Page 53 of Death on Riddle Road

“Oh.Yeah.”Still no interest, but he did keep talking.“At the gas station.She’d pumped gas and then she pretended she’d come up short and went around asking everybody to help her out with cash.Only she’d already collected more than was on the pump when she got to me.She pulled the same thing and when I said she didn’t need it, she got real angry.I walked away and that’s when she said,Hey, you’re that murderer’s kid.”

Clara and Mamie sucked in harmonized breaths of shock.

“Don’t know if she didn’t recognize me until then or if she decided when I said no to her panhandling to get her digs in.”

And still Robbie didn’t react.How much of his young life had he spent making such calculations about people’s reactions to him?But I couldn’t let my empathy for him stop me from asking him questions, especially in this moment when his walls seemed to be down.

“Who told you Jaylynn was having an affair?”

“My grandparents.”

My attempt to jar him failed.His answer was bland, uninterested.

Before I could ask more, Clara sharply turned her head, looking past Robbie.From where she sat, she could see someone approaching from the hall.

I heard carpet-softened footsteps, then Dova came around the corner.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Dova’s gaze wentfrom face to face, stopping on Robbie’s.“Oh, I didn’t know you were all here.”

I didn’t believe her, though whether she’d known or not didn’t make any difference.

“We were just talking,” Mamie said, with a trace of defensiveness.

“I’m sure, dear.”She didn’t look at the girl, only at Robbie.“You’re worn down.You shouldn’t be here.None of this is yours to deal with.I’ll take care of everything.You go now.”

Mamie started to say something.Dova faced the girl, her expression hidden from me by the angle.

Mamie got up, tugging slightly on Robbie’s hand.

With it clear the teenagers were leaving, Dova added more lightly, but unnecessarily, “You kids go on now.Get out of here.No reason for you to be here.”

As they passed her, I saw a reaction in Robbie’s face for the first time.

Pain.Worry.

The flash disappeared in a moment, leaving only an afterimage, like lightning in a dark sky.

Sympathy for the kid tightened my chest.Immediately pushed aside by my great-aunt’s you-need-to-talk-to-this-woman voice coming out of my mouth.

“Dova, sit down.You look exhausted.Want us to get you some coffee?”

“No.No, thank you.”

Good thing, because my aunt — channeling through me — wouldn’t have left to fetch it.Too busy watching Dova.

Because there had been definite annoyance at my comment about looking exhausted.Perhaps especially because she didn’t.

I swear I hadn’t known that was a vulnerable spot, but crafty Kit-in-my-head had.

“They’re such good young people,” Clara said with warmth, looking in the direction they’d gone.

“Some children are determined to be different from their parent,” Dova said.“Some grow up very like their parent.Robbie has been determined to be a responsible and admirable person from a very young age.”

Leaving out Mamie could be accidental or normal mother bias.I was more interested in the fact that her different/like their parent contention could mean all sorts of things in Robbie’s case.Like his convicted murderer father?Like his mother, who might have been as sweet as her mother’s memories declared — or not.And which parent was he different from?

No, wait.According to the Kit voice in my head, Dova was talking about herself.