Harvest of Bones by Nancy Means Wright

Author:Nancy Means Wright [Wright, Nancy Means]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1998-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Hartley Flint’s stepmother was on the line about Glenna, and Fay, squatting by the phone in jeans and a T-shirt stained with freshly squirted milk, was, admittedly, lying through her teeth. “She’s with Hartley, Ms. Flint; we know that at least. Your daughter will see that she’s all right. Don’t you worry now.”

But it wasn’t Glenna’s physical well-being that was worrying Matilda Flint the most; it was the fact that the old lady had escaped from the state hospital. The notoriety, the embarrassment! “What will we tell people?” she wailed. “And that girl, she should be in school. We worked so hard to get her into that college. She was underage; she didn’t have the grades. Oh, she’s bright—too bright—but she never studied. Always reading, imagining things, into that fantasy—that bobbit, or hobbit, or whatever they’re called.”

Through the dusky window, Fay saw Willard Boomer buzzing along on his bicycle. The wheels wore a phosphorescent strip, and a good thing, for it was dark out in spite of a three-quarter moon. Minutes later, in the middle of Matilda Flint’s harangue, he came lumbering up the steps. “I have to go now,” she told the woman. “I’ve a guest driving up. But don’t worry now, please; we’re doing everything—”

“You know where she is. You’re holding back on us.”

“I don’t know,” Fay said honestly. For once, she was glad she didn’t know the exact whereabouts of the pair. Fay was not a prevaricator by nature—she’d probably blurt out the truth if she knew it. “But you’ll be the first to know if I find out.”

“It’s my husband’s only child,” Matilda wailed, Glenna evidently forgotten; and Fay, remembering her own daughter, whose whereabouts she knew but lately couldn’t penetrate, said, “I know, believe me. But everything will work out; I’ll see to it.”

And she hung up the phone, for Willard was already in the house, his big perspiring face grinning to see her—her, Fay. She ran to get him a cool drink. Gandalf, who liked Willard, and vice versa, leapt up from his corner, stuck his narrow gray muzzle in the signmaker’s face.

“Well, well, howth sweetie pie,” Willard lisped, putting his own face to the dog’s. And then he said, “Oh, oh” when the dog peed on the floor. Fay ran for the paper towels. “You do have a way with dogs,” she said. “It misses Hartley, though. It whimpered all last night, then slept on her bed. The mattress lists now, north to south.”

“Oh, but I saw the girl, up the road a bit, running. I thought she was just exercising. I was coming the opposite way or I’d’ve stopped, offered a ride on the handlebars—least I think it was her.” He took the drink of iced tea and lemonade Fay offered him—”Kickapoo,” she called it—smiled, looking grateful.

That’s what Fay liked about Willard: He was grateful for things. She’d never known a grateful man before—unless it was for sex. Her ex-husband took things for granted: her, the meals, housework, even sex; her simply being there, until that day she wasn’t.

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