he sat there undecided about what to do next, the door opened again and a small older woman emerged wearing nothing but a baggy sleeveless dress. The door swung closed behind her as she walked across the yard and out through the gate, right into the middle of the street. She stopped suddenly and stared down at her bare feet, clutching her thin arms with her hands, her gaze traveling the block as though trying to place herself.
Frankie looked toward the door. No sign of Kate.
He pulled the car forward and got out. He stood there a second, kind of lurking behind a bush, willing Kate to come out and take care of this woman before he had to blow his cover and do it himself. The door stayed closed. A car came around the corner and started down the street and he knew it was time to act. He took off his jacket as he crossed to the woman and draped it over her shoulders. The car sped by them and Frankie suppressed a wave of anger lest the old woman thought it was directed at her.
“Can I help you?” he asked gently.
She didn’t respond. He applied soft pressure to her arm to urge her to come with him back to the curb. She looked up at him as though just aware of his presence. “Do you know where Dennis is?”
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry, I don’t,” he said.
She looked down the street but didn’t move.
Another car had pulled to a stop a few feet away and the impatient driver tapped the horn. The old lady jumped.
Frankie cast the driver a look that would have sent a pack of coyotes off at a run. “Ma’am, please,” he said. “Come with me.”
She peered at his face and blinked. “Do you know where Dennis is?”
“Gram!” Kate yelled from the yard. She tore open the gate and ran out into the street, glancing up at Frankie as she ground to a halt in front of him. To say she looked surprised to see him was an understatement. Shocked was more like it. The old woman gazed at Kate without changing expression. Kate’s arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. “Your dinner is almost ready, Gram,” she said softly. “Let’s go back inside. It’s chilly out here.”
“I can’t find Dennis,” the old lady mumbled.
“We’ll look for him in the house,” Kate promised as she led her grandmother back to the yard where Frankie now saw another woman waiting on the porch. Kate took Frankie’s jacket from around her grandmother’s shoulders, hooked it on the gate and glanced back at him, anger blazing in her eyes.
“Kate,” he said but she shook her head and held up a hand as if to silence him. Without another word, she took her grandmother’s arm and ushered her quickly inside the house, the other woman following behind. The door closed with a resounding thud.
Frankie, still in the middle of the street walked toward the car that had honked. The driver’s window rolled open.
“You proud of yourself?” he asked the driver.
A narrow-faced man about his own age responded. “Just get off the damn street before I run you down!”
There had been a period in Frankie’s life where he would have pulled this bozo out of his car and punched him square in the nose. The desire to do just that was still there but time had tempered him. He stepped toward the curb and the car sped by.
Frankie retrieved his jacket from the fence and stood there awhile, sure Kate would come back outside and demand an explanation although he wasn’t sure what he could offer. The door stayed resolutely shut. She’d really meant that final shake of her head. He finally got back in his car and drove off toward the airport where he rented a room for the night.
Would Kate show up tomorrow? Doubtful bordering on hell, no. He didn’t have her phone number. Of course, he could call Gary and get it, but then Gary would sense there was a problem...no thanks, he didn’t want to start fielding questions, not yet anyway. Besides, part of him admitted he’d already intruded enough.
The older woman was obviously Kate’s grandmother but who was Dennis? Did these people have something to do with Kate’s desire to stop the filming of the documentary?
Why hadn’t he quit following her when it was obvious she wasn’t going to a business meeting? What had compelled him to know about her? Was he treating her like an adversary? That was fine if that was the case because she was an adversary, she’d chosen that role when she announced her intentions.
As he lay in bed that night, he knew that he had probably just sabotaged his own project and he swore under his breath. If Kate refused to talk to any of them again and went instead to the backers fueled by her anger with him, he didn’t think he’d have the stomach to try to stop her.
* * *
“IS THERE ANYTHING I can get you before I leave?” Rose McFadden whispered from the doorway.
Kate glanced from her slumbering grandmother to the retired nurse and shook her head. Her voice equally soft, she responded. “No thanks.”
“I’m going home to pack a bag but I’ll be back tomorrow morning bright and early, okay?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “I’m not sure—”
“Now, please, child, listen to me,” Rose said, stepping into the room. “I’d hate to see you cancel your trip because of what happened today. Anyone can make a mistake and forget to lock the door after themselves.”
“I never have before,” Kate said. She’d been preoccupied when she got home, her mind processing the lunch with Frankie Hastings, reliving the conversation, wondering if she’d slipped up anywhere. And as a result, she hadn’t relocked the door and her grandmother had walked outside into the middle of the street. If Frankie hadn’t been there who knows what would have happened?
“I’ll be here like we arranged,” Rose said. “I promised Mr. Abernathy I’d help you and your grandmother and I intend to keep my word. Try to get some sleep.”
Kate sat in the darkened room for what seemed like hours, the sound of her grandmother’s breathing the only noise in the whole world. Today was the longest she’d been gone in a year. How could she leave again? What had she been thinking to agree to this?
List your choices, her subconscious demanded. Easy: zero.
She glanced from the stack of bills on the corner of the desk visible through the open doorway to the unframed window she was in the process of replacing here in the bedroom. The house needed new plumbing, the roof was forty years old and she suspected termites had had their way with the foundation. She was going under, not slowly, but fast.
When Kate’s grandfather had died, Kate had cried for days. That was the last time she’d allowed herself tears. She didn’t even cry for Luke because she was afraid if she started she’d never quit. But now she felt them swell in her eyes and roll down her cheeks and she seemed unable to stop them.
“Dennis?”
Kate’s head jerked toward the bed where she found her grandmother staring up at her. “No, Gram, Grandpa isn’t here right now. It’s just me, Kate.”
Gram blinked a couple of times as though trying to process Kate’s words. She’d once had dark blue eyes like Kate’s but as the fire inside her soul slowly
