Thinking of the gesture reminded her again of that time Ryan reached up from the depths of the foam pit and handed Devon her lost retainer. How shy Devon had been, her legs shaking.
Just then, it began. Katie felt it under her feet first, the redwood planks of the porch.
The low rumble came from inside the house.
Turning, she caught a glare off the sliding glass door.
On the other side stood Hailey, her arms tugging at the handle, the door shaking.
Mouth open wide as a trumpet bell, lips moving, she seemed to be trying to get her attention, frantically.
Katie reached for the door handle, struggled to drag the door, stuck on its track, open.
“Mrs. Knox,” Hailey said, voice smothered by the glass, both of them yanking now, on opposite sides, “I thought you were my friend. Are you my friend?”
At that moment, Teddy appeared behind Hailey.
“Mrs. Knox!” she was shouting, her arms bulging as she pulled on the door, her face gray behind the tinted glass. “Mrs. Knox, I know what’s happening—”
“What?” Katie shouted, wrenching the handle.
Behind the glass, Teddy took Hailey by the shoulders, flipping her around the way he had dozens of crying gymnasts, their bodies wilting toward him, his thick, strong Coach T. arms.
Katie watched as he buried her against his chest, her face seeming almost to slip away into the dark of his blazer. Her arms pinned to her sides, her body started shaking wildly.
“Hailey,” Katie said, the door finally popping open, a surge of warm, cloying air, “what is it?”
But Hailey didn’t hear and Teddy didn’t seem to see, instead spiriting his niece away as a squall of guests entered the kitchen, the kitchen swelling with mourners ready for cake.
“She got hysterical when the detective called,” Teddy explained, standing with Katie in the kitchen, his hand on his meaty brow. “She just lost it.”
“Detective?” Katie asked. “Do they have some kind of lead?”
She couldn’t guess why they kept needing to talk to Hailey.
“They just want to ask more questions. Routine, I guess. I don’t know.” He turned before she could meet his eyes.
Upstairs, they could hear Hailey, a sob throbbing through the floor for a few moments, then ceasing, replaced by Tina’s calming voice.
“I should go up and see her,” Katie said. “She wanted to talk to me.”
“About what?” Teddy’s tufted brows lifted.
“I don’t know.”
He paused for a second.
“She was just confused. Mama T.’ll calm her down before we head over to the station.”
A flinty voice sounded out, “Maybe you should take Ron.”
It was Gwen, standing in the kitchen doorway, her abalone earrings glinting under the incandescents.
“No, no,” Teddy said, shaking his head. “That’s not necessary.”
“Lawyer Ron?” Katie asked. “To sue somebody?”
“Teddy,” Gwen said, fiddling with her earring, rubbing the shell, “he’s the gym’s attorney and he’s in the living room right now eating your chili, drinking your beer. Why not take him?”
Gwen insisted on attorneys for everything—booster tax issues, liability protection, contractor squabbles, labor disputes, for her attenuated divorce, five years of litigation and a million-dollar settlement.
Teddy kept shaking his head. “Hailey has enough to handle now. She doesn’t need Ron Wrigley peering over her shoulder too.”
“She may need someone to protect her.”
There was a pause, Teddy staring down at the kitchen floor.
“Protect her from what?” Katie said. “That’s ridiculous. Why—”
“Hailey has her family,” Teddy interrupted, looking up at Gwen, her mouth just beginning to open. “She doesn’t need any more protection than that.”
Walking to her car, trying to unravel everything, Katie heard footsteps behind her, the skim-skim of espadrilles.
It was Tina Belfour, sailing toward her, serving apron still on, the bright white of her perennial crisp oxford shirt like a flag.
“Katie,” she said, moving very close, in the way she liked to talk, a woman’s woman, a Southern expat, crinkle-eyed, always a flicker of a smile no matter what words came from her mouth, “did Hailey say something to you?”
“She was trying to. She seemed very upset.” Katie paused. “She seemed angry.”
“Don’t pay her any mind,” Tina said, walking alongside Katie, even increasing their pace. “The doctor gave her some pills and she’s not herself.”
“I understand,” Katie said as they arrived at her car. “Give her my love, okay?”
Tina smiled, those white teeth, perfect and even, like the former beauty queen she was.
“You got it, hon.”