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Kent looked up and blinked behind his thick lenses. "It isn't finished yet." He slid off his stool uncertainly. "I can call and see when it'll be back."
"Do that," Steven gritted, then grabbed one phone as Kent grabbed another. Kent called the lab and Steven called Liz to find out where the hell was his warrant. His next call would be to Je
Friday, October 14, 5:00 P.M.
"Get in the car, Jen, we're going for a ride," Seth said.
Je
Seth shook his head. "Don't 'Dad, please' me. I said get in the car, we're going for a ride." He put her jacket around her shoulders and gave her a gentle shove out the door. "Go."
Chapter Thirty-three
Friday, October 14, 5:30 P.M.
"Here it is," Kent said, breathing hard. "We got lucky. They'd just finished it." He pulled the newest DNA print from the envelope and held it side by side with the print from the Clary clearing. He swallowed and looked up and before he said a word Steven knew the truth.
"They're a match, aren't they, Kent?"
Kent nodded. "Whoever was in the Clary clearing was in Je
Steven thought of the girls, all pretty, long-haired brunettes with eyes almost the shade of Je
"Did she call back yet?" Davies asked.
Steven shook his head, worry and panic eating him up inside. "Allison says she and Seth left a half hour ago. Seth didn't say where they were going."
"Please tell me the man has a cell phone," Davies said grimly.
Steven felt a hysterical laugh bubbling up from his gut. "Oh, yes, he does, but he's got it turned off. Allison said he and Je
Davies clenched his jaw. "If she's with Seth, she's all right. Try not to worry."
Steven's own cell phone jingled. "Thatcher… Thanks, Liz." He disco
Friday, October 14, 5:45 P.M.
Seth stopped the car next to the grave Je
She glared at Seth from the corner of her eye, her temper simmering. "I will not. I will not sit on that little iron bench and talk to someone who's dead. Dead, Dad. D-e-a-d, dead."
Seth got out of the car and opened her door, then bent forward until they were nose to nose, and said firmly, "Then sit on the little iron bench and talk to me." He pulled her out of the car and onto the bench, looking at the marble gravestone.
"It's pretty," she said softly. Adam Nathaniel Llewellyn,
Beloved. Followed by the date of his death, which until recently she'd considered the worst day of her life. There were things almost as bad as dying, she was coming to realize. Hurting a little boy so that he stayed up all night crying was almost as bad. Leaving your husband and children with a surly note was worse. Not trusting the woman you claimed to love and leaving her to be beaten… On that one she wasn't sure.
Seth sighed. "So what are you going to do, girl?" He was on his knees next to Adam's grave, straightening the flowers someone had planted there. Most likely Seth or Allison.
"About what?"
He fussed with a hearty orange chrysanthemum. "Well, about your living quarters for starters."
Je
He glanced up at her, a twinkle in his eye. "Well, there is Wednesdays. I don't think I want to be at the table when you sit down to Allie's meat loaf again."
Je
"Of course you do. I also heard you tell that young man you love his father."
"You were listening!"
"Of course I was. You never tell me anything. I have to get creative if I want to know what's happening in your life. Evelyn's doing much better by the way," he added, jerking the thunder from her ire. "The doctor says she can come home tomorrow."
"Well… good," she mumbled. "Glad to hear it."
"Thought you would be." He sat back on his heels and surveyed his work. "Not bad."
Je
He smiled. "Thank you. But this place still creeps you out, doesn't it?"
She choked on a chuckle. "Creeps me out? You been listening to Charlie's conversations, too?"
"Gotta know what's going on with my girls. So what will you do about Steven, Je
She narrowed her eyes at him. "It's no pleasure, Dad."
He shook his head at that. "Sure it is. Not the same kind of pleasure as a gallon of Rocky Road or a night of really good sex-"
"Dad!"
"But it's a pleasure all the same," he went on as if she hadn't interrupted. "It's control, or the appearance of it, anyway. You, my dear, are a control freak."
She opened her mouth to utter a denial, then closed it. It was a fair cop. "So?"
"So you can't control everything. You, Je
"What? I'm not the one who visits his grave every weekend or serves his favorite di
"I have to admit, I don't like the memorial di
"I am not," she said, holding out her bare left hand, then realized she'd fisted her right. Her right hand where she still wore Adam's ring on her thumb. She held out her right hand and shifted it side to side, watching the waning light play on the Celtic curves. "I guess I am."
Seth lifted a white brow, then held out his hand, palm up. "So take it off." When she didn't move he dropped his hand. "I can imagine loving a woman with another man's ring on her finger would be pretty hard. Might even make him wonder down deep if she really cared about him or if she was still holding a torch for her lost love. Which are you, Je
"I…" She shook her head. "I don't know."
"Fair enough."
"But, Dad, it's not the same thing. Adam never would have thought the worst of me."
''Sure he would, and he did," Seth said firmly and stood up, brushing grass from his knees. "Why do you think he took up karate? He hated karate. I'll tell you why. He was jealous of Mark."
"Mark?" Je