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Mommy Said Goodbye
By Janice Johnson Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-71197-2
Chapter One
A MAN SUSPECTED of murdering his wife can pretty well count on being left off guest lists.
Laughter, the clink of ice in glasses, the shouts of children and the smell of barbecued beef drifted over the fence from the next-door neighbor's.
Craig Lofgren stood on his back deck, the lid of his Weber kettle grill in his hand. Just like that, he was hit by a fist of anger and loss so powerful, he reeled back a step.
"Daddy?" His daughter tugged at his free hand.
"Daddy, what's wrong?"
He swallowed and opened his eyes. His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. "Just taking a whiff. Smells good, doesn't it?"
The anxiety on her face faded and she nodded. "You haven't lit the charcoal yet."
"I'm doing it, I'm doing it." Somehow, he found a grin for her. "Hungry?"
Abby - who just turned nine - nodded, then gave a wistful look toward the fence. "They're all there, aren't they?"
There was no point in pretending. She knew as well as he did why they were excluded. "Sounds that way."
Solemn, she nodded again. "I think I heard Brett putting his bike in the garage."
"Yeah? Go ask him if the teacher lists were posted yet."
The intense emotion had passed, leaving bitter resignation in its wake. He dumped charcoal in the kettle, making no effort to be quiet, poured on lighter fluid and flicked a match. To hell with it if he cast a pall on the block party. Let 'em whisper about him. Feel a tiny twinge of guilt, or at least pity, because they had made his innocent children pariahs with him.
Once he was sure the charcoal was burning, Craig went in the house and sought out his eleven-year-old son. Brett had ridden his bike to the school, where rumor had it the lists had been posted showing which classrooms kids would be in and who their teachers would be when school started next week. Abby was the one who'd worried all summer about whether she'd be in the same class with her friends. But Brett, who professed not to care about school at all, had been the one to leap on his bike the minute Abby said she'd heard the lists were up.
Craig headed upstairs when he heard his daughter's squeal.
"Daddy!" She popped out into the hall from her brother's bedroom. "I got Mrs. Jensen! She's super nice!"
"Great." He gave her a hug and went into Brett's bedroom. As usual, it looked as if a burglar had ransacked it. "Who'd you get?"
Shoulders slumped, Brett sat on the edge of the bed. "Ms. McKinnon."
Damn. Some of his earlier anger and tension gripped Craig again. He'd hoped for any other teacher for Brett.
Carefully, he said, "She's supposed to be good."
Brett nodded without looking up.
Craig hesitated, then stepped over piles of clothes, a soccer ball and God knew what else so that he could reach the bed and sit down, too, right next to Brett. Abby stood in the doorway and watched, her jubilation gone and her face pinched, as it so often was these days.
"What's the deal?" Craig asked.
He hadn't expressed any of his concerns and hadn't realized Brett had his own. The truth was, Robin McKinnon was said to be the best sixth grade teacher in the district. Right now, Brett needed someone who might be able to inspire him, energize him, discipline him.
Craig just wasn't sure Robin would even try. She'd been a friend of Julie's, which meant, in this town, that she would believe heart and soul that Craig had murdered his wife and hidden the body. Or ground it up into bits and fed it to some farmer's pigs. Who the hell knew? Craig understood there were a dozen or more theories. Every one of them involved him as a crazed killer, a man who couldn't stand the thought that his wife wanted to leave him. Nobody had considered the theory that maybe Julie Lofgren had just up and walked out on her family. Or that a stranger had abducted her.
If the police had one grain of proof ... But they hadn't then, a year and a half ago when Julie disappeared, and they didn't have one now.
Which hadn't changed a single mind. The community had closed ranks against him. His lovely, innocent wife! they cried. A devoted mother and president of the parent-teacher organization two years running, she was well-known in Klickitat. Craig had never been anything but Julie's often-absent husband, Brett's dad who came to games when he could, Abby's father who had missed her second grade parent-teacher conference because he was flying to Juneau.
Now, every single person in Klickitat knew who he was. He couldn't go to the grocery store or get gas without feeling eyes on him, without knowing he was being judged.
He'd hoped that Brett would get the man just hired to teach sixth grade. Someone would have told him Brett's sad story, of course, but at least he might not share the fervor of the people who'd known Julie.
No such luck.
After a long silence, Brett muttered, "Ms. McKinnon used to come to games and stuff."
"She was a friend of your mom's."
Brett didn't say anything.
"Her boy - what was his name? - was a friend of yours, wasn't he?" Craig remembered.
"Malcolm."
"You know, she's not going to treat you any differently because your mom disappeared."
"Yeah?" Fury blazed on Brett's face when he lifted his head. "Everyone does! They either feel sorry for me," he spat out, "or else they're wondering if I saw anything. You can see what they're thinking!"
Yeah. You could.
"Robin knows you."
"So?"
Craig groped for an answer to the unanswerable. So she'd known Brett, known Julie, even, casually known Craig. She, too, had shunned the entire family after police cars with flashing lights were seen in front of the Lofgren home. She hadn't called to find out why Brett quit the Little League team. Malcolm hadn't called to invite Brett over to hang at his house.
Brett bowed his head again, but tension still ran through him. "She'll think you killed Mom."
"I'm not the one in her class," Craig said.
"Brett." He waited until his son met his eyes. "I can ask for a change of teacher if you want." No response. "Otherwise, we'll give Ms. McKinnon a try. If you're not happy, then I'll have you changed to a different room."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mommy Said Goodbye by Janice Johnson Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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