Land of Careful Shadows by Suzanne Chazin Read Free Book Online Page A

the counter. The dog rubbed up against Vega’s leg and he gave her a pat, wishing he had more time for a dog in his own life. Joy had always wanted a dog. Wendy was allergic to them.
    â€œSo you want to tell me why you’re here? Or are you just going to handcuff us when Scott gets back? Not that I mind the handcuff part.” She grinned and her smile was better than ever on her raw-boned face, full of shadows and planes that caught and swallowed the light.
    Vega laughed. “I don’t even keep cuffs on me. They’re in the car. But don’t worry. You’re safe. All I want to do is ask you some questions.”
    â€œThat’s how it always starts, doesn’t it? In the TV shows.”
    â€œIt’s a lot more tedious and full of paperwork in real life.”
    Linda undid her ponytail and refastened the rubber band twice around her hair to put it back exactly as it had been before. Vega always marveled at women and their hair, how they could play with it, restyle it, brush it, all without missing a beat in their conversations. If he talked while he shaved, he cut himself.
    She went over to her kitchen cabinets and began opening them with the manic force of a TV chef, all the time keeping up a running commentary about how messy the house was when it wasn’t messy at all. He’d forgotten that when she was nervous, she babbled. When he was nervous, he clammed up, instead studying the photographs on some bookshelves that flanked the flat-screen television. Between clay turtles and uneven pinch pots sat a row of photographs. Linda in various sundresses and tank tops standing next to a wiry man with thinning blond hair and gold-rimmed glasses. Scott, no doubt. Vega wanted to feel the neutral emotions he would have felt if he were looking at a photo of a friend and his wife. He knew it was childish to feel anything after so many years.
    â€œYou stay in touch with anyone from the old days?” asked Linda.
    â€œNot a period in my life I’m dying to relive.”
    â€œOh, right.” There was an awkward pause. Even Linda seemed at a loss for words.
    â€œYou?”
    â€œA few. Megan Cartwright and Ann McKinley—who was Ann Lesser and then Ann Rothstein and then went back to her maiden name after her second divorce—”
    â€œâ€”You see Bobby at all?” Vega wanted the question to flow, but Bobby Rowland’s name could never flow between them.
    â€œOn occasion,” Linda said slowly. “He still owns his dad’s old hardware store downtown. I’m in there quite a bit. He’s also the chief of our volunteer fire department.” Linda stopped pulling out dishes and looked at him. “You know about his younger son, right?”
    â€œI went to the funeral Mass.” Vega nodded sadly. “When was it? Three years ago?”
    â€œJust about.”
    Vega wondered if she’d been there too. He hadn’t seen her but there were so many people and he was in and out quickly, cowed by the cavernous space that was filled with so much memory and grief. Before that, it had been more than twenty years since he and Bobby had spoken.
    â€œI gather you’ve forgiven him,” said Linda.
    â€œWater under the bridge. Sorta pales beside losing your fourteen-year-old to cancer, you know?”
    â€œAnd how about me? Do you forgive me?”
    He turned to the bookcase and scanned the shelves. “Where are your kids’ pictures?”
    â€œYou’re looking straight at my one and only.”
    The only photograph Vega could see was a school picture of a caramel-skinned girl with onyx eyes. Her sleek black hair was long and parted on the side and her gaze had a sort of womanly awareness to it. Vega guessed her age to be nine or ten.
    â€œThis is your daughter?” He lifted the frame.
    â€œOur Olivia, yes,” said Linda. “She’s Guatemalan.” The loveliness of her daughter’s face leeched all the nervous