Roadside Crosses

way. They were hers. DNA match. I’m sure she’ll take a plea.”
    “I feel so bad, Michael. I almost believed she’d . . .” Dance couldn’t even bring herself to say the words. “I mean, Mom looked so upset when she told me that Juan asked her to kill him. And then she claimed she wasn’t on the ICU floor when Juan was killed, but shelet slip that she knew the place was deserted except for some nurses.”
    “Oh, she’d talked to one of the ICU doctors and he commented to your mother that all the visitors had left. Edie was never on the wing at all.”
    A miscommunication and an assumption. Not much excuse for that in her line of work, she thought wryly. “And Harper? He’s going forward with the case?”
    “Nope. He’s packing up and going home to Sacramento. He’s handed off to Sandy.”
    “What?” Dance was shocked.
    O’Neil laughed, noting her expression. “Yep. Not much interested in justice. Only interested in a high-profile conviction, the mother of a government agent.”
    “Oh, Michael.” She squeezed his arm again. And he put his hand on hers, then was looking away. She was struck by his countenance. What was she seeing? A vulnerability, a hollowness?
    O’Neil started to say something and then didn’t.
    Maybe to apologize for lying to her and withholding the truth about his investigation. He looked at his watch. “Got a few things to take care of.”
    “Hey, you okay?”
    “Just tired.”
    Alarm bells sounded within Dance. Men are never “just tired.” What they mean is, no, they’re not okay at all but they don’t want to talk.
    He said, “Oh, almost forgot. I heard from Ernie, the L.A. case? The judge refused to push off the immunity hearing. It’s starting in about a half hour.”
    Dance displayed crossed fingers. “Let’s hope.” She then hugged him, hard.
    O’Neil fished his car keys out of his pocket and headed up the stairs, apparently in too much of a hurry to wait for the elevator.
    Dance glanced into the cafeteria. She noted that her mother was no longer at the table. Her shoulders slumped. Damnit. She’s gone.
    But then she heard a woman’s voice behind her. “Katie.”
    Edie Dance had come out the side door and presumably waited to join her daughter until O’Neil left.
    “Michael told me, Mom.”
    “After the charges were dismissed, I came by here to see the people who supported me, to thank them.”
    The people who supported me . . .
    There was silence for a moment. The PA system gave an incomprehensible announcement. Somewhere a baby cried. The sounds faded.
    And from Edie’s expression and words, Kathryn Dance knew the complete weave of what had happened between mother and daughter in the past few days. The difficulty had nothing to do with her leaving the courthouse early the other day. The issue was more fundamental. She blurted, “I didn’t think you’d done it, Mom. Really.”
    Edie Dance smiled. “Ah, and coming from you, from a kinesics expert, Katie? Tell me what to look for to see if you’re telling a fib.”
    “Mom—”
    “Katie, you thought it was possible I’d killed that young man.”
    Dance sighed, wondered how big the vacuum in her soul was at the moment. The denial died in her mouth and she said in a shaky voice, “Maybe, Mom.Okay, maybe. I didn’t think less of you. I still loved you. But, okay, I thought you might have.”
    “Your face, in the courtroom at the bail hearing. Just looking at your face, I knew you were considering it. I knew you were.”
    “I’m so sorry,” Dance whispered.
    Then Edie Dance did something completely uncharacteristic. She took her daughter by the shoulders, firmly, more firmly than Dance believed she’d ever been held by the woman, even as a child. “Don’t you dare say that.” Her words were harsh.
    Dance blinked and began to speak.
    “Shhhhh, Katie. Listen. I was up all night after the bail hearing. Thinking about what I’d seen in your eyes, what you suspected about me, let me finish. I was up all night, hurt, furious. But then, finally I understood something. And I felt so proud.”
    A warm smile softened the round contours of the woman’s face. “So proud.”
    Dance was confused.
    Her mother continued, “You know, Katie, a parent never knows if they get it right. I’m sure you’ve wrestled with that.”
    “Oh, only about ten times a day.”
    “You always hope, you pray, that you give your children the resources they need, the attitude, the courage. That’s what