Page 72 of Dead Girl Running

“You?” Kellen’s indignation rose. “Why are you blaming yourself?”

“I’m lonely and I’m sad. It makes them avoid me.” Birdie leaned her cheek against a stack of manuals. “The trouble with being a widow is you bear up at the beginning and tell everyone you’re okay, and eventually they believe you and go away. Then you’re alone and there’s nobody…forever.”

Kellen scooted over and rubbed Birdie’s back. Birdie had always been thin, but now every vertebrae felt as distinct as a piano key. The guys weren’t the only ones who had not been there for her. Kellen hadn’t realized, hadn’t thought, that Birdie had barely begun to grieve for her husband, that the shadow of his death would weigh on her for months and maybe years. “I’ll tell you what,” Kellen said. “When Leo and Annie get back, we’ll go on vacation, someplace warm and sunny, maybe one of the Di Luca California resorts. It would be good for both of us.” Kellen remembered tonight, and that flash of a white, dead face at the window.I don’t remember an entire year of my life.Perhaps Annie was right; Kellen needed to go somewhere else and relax. Right now, Yearning Sands wasn’t the safe haven she had hoped. “Does that sound good to you?”

Birdie nodded. “Maybe we can get Carson Lennex to drive us down.”

“What?” Kellen stopped rubbing.

Birdie lifted her head. “We store his car for him. He came by and asked if I’d tune it up, make sure it was road ready. He doesn’t fly, and he’s leaving soon on a trip.”

“Is he?” Kellen thought she kept her tone neutral.

But Birdie glared. “You don’t have to sound that way. I didn’t really mean to ask him if he’d drive us. That would be embarrassing, to treat a movie star like a cabdriver.”

How to warn her without giving offense? “I don’t know that I’d accept a ride from Carson Lennex even if he offered.”

Birdie’s thin spine snapped straight up. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s an actor.” Kellen waved a cautiously dismissive hand. “He’s always wearing a mask, and no one can see beneath it.”

“He was nice and genuine! Honestly, you act like everyone’s out to get you. You’re not that important!”

Kellen caught her breath. That hurt. The tension, the death, the weather—it was eating at them all. “You’re right.” She tried for a little humor. “Only in my own mind.”

The outer door flew open, slammed shut. Temo called, “Birdie, are you here?”

Birdie looked at Kellen.

Kellen shook her head. She didn’t want to talk to Temo; in the kitchen, he had been dismissive of her.

Birdie stood and went over to the railing. “What do you need?”

Kellen heard him rattling around the worktables.

“I’ve got to pick up my tool belt, grab a few things and go to work.”

“Now? It’s dark!” Birdie leaned farther out. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

Kellen hunched down and waited in terror for the answer.

“I was gone. Things need to be done, and I have to keep this job.”

“Kellen won’t fire you for taking time for your family!”

Temo stopped rattling. “She doesn’t have family. She doesn’t understand what they are worth.” The rattling started again. “From now on, I’ll work as much as I can, when I can. That’s what has to be done, and I’m not stopping for anyone.”

Kellen wasn’t family to Temo. It sounded as if he didn’t even consider her much of a friend. And a shiny edge of Kellen’s fantasy crumbled away.

26

In the morning, Mara sat staring at the house phone. As if of its own volition, her hand moved toward the receiver, then back, then out again and grasped it. She lifted it to her ear, dialed the number and fidgeted while the phone rang.

Annie answered, and she sounded cheerful and strong.

Mara relaxed. “Annie, this is Mara. You sound good.”

“I’m wonderful! This morning, I got out of the hospital! I’m back in Bella Terra at my sister-in-law’s house and we’re celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah and every good thing.”