“Mom, can you go out and get us a loaf of French bread?” Barbara asked as she stared down at the kitchen floor.
“Of course,” Caroline said, sounding delighted as she rested her casserole on the counter. She loved nothing more than a job to do. “While I’m gone, put this in at three-fifty for twenty minutes. And why don’t you fix yourself a snack, some almonds and raisins, maybe. Something with protein. Or a glass of milk. You need to balance your glycemic index.” She pulled her car keys out of her purse. “Back in ten minutes!”
“Take your time, Mom.”
Absurdly, Barbara did drink a glass of milk once her mother was gone, but it instantly nauseated her. She could hear Bob the Builder in the other room as she put her glass in the sink. It was a comfort to think of Cole safely secured in front of the TV. Maybe Barbara needed a distraction, too. Just while Caroline was gone and Cole was occupied, a sliver of space in which to pull herself together.
All day she’d wanted to see what kind of news there was about the baby. Nothing could put your own living child’s problems into perspective like thinking about someone else’s dead one. Barbara would eventually know much more from Steve about what was going on, but there were unexpected tidbits one could pick up from the news online, not to mention the chatter of regular people. If nothing else, the citizens of Ridgedale could be counted on to have opinions and to insist on sharing them.
Barbara grabbed her laptop off the counter and sat down at the kitchen table. A quick Internet search brought up several stories about the baby, but it wasn’t until Barbara found her way onto the Ridgedale Reader’s site that she found anything to pique her interest. Already there were quite a few comments on the articles about the baby. As usual, many from crackpots who just wanted to hear themselves talk. But there were remarks that gave Barbara pause. It was true that someone could have murdered the mother and the baby, like that one commenter suggested, and maybe the mother’s body was yet to be discovered. Though Steve had dismissed that possibility out of hand, Barbara was no longer convinced.
But it wasn’t until Barbara was skimming the comments on the second story that she saw a post that stopped her dead in her tracks.
FIND HIM.
BEFORE HE FINDS YOU.
The hairs on the back of her neck lifted. What the hell did that mean? Was it some kind of liberal nonsense, like someone had suggested? Except there was something so chilling about the words: menacing, almost. As though someone—a killer, for instance—was taunting all of them. Barbara was squinting at those few words when something came to rest on her shoulders. Something heavy and warm. A pair of large hands. Barbara jumped up, her chair falling back and smacking the ground as she whipped around.
“Whoa!” Steve said as Barbara was about to bolt for the living room and Cole. His hands were raised like he was trying to corral a spooked colt. “Take it easy.”
“Dammit, Steve! Why are you sneaking up on me?” Barbara clutched a hand to her chest. The surge of adrenaline made her heart feel like it was going to burst. “Why didn’t you text when you were on the way? And why didn’t you come in through the garage?”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t even thinking—battery died in the Taurus, battery died in my phone. Been that kind of day.” Steve shook his head as he dropped his hat on the table. He looked completely exhausted but handsome in his dress uniform. He must have been meeting with someone important—the mayor, the press. “I got a lift in a cruiser. I really didn’t mean to scare you.”
Barbara took a couple more breaths until her heart slowed. She felt bad for yelling at him. Surely, it had not been an easy day—it had not been easy on anyone.
“No, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to snap like that. I was just reading this—” But that eerie post wasn’t going to make Steve happy. It would just get his mind back on work, and she needed him here with her now. She’d mention the post to him later, or maybe she wouldn’t. It was all nonsense anyway. “God, what a terrible day. You must be exhausted.”
“Amen to that,” Steve said. He leaned over and kissed Barbara on the forehead—the forehead again, the forehead always—then righted her chair so she could sit back down.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Barbara offered. But he shook his head and frowned as he sat down at the kitchen table across from her.
The volume on the TV out in the living room got loud, than sank just as quickly back down.
“TV on a Tuesday?” Steve asked with a tired smile. He supported Barbara’s rules, took them on as his own, especially in front of the children, but they were always Barbara’s rules.
“Like I said, it’s been a rough day all around.”
Steve nodded, then got up for the drink of water he’d refused. He stood at the sink with his back to her, filling a glass from the tap. Barbara watched him there at the counter, so steady and strong. The man she’d always known would step up and take care of her. The man she would do anything to protect. No matter what. For the third time in one day, Barbara felt like she was going to cry. It was ridiculous.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Steve asked as he turned back to her.
“Oh, it’s just this whole mess with Cole and that conversation with Rhea and then—” The words shot out like a breath Barbara had been holding. Steve came back over and rested a firm hand on her shoulder. “And then just now, when Hannah picked him up from Will’s house, Cole was hysterical. He even had this—I don’t know, this episode right here.” She gestured to the kitchen floor, the scene of the crime. “It was horrible. Just awful, Steve. There is something wrong, really wrong. For all we know, he was abused over there. Molested.”
“Molested?” Steve pulled his chin in. “Where’d that come from?”