“I will,” she promised as she hung up and felt as if the weight of the world had just been dumped upon her shoulders. None of this was making any sense. Why was Stephen still hanging out with Miles Dean? What was he doing with that set of keys? What was the fight about? And, what could Stephen have to do with the old man whom he’d worked for, the man who’d disappeared?

She walked to the back door and noticed John Cawthorne’s wedding invitation on the counter. By the end of the week her father—well, if that’s what you could call the snake-in-the-grass John Cawthorne—would be getting married. But Tiffany couldn’t think of that now. Suddenly she had more important things to consider.

“Mommy!” Christina shouted from the backyard.

Tiffany managed a tight smile as she opened the window over the sink. “What’s up kiddo?”

All smudges and bright eyes, Christina, standing beneath a shade tree, proudly showed off her latest creation of mud and grass piled high in the tinfoil plate that had once held a chicken pot pie. A clump of pansies had been thrown onto the top for color. “Lookie!”

“It’s beautiful,” Tiffany said as Charcoal mewed loudly at the back door.

“You want a bite?”

“You bet,” she lied, trying to push her worries about her son far to the back of her mind. She’d deal with Stephen when he arrived home. “A big bite.” She pushed open the screen door. Charcoal slunk into the kitchen.

Christina, holding out her prize, started to run up the back steps.

“Watch out!”

Too late. With a shriek Christina stumbled over one of Stephen’s in-line skates and pitched headlong onto the porch. Tin pie plate, grass and clumps of mud flew into the air.

Tiffany was through the door in a second, picking up her daughter just as Christina took in a huge breath and let out another wail guaranteed to wake the dead in the entire Rogue River Valley. Tears streamed and blood began to trickle from a raspberry-like scratch on Christina’s knee.

“Mom-meeee!” Christina sobbed as Tiffany held her.

“Shh, baby, you’ll be fine.” Tiffany hauled her daughter into the house to the small bathroom off the kitchen.

“It hurts!”

“I know, I know, but Mommy will fix it.”

In the medicine cabinet she found antiseptic and a clean washcloth. As Christina, seated on the edge of the counter, wriggled and sucked in her breath, Tiffany washed each scratch and cut on her knee and chin.

The doorbell rang.

Probably the officer with Stephen in tow. “I’ll be right there!” she called out over Christina’s whispers. Balancing her daughter, she reached into the medicine cabinet for a package of bandages.

The bell chimed sharply again.