“Well,” Gene said, “she can’t. That’s just how it works. When you go to heaven and you’re an angel, you have to stay there.”
“We’ll have a funeral for her in a few days,” Joy said, smoothing TC’s hair.
“Like we did for Molly?”
“Yes,” Gene said.
Joy must have been aware of Dru after all, because she looked up. “Our Westie,” she explained.
“I remember,” Dru said. “Can I do anything for you? Call Pastor Ingalls or anyone?”
“He knows. He’s coming by later.”
“Would you like me to make a pot of coffee, then?” Dru wanted to do something, anything, almost as much as she wanted to leave.
“Oh, that would be nice,” Joy said, and while her response seemed normal, her face and voice were devoid of expression. Her gestures were rote. It was eerie and horrible.
Dru turned away, retreating to the kitchen. She found the makings for coffee, and once it had brewed, the Westins joined her, sitting at the island. They’d put on a movie for TC.
“Toy Story,” Gene said.
“It’s his favorite movie to watch with Becca,” Joy said. She had her eye on Dru as she filled the mugs. “I should make him something to eat.” She sounded fretful now.
“He said he wasn’t hungry. Remember, honey?” Gene said.
“Yes, but still . . .”
Dru brought the mugs to the island. “What about a PB and J?” she asked. “Would TC eat that, do you think?”
“I don’t know what to tell Pastor Ingalls about the funeral.” Joy spoke as if Dru hadn’t. “No one at the morgue could say when we can bring Becca home. It might not be until next week.”
Gene glanced at Dru. “They’re doing an autopsy.”
“I can’t stand the thought of it.” Joy curled her shoulders, holding her elbows in the cups of her hands. “All those people, the police and medical examiners, all of them looking at her, touching her. Becca would hate it. She never liked being the center of attention, and she was so modest. She would barely let me see her in her bra and panties.”
A sound broke from Gene, something between a cough and a sob.
Dru put her hand on his shoulder, and he looked at it, and then up at her, and his eyes filled with something bitter like hatred, even loathing. Dru took her hand away.
“We know that punk your daughter’s marrying did this. He hurt our girl.” Gene stared at Dru. “The cops know it, too.”
“I don’t think they know that for sure.” Dru backed away a step, shocked by Gene’s accusation despite Shea’s warning.
“Becca was murdered in his apartment.” Gene’s voice rose. “He’s missing. Add it up.”
Dru had added it up, and AJ’s lack of a motive aside, her conclusion was the same as Gene’s, but she couldn’t tell him how sick it made her. Not without betraying Shea, and that was the one thing she simply would not, could not, do—not for anyone. Not even the Westins, who were in such terrible pain.
“I never liked that kid. I went to school with his mother. Lily Axel.” Gene made the name sound like a joke. “Rich bitch. Thought she was better than everyone else. At least until she stepped in all that shit with the cops over in Phoenix. Like mother, like son.”
What shit? Dru wanted to ask, but of course she didn’t. She couldn’t.
“What I heard, the old guy she married, Paul Isley? It was his influence and her daddy’s money got her out of that, but I will be goddamned if it gets AJ out of this. I’ll see Jeb Axel and his fucking punk grandson in hell first, if I have to take us there myself.” Gene got up, fast enough that the bar stool went over, slamming to the floor. Dru jumped, and she jumped again when Gene went out the back door, slamming it so hard the glass rattled.
Dru looked at Joy, but she was staring into her untouched mug of coffee, gone cold now. Her nose was red and running; tears smeared her face. Somehow Dru was relieved to see them. She found a box of tissues in the powder room off the kitchen and brought several back to Joy, handing them to her.
“Becca was pregnant.”
Dru was righting the stool when Joy said it. “Pregnant?” she repeated. As in having a baby? The words ran stupidly through her mind.
“The medical examiner said she was about five weeks along.” Joy looked up at Dru.
“I didn’t know she was seeing anyone.”
“She wasn’t—I mean, not since AJ broke it off with her. I told her she should go out more, find another boyfriend, that it was the fastest way to mend a broken heart, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said AJ was the one for her, and he knew she was the one for him, too.”
Dru stared, speechless.
“I wasn’t happy to hear it, either, trust me. They evidently ran into each other at Starbucks, in March, I think. One thing led to another. Becca only told me about it a couple of weeks ago.” Joy paused. “I’m sorry for the pain this causes you or Shea.”
“The baby was AJ’s?”
“Well, yes. Who else? The ME’s doing a DNA test to determine paternity for sure, but I told him he didn’t have to for my sake.”
“Was the murdering son of a bitch going to tell Shea?” Dru gripped the seat back of the bar stool she’d righted. Her mind flashed to Erik, his assertion that there was no way AJ had been interested in Becca. AJ had fooled him, too.
“Becca said they were waiting for the right time. That’s why she went to Dallas Tuesday. She said they were going to figure it out, and I let her go.” Abruptly, Joy’s head fell back. “I let her go,” she wailed, and the sound was like nothing Dru had ever heard. After a moment, leveling her gaze, she said, “I will never forgive myself.”
There was no point in arguing, Dru thought. She would blame herself if she were Joy. Dru shifted her glance, jaw knotted, struggling for composure. She thought if AJ were to appear in front of her, she would strangle him with her bare hands. How could he have done this to Becca, to Shea? Betrayed them in such a horrible way? It made sense now, though, that he was on the run, because that’s what rat bastards did—they ran.
“Gene thinks Becca was fooling herself. AJ didn’t want the baby,” Joy said. She was back to speaking in her eerily flat voice. “Gene thinks if it had been born, it would have kept AJ from what he did want, which was to keep screwing—to keep fucking—Gene said fucking—Becca behind Shea’s back.”
“What do you think, Joy?”
“I don’t know. Becca seemed convinced AJ loved her.” Joy fiddled with her coffee mug. “Maybe it wasn’t AJ but someone else who was there in his apartment.”
“Like who? Who else would have a reason to—”
“Someone who hated her.” Joy looked at Dru now, locking her gaze, and there was some awful disturbance in her eyes, a sort of challenge.
She seemed to be waiting for Dru to catch on, and when Dru did, her stomach lurched. “You think it was Shea! You talked to that detective, Bushnell. He put the idea in your head.”
“He asked me about her—”
“Joy, for God’s sake, Shea’s been at home, with me, since Sunday. The girls were all together on Tuesday, getting the mason jars in Fredericksburg, having lunch. Becca was sick—”