Over Her Head (25 page)

“Do I?” she asked in a hopeless way that gripped his heart and wrung it like a sponge.

“I’m your friend, Tanya. And even if it wasn’t my job to find out what happened, I’d do everything I could to get you an answer.”

Her friend. That’s all he could be to her right now, because of the investigation, and in the future, because they were just
too different.

But despite that, time seemed to stop and his surroundings faded as his consciousness spiraled in on this woman, this moment.
He felt the dense wool of her coat under his hands. Smelled the flowery scent of her shampoo. Realized for the first time
that the top of her head came exactly to the level of his nose, so she wasn’t as small as he’d thought all along.

She tipped her head back and looked him full in the face. He fell headlong into her eyes, those eyes that had seen far more
pain and disappointment than he had ever experienced.

Those eyes could make him doubt the wisdom of his decision to avoid her. They could—

“Nick!”

Tim’s reedy voice sounded from far away. A couple of seconds drifted past while Nick swam out of the bubble he and Tanya had
created. Then sound and movement resumed all around them.

“Hey, Nick!”

Tim, KeShawn, Kate, and Kelci waved at them from the halfway point of the footbridge. Beside him, Tanya sucked in a breath
and stiffened. She jammed her hands into her pockets as if she were preventing herself from reaching out for the older girls
and shaking the truth out of them.

Or maybe that was just how he felt.

“Hey, bud, you are in deep with your mother. Don’t you know what straight there and straight back means?”

Tim laughed and grabbed at the carton of whipping cream, which Kate held just out of his reach.

“Don’t be mad at him, Deputy,” Kate said as they joined him and Tanya. “We all walked over together, and Kelci took some pictures
with her new digital camera.” She handed him the cream with a grin over her shoulder at Tim.

Kelci’s face was expressionless as she waved a palm-size silver unit at him, one Nick had seen advertised for about five hundred
bucks. Where did the daughter of a night-shift nurse get the money for that kind of toy?

“We’ll send you copies, Tim,” Kelci promised with a glance at Kate. “Bye.”

Tim grabbed Nick’s and Tanya’s hands and pulled them around in the direction of home as the other kids trooped across the
Platt yard and into the house. He chattered for three solid blocks, to the point where neither Nick nor Tanya could get a
word in edgewise. When they reached Nick’s truck, parked in the Hale driveway, they stopped and he handed Tim the cream.

“Take this to your mom, okay? We’re going to head off.”

The ten-year-old stared at them, confusion darkening his brown eyes. “Aren’t you staying for dinner?”

“We were, but Ms. Peizer isn’t feeling up to it. Give me a rain check?”

Tim shook his head and looked sorry for him. “Man, you’re giving up Mom’s pumpkin pie. Are you nuts?”

“Well, sometimes we have to make sacrifices when we put someone else’s welfare first. But I’ll be getting a double burger
with the works at the Split Rail. Think of me when you’re working on that brussels sprout.”

Tim blew him a raspberry and ran into the house, where Nick could hear Laurie’s voice from out in the driveway before the
door shut.

As he opened the door of the truck for Tanya, he wondered just how much the Hale family planned on thanking God for a day
like today.

Because if he were honest, he’d admit he had more to be thankful for right now than they did. And who was responsible for
that? God—in a case of giving with one hand and taking away with the other? Or was it all just a matter of chance and bad
timing?

Not the most cheerful outlook. Faith seemed to make incurable optimists out of people—except maybe for Tanya, who appeared
to have her feet on the ground.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Tanya said as they motored at a law-abiding twenty-five miles per hour to the other side of town.

His smile was a rueful tightening of one corner of his mouth. “I was just thinking that I have a lot more to be thankful for
than the Hales do today. And wondering if it is a case of God giving with one hand and taking away with the other.”

“I wasn’t feeling very thankful this morning,” Tanya admitted. “It didn’t seem worth it to even get out of bed, and putting
on good clothes was almost more than I could handle. But then you drove up and things seemed to get better. For a while.”
She paused. “Losing it in the kitchen wasn’t so good.”

“I’m sure Laurie will understand.”

“Maybe. I don’t know what happened to me. Those words just came up out of nowhere and I couldn’t control them.”

He hesitated. “Are you talking to anyone? Like a counselor?”

“Where am I going to get the money for that?” She threw him a glance.

“It might not cost money. Maybe through your church? Laurie would know.”

“Maybe I’ll ask her. Right after I apologize.”

“You should talk to someone, Tanya. You’re grieving. Nobody expects you to handle this all alone.”

“I’m not alone. My Bible study group is always around. Laurie wasn’t there yesterday, though.”

He thought about Kate and the scene in the police department’s lobby, and about Anna’s face. “She’s got a lot on her mind.”

She straightened a little. “Well, now I have you and a burger. I’m thankful for that.”

“Lucky for me your expectations are low.”

He meant it to be a joke, but she didn’t take it that way. “They aren’t, you know. Since I met Christ, my expectations have
done a one-eighty.”

He didn’t want to hear about Christ. He didn’t want to know about her expectations. Maybe this was a mistake.

“Maybe some of the problems between Randi and me were because my expectations for her weren’t high enough.”

“Problems?” He hadn’t heard her mention those before. All he’d seen was the love and the loss.

“Oh, we had problems, believe me. But I seemed to live down to my parents’ expectations. I wonder if I was encouraging Randi
to do the same. Maybe if I’d done things differently, she would still be here.”

“Tanya, don’t go there. It’s no good blaming yourself. It won’t change anything. We have to live with what’s real.”

He could see the Split Rail from where they idled at the light. The streets of downtown Glendale were practically empty, and
he found a parking spot only half a block away.

“I know,” she said. Her gaze was fixed on some view in the landscape in her mind. One that probably didn’t include storefronts.
Whatever it was, it didn’t look good.

“After all,” he said, “God made reality, right? That’s what we have to deal with. What he made.”

She swung to face him. “What are you saying? That my wishing for what might have been is wrong? That Satan is behind it?”

Oh, no. He wouldn’t get into a discussion of theology for anything. “I can’t say. I’m no authority. But let’s concentrate
on what we have. We have you. We have me. You have friends who care about you. And we both have a double burger with the works.
Right?”

She pulled her coat more closely around her as the wind swept fallen leaves in front of itself down the street. “I suppose
that’s something to be thankful for. I’ll mention that when I say grace over my supper.”

Her eyes challenged him.

“You do that,” he said, and she smiled, as if she’d won a victory.

F
ather in heaven,
thank you for this wonderful feast during this season of thanksgiving,” Colin said from the head of the table, the huge turkey
in front of him. “Thank you that we can gather around this table as a family. Lord, I pray that you would heal the breach
between Laurie and Tanya. I pray that you would speak to Nick and bring him to a realization of your love. And most of all,
Lord, I pray that you would give Anna the strength and courage to get to the other side of this rough experience. Give Nick
the discernment to solve this case, so that this cloud of stress could be lifted from all of us. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Laurie murmured an “amen” while Colin got up to carve a turkey that was far too big for only the four of them. She was going
to have to pull out all the stops as far as getting creative with leftovers went, or they’d be eating turkey with their ham
at Christmas.

Over Tim’s chatter and Anna’s monosyllabic replies, Tanya’s voice rang in her head, saying aloud the dreadful things that
had been hiding in her own thoughts. Common sense and Nick had both told her that Randi had gone into the river too far away
for Anna to have reached her. But subversive thoughts didn’t pay attention to common sense. And neither did small-town gossip.

She forked turkey, dressing, and cranberries into her mouth at regular intervals. It may as well have been sand for all the
enjoyment she got out of the fruits of her labors.

“—and then me and KeShawn and Kelci and Kate came back. We saw Nick and Ms. Peizer in the path, practically kissing.”

Laurie tuned her son back in with a jolt. “What?”

“Ewwww!” he added for emphasis around a mouthful of sweet potato casserole.

“Kissing?” Colin asked. “No kidding.” He exchanged a glance with Laurie, as though she should have some reaction. But she
didn’t have much in the way of emotion left. Tim was probably mistaken.

“Practically. Gross.”

“Kate?” Anna repeated, a beat off. “Kate Parsons was with you?”

“She was with Kelci. Me and KeShawn let them come to the store with us.”

“What did you do there?” Anna persisted. Which was strange, because normally she couldn’t care less what a couple of kids
did. She and Tim occupied different universes, and most of the time that suited them both just fine.

“I got the whipping cream, duh.”

“Tim,” his father said in a warning tone.

“What about after that? You were gone for
ever
.”

Tim shrugged, clearly more interested in his casserole than in giving his sister a blow-by-blow. “We goofed around. Took some
pictures. Kelci says she’ll send them to me. You can put ’em on MySpace and tell everyone about how cool I am.”

“Tim, listen to me,” Anna said, her tone strained. “Don’t go anywhere with those two. You get me?”

“You’re not the boss of me, banana head.”

“Mom,” Anna appealed to her mother. “Tell him.”

Laurie sighed. Teenage histrionics, maybe, but she could hardly blame Anna. “Tim, your sister is right. Kate is saying nasty
things about us, and until this is cleared up, you probably shouldn’t hang around with her.”

“I wasn’t! I was with KeShawn. Those girls just butted in.”

“Still—”

“I mean it,” Anna broke in. “Kate could—” She stopped.

Tim eyed her. “Could what?”

“Could . . . talk about you,” she finished lamely. Then her eyes filled with tears and she pushed away from the table.

“Anna, where are you going?” Laurie put out a hand to stop her. “You’ve hardly eaten anything.”

“Up to my room.” Her chest hitched, as though sobs were about to burst the dam of her shaky control.

“Sweetie, I know this is upsetting, but we have to put it aside for a while and think about what we have to be thankful for.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Anna’s whole body shrieked of defeat and challenge, all at once. “What do I have to be thankful for? The
whole school hates me. Nick thinks I’m a murderer, and so does Randi’s mom. You guys have your heads buried so far in the
sand you can’t even see daylight, and you’re telling me I should be thankful? Way to go, Mom.”

“Anna!” Colin exclaimed.

But she was already pounding up the stairs to her room.

Laurie tried to keep her lip from wobbling, but there was no stopping the tears that flooded her eyes, blurring the sight
of her plate and everything around her. She gasped and then just gave in to it, pressing her napkin to her mouth and hunching
over like an animal in pain.

Because it did hurt. Everything hurt. It hurt that Anna only spoke the truth. It hurt that Tanya had thrown Laurie’s deepest,
darkest doubts about Anna’s innocence right out into the kitchen to wound them all. And worst of all, it hurt that Anna’s
pain was probably double hers, and she couldn’t do a blessed thing about it except sit here and cry like a two-year-old.

“Mama?” Tim said in a way he hadn’t since he’d been small enough to pick up and cuddle. “Don’t cry.”

Colin got up and put his arms around her. “Lor. Sweetie, please. Tim’s getting upset.”

Which only made the tears come faster. “I’ve had enough!” she said with a gasp. “I’m done. I can’t take any more.”

Oh, Lord, how long?

The Bible said that, didn’t it? Wasn’t it David who was being hounded on all sides, with everybody in the kingdom giving him
grief? The story of her life. Here she was, trying to be strong, getting Anna what she needed, getting Tanya what she needed.
She looked after everyone. And everyone on all sides was attacking her for it.

“Who’s going to take care of me?” she choked, trying to control the sobs that seemed to have a life of their own.

An expression of complete bewilderment showered Colin’s face. “We need to think about the kids, Laurie. Come on, now Tim’s
starting to cry.”

She turned in her chair and gulped back the tears as she gathered Tim into her arms. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. It’s not
your fault. I’m just upset.”

Tim lifted his wet face to look into her eyes. “I’m sorry I was late bringing back the cream.”

She kissed him and used her dinner napkin to wipe both of their faces. “No, not about that. I’m upset that Tanya and Nick
had to go.”

“Nick said she wasn’t feeling well,” Tim said.

“I guess she wasn’t.”

“They get to have hamburgers.”

“And you get to have pumpkin pie. Why don’t you and Daddy go put a movie in, and we’ll digest for a little while, okay?”

“Okay.”

Colin ruffled his hair affectionately and took him into the family room.

Laurie surveyed the wreck of her Thanksgiving dinner over the massive carcass of the turkey. She scrubbed the napkin over
her cheeks one more time, and still she sat while the casserole cooled and the gravy congealed in its white china boat.