eyes.  The sarcasm had obviously gone right over his head.  “I’ll be
right there.”  And she slammed down the phone.  “Cretin,” she muttered.

It took her seven minutes to get
to town.  When she wheeled into the police station’s parking lot, she noted
that the local cop shop wasn’t exactly doing a thriving business.  One of the
town’s two cruisers sat out front, in need of a good scrubbing.  Casey parked
between a Subaru wagon and a red pickup truck with a gun rack in the rear
window, snatched up her purse, and marched toward the front door.

Inside, Lynda Frechette, whose
father served with her on the library committee, sat at the front desk reading
Soap
Opera Digest
.  In a small office at the back of the building, voices were
raised in anger.  Near the receptionist’s desk, two teenage girls sat huddled
together on a hard wooden bench she suspected was deliberately designed for
discomfort.  When the door closed behind her, they glanced up.  She met Paige’s
eyes, and the kid squared her jaw, but not quickly enough to mask her fear. 
Casey gave her a pointed look before moving in the direction of the yelling.

“I don’t give a good goddamn what
you think!  My daughter has never, ever done anything like this before.  She’s
just a kid, and—”  At her entrance, Biff Norton, Lissa’s father, paused in his
tirade.  “You,” he said, narrowing his eyes.  “This is all your fault!”

“Good morning, gentlemen.  Biff. 
Teddy.”  She nodded toward the police chief, who’d gone to school with her
brother Travis.  “Scotty.”  The only other person in the room was a woman she
didn’t know.  Casey held out her hand.  “I don’t believe we’ve met.  I’m Casey
MacKenzie.”

The woman took her hand in a
no-nonsense grip.  “Lynn Veilleux.”

“Lynn’s the manager over at the
Five-and-Ten,” Teddy said.

“Nice to meet you.”  She turned
to Norton.  “Now, Biff, what, precisely, is all my fault?”

He drew bushy black brows
together.  “That kid of yours is a bad influence on my Lissa.  Just three weeks
into tenth grade, three weeks hanging around with that little brat of yours,
and now she’s been arrested?  This is all your fault, for bringing your riffraff
to town.  Maybe you should take your kid, and your long-haired freak of a
husband, and go back to California, or wherever it is you’ve been living. 
Because we don’t need your kind dirtying up this town.”

There was a collective intake of
breath, and for an instant, absolute silence reigned, while the fury rose in
her so abruptly she had to clench her fists to stay their trembling. 

Belatedly, Teddy appeared to
remember his familial obligations.  “Now, Biff…” he began.

“Thank you, Teddy,” she said,
drawing herself up to her full five feet, “but I can fight my own battles.  Biff
Norton, you stupid, ignorant redneck, have you ever even
met
my
husband?  I can only assume the answer is no, because if you had, you’d know he’s
a thousand times the man you could ever be.  If he were standing here right
now, he’d probably laugh off what you just said, because that’s the kind of guy
he is.  But I’m not quite as forgiving as he is, and if I ever hear you say
another bad word about him, I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”

Norton’s eyes narrowed.  “Is that
a threat?”

“You’d damn well better believe
it’s a threat.  And in front of witnesses.  You can say any nasty thing you
want about me, you idiot, but Rob is off limits. 
Capisce
?”

Before Norton could respond, Scotty
Deverell cleared his throat.  “Can we just deal with the situation at hand?”

“Sorry, but I’m not finished with
Biff yet.  As far as dirtying this town, Norton, you and I went to high school
together, and I have a long memory.  I could tell a few stories about the
dirtying you did back in the day.  But for now, just to show I’m the bigger
person, I’ll hold my tongue.  Unless you really annoy me again, then the gloves
are off.  As for Paige, that ‘little brat’ just lost her mother, and she’s hurting. 
That’s not an excuse.  It doesn’t make what she did right, but it certainly
speaks to her motivation.  She’s been dealt a nasty blow, and she’s mad at the
world.  I should know, because I’ve been there.  I lost my mother at fifteen,
and believe me, it almost destroyed my life.  So I understand her a little
better than any of the rest of you can.  Underneath the anger, she’s a good
kid, with a good heart.  Just like I imagine your daughter is.  They got into
trouble together, and I’m not laying sole blame on either of them.  They’re
both to blame, and they both need to be punished.  Hopefully—”  She turned to Lynn
Veilleux.  “—by their parents, and not the judicial system.”

Veilleux exchanged glances with
Scotty Deverell.  Scotty cleared his throat again.  “It’s up to you, Lynn,
whether or not you want to press charges.”

“We did recover the merchandise,”
Veilleux said.  “And the total value was less than twenty dollars.  And since neither
of them has any record—”  She paused.  “But I don’t believe it should be
overlooked and forgotten.  If the girls aren’t dealt with appropriately, they’ll
never learn anything from this.”

“I’m in total agreement,” Casey
said.  “Maybe a little community service would be in order.  Raking leaves,
washing the police cruisers, picking up litter from the sidewalks.”

“Sounds good to me,” Veilleux replied. 
“How about the next four Saturdays from nine to three?”

Scotty Deverell nodded his
approval.  “I can supervise.  Biff?”

“Fine,” Norton said curtly.  “Can
I take my kid now?”

“Go.”

He went, and a visible wave of
relief rolled around the room.  Casey raised a trembling hand and massaged her
temple, her stomach roiling with nausea, the end result of every nasty
confrontation in which she’d ever been involved.  “Just so you know,” Lynn
Veilleux said, “I
have
met your husband, and Norton is way out of line. 
The guy owes you a debt of gratitude, because if you hadn’t been here, I would’ve
pressed charges against his kid, just because of his attitude.  What an ass.”

“Let’s hope,” Scotty said, “that in
this case, the apple does fall far from the tree.  Casey, you okay?”

“Give me a minute.  I will be.”

“My cousin,” Teddy said, sounding
like a proud parent.  “She’s quite the pit bull when she has to be.”

“Next Saturday,” she said.  “Nine
a.m.  I’ll have her here.  Thanks, everyone.  Lynn, it was nice to meet you. 
Hopefully the next time we see each other, it will be under more pleasant
circumstances.”

Paige waited alone on the bench
in the reception area.  Without speaking, Casey tilted her head in the
direction of the door.  Her stepdaughter sprang to her feet and followed her
out the door and to the car.  When they were safely inside, Casey placed her hands
at ten and two on the wheel, took a deep breath, and said, “Where’s your bike?”

“Lissa’s house.”

“It’s staying there until I can
find somebody with a little testosterone to go over and pick it up.  Maybe Bill
can do it for me.  Or Jesse.  I am not dealing with that man again today.”

“So, am I about to get the ‘Just
wait until your father gets home!’ lecture?  Because if I am, it could be a
long wait.”

“No, you’re not.  Would you like
to know why?”

Paige squirmed in the passenger
seat.  “Why?”

“A couple of reasons.  First,
because I’m quite capable of dealing with the situation myself.  Probably
better than your father, who has zero parenting experience.  I may not have spent
much time with teenagers, but in a previous life, I had plenty of hands-on experience
dealing with a spoiled five-year-old.  Second…I don’t believe lecturing you is
the answer.”

Paige reached out a finger and
fiddled with the dashboard air vent.  “No?  So what’s the magic answer?”

Casey turned her head and studied
the kid.  Paige threw her a sly glance, then quickly looked away.  “Well, now,”
Casey said, starting the car and putting it into gear, “If I told you, I’d be stacking
the deck in your favor, wouldn’t I?”

The cemetery sat at the water’s
edge, overlooking Boston Harbor, where gulls circled and boats scurried across vivid
blue water.  In the distance, she could see a line of planes waiting to land at
Logan, stacked one after another, lined up like dominoes in the sky.  This was
the first time she’d been here since her mother’s funeral, and right now, her
stomach felt like she’d been drinking battery acid.  Her mom’s headstone, made
of polished Quincy granite, bore a heart with the word
mother
at the
center.  That had been her idea.  It seemed fitting.  Especially since there
was nobody left to mourn Sandy Sainsbury except her daughter.

She glanced over her shoulder.  Eyes
hidden behind dark glasses, her father’s wife leaned against a nearby monument,
her arms folded across her chest.  Close enough to keep watch, but far enough away
to allow Paige privacy.  She couldn’t figure out this woman
he
—her
father—had married.  After this morning’s fiasco, she’d expected a severe
tongue lashing.  Possibly a grounding.  Instead, Casey had returned to the
house, phoned her brother to retrieve the bicycle, loaded Paige and Leroy in
the car, and driven here.  A three-and-a-half-hour drive to visit a dead
woman.  Her stepmother moved in mysterious ways, and despite her apparent
kindness, Paige was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.