Brazen Virtue

bath.

    ♦  ♦  ♦
    A HALF HOUR LATER , she was sitting at the kitchen table going through yesterday’s mail while Ed made oatmeal. “Sure I can’t talk you into a moldy Danish?”
    “Not a chance. I threw them out.”
    Grace glanced up. “They only had green stuff on one corner.” With a shrug, she went back to the mail. “Ah, looks like royalties. It’s that time of the year again.” She slit open the envelope, set the check aside, and studied the forms. “Thank God old G. B.’s still pulling through. How about some cookies?”
    “Grace, one of these days we’re going to have a serious talk about your diet.”
    “I have no diet.”
    “Exactly.”
    She watched as he spooned oatmeal into the bowl he’d set in front of her. “You’re too good to me.”
    “I know.” Grinning, he switched to his own bowl. As he began to scoop oatmeal from the pan, his gaze landed on the check Grace had set aside. Oatmeal landed with a plop on the table.
    “Missed,” she said lightly and tasted.
    “You, ah, get many of these?”
    “Of what? Oh, royalty checks? Twice a year, God bless them every one.” She was hungrier than she’d thought and took a real spoonful. If she didn’t watch herself, Grace mused, she might get to like this stuff. “Plus the advances, of course. You know, this wouldn’t be half bad with some sugar.” She started to reach for the bowl when she noticed his expression. “Something wrong?”
    “What? No.” After setting the pan aside, he got a rag to wipe up the spill. “I guess I didn’t realize how much money you could make writing.”

    “It’s a crap shoot. Sometimes you get lucky.” She was on her first cup of coffee, but still she noticed he was concentrating very hard on wiping up one blob of oatmeal. “Is it a problem?”
    He thought of the house next door, the one he’d saved for. She could have bought it with loose change. “I don’t know. I guess it shouldn’t be.”
    She hadn’t expected this. Not from him. The truth was Grace was careless with money, not negligent in the way of the truly rich, but careless, thoughtless. She’d been the same when she’d been poor.
    “No, it shouldn’t. Over the last few years writing’s made me rich. That’s not why I started writing. That’s not why I’m still writing. I’d hate to think that would be the reason you’d change your mind about me.”
    “Mostly I feel like an idiot thinking you’d be happy here, in a place like this, with me.”
    Her eyes narrowed as she frowned up at him. “That’s probably the first really stupid thing I’ve heard you say. I may not know what’s right yet, for either of us, but when I do, the place won’t mean a damn. Now why don’t you shut up? Your feet are too big to fit comfortably in your mouth.” After shoving the mail aside, she picked up the paper. The first thing she saw when she unfolded it was the composite drawing of Kathleen’s killer.
    “You guys work fast,” she said softly.
    “We wanted to get it out. They’ll flash it on TV today off and on. It gives us something solid to take to the press conference.”
    “He could be almost anyone.”
    “Mrs. Morrison wasn’t able to pull in many details.” He didn’t like the way Grace was studying the drawing, as if she was memorizing every line and curve. “She thinks she got the shape of the face and the eyes.”

    “He’s just a kid. If you combed the high schools in the area you could find a couple hundred kids who come close to this description.” Because her stomach was churning, she rose to pour some water. But Ed had been right. She’d memorized the face. With or without the sketch, she wouldn’t forget it. “A kid,” she repeated. “I can’t believe some teenager did that to Kathleen.”
    “Not all teenagers go to proms and pizza parlors, Grace.”
    “I’m not a fool.” Abruptly furious, she whirled on him. “I know what’s out there, dammit. Maybe I don’t like to live my life checking dark alleys and dirty corners, but I know. I put it on paper every day, and if I’m naive it’s by choice. First I have to accept the fact that my sister was murdered, now I have to accept that she was murdered—raped, beaten, and murdered—by some juvenile delinquent.”
    “Psychotic,” Ed corrected very quietly. “Insanity isn’t picky about age-groups.”
    Setting her jaw, she walked back to the paper. She’d said she wanted a picture; now she had one, however vague. She would study it.