Carol looked up from the couch where she had been working on her laptop as soon as Therese and Clifford entered the house. “Oh, good. You’re home. Hungry?”
Carol must have assumed one of the Holts had given her a ride, and Therese didn’t say otherwise. “Not yet.”
“Well, the lieutenant is coming by for a bit, so I guess we can wait till after his visit to have lunch.”
Therese plopped onto the couch beside Carol and then winced. She kept forgetting about her neck. It felt good most of the time, but plopping on couches reminded her that her neck was still a little sore, and today’s exercise probably made it a little more so. “Why is he coming?”
“He said he had some news and wanted to discuss it with us. He’ll be here in about twenty minutes or so.”
“I’ll go shower and change.”
Later, Therese opened the door and let the lieutenant inside. He was sweating again, and she wondered if he had a health problem.
“Did that man kill my parents?” she asked.
“Sweetheart, let the lieutenant come in and sit down.”
“I don’t blame her,” Lieutenant Hobson said as he crossed the room. “I’d want answers, too, if I were her. He took the seat Carol offered him beside the fireplace.
“Can I get you something to drink? Iced tea? Lemonade?” Carol asked.
“Iced tea sounds nice. No sugar, please. I’m diabetic.”
Therese sat on the sofa across from the lieutenant and waited until Carol returned with his drink. Once Carol was beside her on the couch, Therese asked, “What news do you have for us?”
“Well, I’ve established a couple of possible motives. Your father’s most recent novel was based on a crime committed by a felon released a month ago from the federal prison in Three Rivers, Texas. My team has been tracking this man’s whereabouts, and, as soon as we’ve located him, we’ll bring him in for questioning.”
“What about the man in the line up?” Therese asked.
“Another motive involves your mother’s work. She was being honored at the university for her role in leading a team of students close to finding an antidote for the mutated anthrax toxin C. Maybe there are folks out there who wanted to slow down its discovery.”
Therese’s mouth dropped open. Her head started spinning and she closed her eyes.
“We’ve questioned a lot of people from the university and have pretty much ruled out disgruntled students and colleagues.”
Therese opened her eyes. “What about the man in the lineup?” she said again.
“Sweetheart, be patient,” Carol said. “He’s getting to that.”
“Yes. He’s confessed to the shooting.”
“Oh my gosh!” Therese cried. “He really did it!” She couldn’t believe she had seen the killer before he committed his gruesome deed. Maybe if she had gotten her parents to see him, maybe she could have somehow prevented, maybe…” She broke into tears. She felt panicky and so alone. She wanted her mother and father!
“The shooter claims he was working for someone else,” the lieutenant said, “and that’s as far as we’ve gotten. We don’t know who this other person is or why he was after your parents. But we know we’ve got the shooter, and we’re in the process of offering him a deal to talk.” The lieutenant finished his tea and set the glass down on the end table beside the chair. “That’s all I have for now, but I wanted to tell you in person. I’ll call as soon as we break this guy.”
Therese shuddered. That man had killed her parents. She couldn’t get his deranged face out of her mind. She shuddered again as the tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m going upstairs,” she said, before the lieutenant had left.
Sometime later, Carol came upstairs into Therese’s room. “I’m so sorry you have to go through all this,” Carol said gently, sitting beside her on the bed.
Therese didn’t reply.
Carol stroked Therese’s hair. “Can I fix you something to eat?”
“Maybe in a little bit.”
“Richard’s coming tomorrow night to stay with us through the weekend,” Carol said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “It’ll be nice to have a man around.”
“He’s coming tomorrow night?”
Carol frowned. “I hope that’s okay. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Therese patted Clifford, who lay on the bed beside her. “I’m glad he’s coming and everything. It’s just that the Holts invited me to the Wildhorse Saloon tomorrow night. Pete’s band is playing. Pete is Jen’s older brother.”
“That sounds like fun. Rich and I could join you after I pick him up from the airport.”
“Oh, that would be so great. I need to get out of here, you know? You really want to go?”
“Sure!”
“Awesome,” she said this softly, unable to show enthusiasm, but she really was glad they would all be going out. “I’ll can Jen.”
“I’ll go fix a salad. Come down when you’re ready.” Carol left the room.
Therese sat up and reached for the phone on her nightstand. Jewels poked her head up from her log with a piece of spinach hanging from her mouth.
“You’re still eating?” Therese teased, wiping a tear from her cheek. “Is it good?”
Jewels answered with a loud crunch.
Therese looked over at Puffy, who was asleep in the little tower on the top of his plastic house. She could just make him out through the bedding he had carried up there. She would need to clean out his cage soon. She dialed Jen’s number. Jen was pleased with the news. Therese didn’t mention anything about the lieutenant’s visit nor did she mention the panicky feeling that had gripped her heart.
Carol called up the stairs to let Therese know the salad was ready, but Therese wasn’t hungry. She had just finished cleaning out Puffy and Jewels’s houses, which always messed with her appetite.
“Do you mind if I play my flute?” Therese called down. She hadn’t played since before…everything changed.
“Of course not, sweetheart. You go right ahead.”
Before she could get out her instrument, the phone rang, so she picked it up, and found it was Vicki Stern calling.
“Hi Vicki.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m getting ready to practice my flute. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
Therese waited for Vicki to say why she was calling, hoping it wasn’t to share her regrets, and when she didn’t, Therese asked, “Have you seen any movies lately?”
“Nope. Want to go with me tomorrow night?”
Therese cringed. “I’m sorry. I’m going to…I have other plans. We’re going to the Wildhorse Saloon, if you want to meet us. A whole bunch of us will be there.”
“Hmm. I don’t really like crowds. What about Thursday?”
“I’ll check with my aunt and call you back. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“By then.
“Bye.”
Therese slid the black instrument case and fold-up music stand from beneath her bed, set up the stand, and got her sheet music out from a desk drawer. What did she feel like playing? She had received a one in a UIL solo and ensemble contest last spring playing a Handel sonata. She took it out now and put it on the music stand. Then she assembled the three pieces of her silver flute. She hadn’t played in so long, and she realized now as she blew the air across the mouth piece how much she had been missing it. Playing relaxed her, fulfilled her, and brought her pleasure. She launched into the sonata full of emotions.
She hadn’t played very far into the song when she started crying. She wasn’t sobbing and shaking as she had done each night since she woke from the coma. Instead, the tears simply fell down her face, like water dripping from a broken faucet. She could no longer see the sheet music, but she didn’t need to. She played the song by memory, moving her fingers quickly and effectively, a trill here, an eight-note rise there, and a whole note pause. She bent her brows and threw her heart into the song. She sang in her mind to the rising melodic scale: They are still with me, in my heart and in my soul. They are a part of me forever.
She kept repeating the words in time with the melody: They are a part of me forever.
A movement in the woods outside her second-story window caught her attention. She stopped playing and went to the window. At first she didn’t see anything, so she almost went back to sit on her bed and continue playing, but as she was about to turn away, she caught a flash of white and blue.
“Oh my God, it’s Than,” she said to herself. “What’s he doing out there?”
As if he had heard her, he looked up and waved. He looked huge, even beside the giant diseased elm.
She opened the window. “Hey, Than. What are you doing?”
He walked down the side of the mountain toward the back of her house and looked up. “I was taking a walk when I heard music. I came this way to find out where it was coming from. It’s beautiful. Is it coming from you?”
She blushed and nodded. “Hold on a minute, and I’ll come down.” Then she turned to Clifford, who sat curled on her pillow on the bed. “That’s not your pillow, boy. Why do you always have to lie down on my pillow? Yours is right there beside you! And you have another over there on the floor! You greedy boy.” Then she laughed, suddenly joyful, and petted him. “You want to go outside?”
Clifford leapt from the bed, scattering the limp, pathetic balloons, and headed downstairs. Therese followed with her flute, anxious to show off her talent to Than.
Carol looked up from the granite counter as Therese came down the stairs. She was eating her salad. “Who is that guy?” she asked. She must have seen him through the kitchen window.
“He’s staying in the Melner cabin. I met him at the Holts’. He’s working for them this week, too.”
“He looks like a god,” Carol said. “How old is he?”
Therese shivered at her aunt’s choice of words, pushing down the memories of her dreams. “Eighteen, I think. I’m not sure.”
Carol looked as though she was about to say more, but she took another bite of her salad instead.
Therese went out the back kitchen door and onto the deck to meet him. “So you can hear me all the way at the Melner cabin? That’s embarrassing. I thought having the window closed would keep the sound from carrying.”
Clifford put his paws up on Than’s shins.
“Hi, Clifford,” Than said, patting the dog. Then he answered Therese. “I was actually closer to your place than mine. I don’t really know if you can hear it all the way at the cabin. But I hope so. I haven’t heard music like that in a long, long time, which is crazy because both of my parents are big fans of music.” Then he asked, “Will you play some more for me?”
Now she was shaking. She had planned to show off, but now that it came down to it, she didn’t know if she could control the movements of her fingers. They shook much more than they had at the UIL contest last spring. “Um, I don’t know.”
“Please?”
His crystal blue eyes were just too persuasive for her to say no, so she led him to the side of the house to the wooden table and offered him a chair. She sat across from him, with her back to the side of the house, took a deep breath, and played. Everything came out all wrong. Then she took a deep breath, tried to forget his presence, turned to face the reservoir, and played again. Automatically, her mind picked up the words where she had left off: They are with me, in my heart and soul. They are part of me forever.
When she had finished the complete sonata without having made a single error, she looked up at him and smiled.
He clapped his hands. “I loved it. You put so much of yourself into the music. It’s almost like you’re voice is singing in place of the flute, or as if the flute were an extension of yourself.”
“Thanks.” She didn’t know what else to say. She was much too nervous to think beyond playing for him. A chipmunk ran up onto the deck and saved her from an awkward silence. “SShh,” she whispered, and pointed to the little furry animal just behind one of the other four chairs at the table.
Than’s smile at the sight of the animal took her breath away. What a gorgeous smile.
Therese scooped a few sunflower seeds from the clay pot on the table and dropped them on the deck. The chipmunk froze for a few seconds, and then he went for the seeds. Therese looked up at Than and watched him while he watched the chipmunk. His smile could kill.
She shuddered at her own choice of words.
Clifford came bounding onto the deck from the forest and scared the chipmunk away.
“Bad boy!” Therese scolded. “Time for you to go inside.”
“No, let him stay. It’s not his fault. He’s just following his natural instincts, doing his job.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” To Clifford she said, “I’m sorry boy. You can stay outside.” Then she said, “Actually, we could all go inside. I could introduce you to my aunt. Do you want anything to eat or drink?”
“No, that’s okay. I don’t want to bother you. I just wanted to hear you play.”
“It’s no bother. Really.” She mentally crossed her fingers for luck. She wanted him to stay. Stay, she willed. Stay.
“Well, if you’re sure.”
She smiled. “Come in. My aunt’s just inside having lunch.” Therese led Than to the front of the house, through the screened front porch, and inside the living room.
Carol seemed pleased Therese brought Than in to meet her, and she immediately offered to make him a salad just like hers. Therese insisted her aunt sit down. “I know how to make salad,” she said. So Therese chopped up some spinach, green leaf lettuce, bok choy, white cabbage, green onion, and a few radishes. Then she sprinkled on some toasted sesame seeds, Chinese noodles, and Ginger dressing. She divided it up into two bowls and gave one to Than where he sat beside her aunt at the countertop. Therese stood up and ate at the bar across from them.
She enjoyed watching his face after he took his first bite. She could tell he liked it.
“I’ve never tasted anything like this salad before,” he said. “It’s delicious.”
Therese watched him take great pleasure in every bite. “It’s so easy,” she said. “It’s not like I made you a five course meal.”
“Oh, offer him a drink, sweetheart,” Carol said.
“Sorry.” Therese opened a cabinet behind her and took out two glasses. “What do we have?”
“There’s iced tea in the fridge. Than, do you like iced tea?”
“I’ve never tried it, but I’d love to have some.”
Therese knew they had iced tea in Texas. What was with this guy? Did his parents keep him in a cave or something? The memory of her dream popped into her head, so she pushed it back out with a shudder. Silly, silly dream.
Carol and Therese both chuckled as they watched Than try the tea.
He frowned and licked his lips.
“You don’t like it?” Therese asked.
“It’s bitter.”
Carol crossed the room. “Try some sugar.” She brought the sugar canister over and put a couple of teaspoons in his glass, mixed it, brought the spoon out. “Try it now.”
Therese put her hand over her mouth to hide the huge grin she couldn’t stop from forming on her face. He obviously liked tea with sugar. He drank down half the glass in one gulp.
“I think I like sugar,” he said. Then he gulped down the rest of the glass.