“Oh, thank God you’re alive.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because it’s been three weeks since I last heard from you, and I saw one of those true crime shows last night and wondered if you’d been abducted.”
“It took you three weeks to check on me?”I asked.“I think I’m offended.”
Chowder nosed his way into the bedroom and used his ramp to climb up on the bed.He’d heard the phone ring and was nosy.
My mother ignored the question.“I don’t know how you stomach all that police stuff,” she went on.“Gives me nightmares.”
“Then why are you watching it?”I flopped down onto the bed next to Chowder in my slip and stared at the ceiling.
“Research.”
“Research for what?You’re a glassblower.”
“I was thinking of branching out now that I have a famous daughter who’s solving cold cases.I could do a cold case series.I’m thinking of calling itTrace Evidence.What do you think?”
She didn’t give me a chance to answer.
“I saw you on the news.My friend Hillary thought her daughter had been kidnapped but it turns out she ran off to LA to join a band.”
“I’m sure Hillary was relieved,” I said, deadpan.
“How’s your sheriff?”she asked.“Seen him naked yet?”
“Mama,” I said, closing my eyes briefly.
“Don’t be such a prude, Mabel.You’ve been married.How you and I share the same DNA always blows my mind.”
That’s pretty much how I felt too.
“The sheriff is fine,” I said.“I’m sure I’ll see him later tonight.”
I could hear a wind chime behind her, and the muffled yipping of a small dog that I didn’t recognize and didn’t ask about.
“Well, maybe you’ll see him naked then.They showed his picture on the news along with yours.He’s very handsome.”
“The news cycle must be slow if you’re getting Charleston news in Tampa.”
“That was a big case you solved,” she said.“A preacher and a member of the choir carrying on like that and then getting murdered.Maybe they’ll do a documentary.”
“Hmm,” I said.
“Well, I’ve got a class to teach.I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“Love you, Mama.”
“Love you too, sugar.”
She hung up and I felt the relief lift from my shoulders immediately.My parents had met at a concert and I’d been conceived shortly after.I had no idea how they’d managed to stay married.My father had been a merchant marine and my mother had always been…well, like she was.It probably worked to their advantage that he was always deployed and she was always caught up in an art project of some kind.I managed to raise myself for the most part, and I think I did an all right job of it.But I often wondered if I’d been switched at the hospital at birth.
I needed to get up and get organized.Talking to Jackie had opened up several avenues of people I needed to talk to.But somehow my thoughts turned into an odd mishmash of dreams that involved my mother’s new blown glass collection and Henry’s dead wife telling me I was looking for love in all the wrong places.Needless to say, it wasn’t the best nap I’d ever had.
CHAPTERSIX
I wasat The Perfect Steep by five Saturday morning, key in the lock, heart in my throat.
