It Must Be Magic (10 page)

Okay, so Erika
was
getting it.

“But I’m glad about one thing.”

How could anyone be glad about anything? Maybe Lili should have let Tanner handle the conversation without offering her two cents. He looked at her, waiting for her brilliant comeback.

Erika gave an expectant little rise to her blond eyebrows.

“What are you glad about?” Lili finally managed to say. Yeah, a truly brilliant comeback.

“Well, you know how you see those real-life detective shows, where the family can’t get over their kidnapped child because they don’t know what happened to them?”

It brought a hollow ache to her chest. Lili didn’t like to watch those kinds of TV shows, and she was surprised Tanner let Erika watch them. “Yes.”

“Well, if it were me, I’d rather know and not keep hoping forever for something that isn’t going to happen.”

Across from her, Tanner made a movement, or perhaps a sound. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed once, then again. Roscoe shoved a glass of water into his hand.

“That’s very wise.” Lili patted Erika’s arm. If there was any brilliance around here, it was coming from this remarkable child. “I think I’d want to know, too.”

“So,” Erika said, glancing at each adult in turn, including Roscoe, “what are we going to do to help find the murderer?”

Lili exchanged a look with Tanner. He gave her a stern do-not-open-your-mouth look and dealt with the subject himself. “
We
aren’t doing anything. We’ll let the police do their job.”

“But, Dad, what about what Fluffy saw?”

Lili was glad Fluffy had been relegated to Erika’s bedroom for the duration of the discussion. Right about now, Erika would have tossed the cat at her and expected her to solve everything.

Tanner had his own moment of truth to handle. “The police don’t know anything about Fluffy,” he said.

“But, Dad.” Erika’s voice held a tone of awe and disbelief. “Isn’t it lying not to tell them?”

A hush fell over the kitchen. Erika waited. Roscoe waited. Lili ached that she was the cause of that note in Erika’s voice. In the distance, she could hear a siren. She didn’t think it had anything to do with the scene in the woods, because, well, that didn’t need a siren. Yet it was a haunting sound that raised goose bumps along her arms.

Tanner didn’t try to wiggle out of the cold, hard fact. “Yes. And I’m taking full responsibility for lying.” He leaned down and looked pointedly at Erika. “I’m not getting you involved in this. That’s my decision. Do I make myself clear?”

Erika folded her hands in her lap. “Yes, Dad.”

“I don’t want you to play in the woods alone.”

“You never let me play in the woods alone anyway.”

“I want you to stick close to home, and keep your cell phone charged. You remember how to call emergency, right?

Erika rolled her eyes. “I am twelve years old, you know.”

He hooked his thumb along his jawline, curled his fingers against his lips and looked at her for several deep breaths. Erika put her hand over her own mouth in imitation and gave him back the same studied look. His eyes were the same shade as hers, the same shape, and they had the same type-A circles.

“I love you, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” He reached out and linked pinkies with his precious daughter. “I would die if something happened to you.”

“Ditto, Dad. I’m sorry if I sounded like I was minimizing the seriousness of the situation.”

Lili would have laughed — it sounded so like a repeat of something Tanner would say — but she felt like an outsider in this most intimate of moments between father and daughter.

“I know you don’t like to have to tell a lie,” Erika said with equal seriousness, belied a moment later by a growing twinkle in her eye. “I promise that I won’t throw it back in your face when
I
tell a lie.”

Tanner wagged their linked fingers. “You will
not
tell lies.”

Lili ached to take both their hands and become part of their circle. Kate had asked her if she wanted children — could that have been only this morning? It had been a future thing, like the idea of finding a body. A concept, something without an emotional attachment to it. Watching Tanner and his daughter, the concept morphed into a need.

Her carelessness had jeopardized what these two shared. Maybe the crisis had been averted for the moment, but she’d dealt thoughtlessly with the
concept
of murder. As easily as Erika seemed to accept what had happened, that didn’t mean the event wouldn’t have lasting effects on her, traumatizing effects. But Tanner had put Erika first, and Lili suddenly had an inkling of what it meant to be a parent. The joy and the agony. The fear that you’d make a mistake. The horror if you failed to protect.

He’d asked her to help him talk to Erika. Lili was suddenly afraid she didn’t have a clue what to say to the child about anything. She’d make a terrible muddle. She’d be awful —

SPAM, SPAM SPAM! The image was in her head first, then she saw Einstein, stomach splayed against the screen door, clinging by all four paws almost as if the cat were suspended in midair.

“What the hell?” Roscoe exclaimed.

Lili jumped up. Whether Einstein was talking about food or making a reference to the nature of Lili’s muddled thoughts wasn’t clear, but the cat would ruin the screen with her claws.

Get down.
Lili accompanied that with an image of a broomstick, though she’d never swat an animal with a broomstick.

“Grandpa, you shouldn’t swear.”

“That wasn’t swearing. It was an involuntary exclamation.”

Tanner rounded on Erika. “And that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to have involuntary exclamations because your grandfather sometimes does.”

Einstein sprang backward, catapulting off the screen and landing feet-first on the porch. There were numerous little holes in the screen. Einstein would need fifteen sets of claws to make that many holes.

“I’m so sorry about what she did to your door.”

“Don’t worry,” Roscoe said. “Fluffy likes to hang out on the screen, too.”

There was something about cats and screen doors and food. No matter how intelligent they were, they lost all sense of decorum.

Einstein was her cue to leave. She’d done enough to the Rutland family. She opened the door and backed out. “It’s time for me to feed everyone back at my house.”

“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” Roscoe said. “Why don’t you come?”

Lili looked from Erika’s hopeful gaze to Tanner. He had that look again, a hard, assessing quality, the line between his brows more distinct than usual, his eyes closer to a stormy gray than a cordial blue. Tanner didn’t second the invitation.

Lili felt twitchy all over again.

“Thanks, Roscoe, but once I settle the cats, they don’t like me to leave.” The excuse sounded hokey even to her, but she couldn’t sit across from Tanner’s stare through an entire meal.

“If you change your mind, pop over. I’m making lasagna. And I do make the best lasagna.” Roscoe chucked Erika under the chin. “Right, honey?”

“Right, Grandpa.”

Tanner stared. Lili let the screen door shut. “Thanks.”

She backed off the porch. It was the oddest feeling, seeing them through the screen, like watching a TV. She wasn’t a part of it. Her life was here on the outside, theirs on the inside.

She turned and almost tripped over Einstein. Grabbing up the cat, she scooted to the hole in the hedge, popping through to the other side just as a tidal wave of cat images filled her mind.

They came so furiously she wasn’t even able to put words to them. But she knew exactly what Einstein was telling her.

Holding the cat aloft, she stared.

“So they know,” she whispered.

As Tanner said, the police weren’t dumb. They’d figured it was murder, and they’d found the spot where it had happened.

“Einstein, you’re the best. Now you need to tell me what to do about Tanner and Erika.”

What Einstein said about Tanner wasn’t repeatable.

R
OSCOE CIRCLED HIS THUMB
around a water tumbler. “Is Lili okay?”

“Lili? What about Erika?”

“Erika’s fine, Tanner.”

Tanner had sent her upstairs to get ready for supper. “Are you letting her watch Court TV after school?”

“Of course not,” Roscoe said, concentrating on his tumbler.

“Then what was that about kidnapped children?”

“Afternoon cartoons.”

That
was a load of crap. Though cartoons could be violent. Look at the Road Runner always setting off bombs right next to Wile E. Coyote. He did have to admit there was a certain sense of wisdom to what Erika had said. She was a sensible girl, the way he wanted her to be. She’d keep her phone with her, she wouldn’t talk to strangers and she wouldn’t wander off alone.

But Tanner had taught his daughter that lying was okay. Part of him wanted to resent Lili for that, but the decision had been his alone.

Roscoe took a sip of water, then said, “Does Lili realize you didn’t tell the police as much to protect her as Erika?”

“It had nothing to do with Lili.”

His father cocked a white eyebrow.

The police wouldn’t have believed a cat had told Lili about a murder
it
had witnessed. The investigation would have become all about her. That was when he’d made the decision to keep silent, despite his own doubts about what she knew, what she was hiding and…“How
did
Lili know that body was there?”

Roscoe rose from the table, opened the oven door, then closed it again. “I take it you don’t think Fluffy told her.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know, Tanner.” He crumpled a bit of tinfoil in his fist. “But I know she didn’t have anything to do with putting that body there.”

“I never said that.” But had the thought actually crossed his mind? In all the jumble of thoughts and emotions he’d been feeling, he couldn’t remember thinking
that.
He stood up simply because he had to move.

Roscoe tossed the used foil into the trash under the sink. “If Fluffy didn’t tell her, then that’s the only other explanation, isn’t it? Yet if she did have something to do with it —” Tanner noticed Roscoe avoided putting the words
Lili
and
murder
together “— then why would she tell us about it? It’d be more likely that she’d want to keep it a secret.”

“Not if what she was trying to prove all along was that she can talk to animals.” He’d wondered more than once what Lili got out of telling the story. “What if she found it while she was walking and decided it was the perfect way to get everyone to believe in her?”

“I don’t think Lili’s that devious. Why can’t you just believe?”

Because he required proof, as his daughter did, but Erika wasn’t as suspicious as Tanner was. Her trustfulness hadn’t plummeted to the point where she’d consider Lili devious enough to come up with a plan like that, but trust was a double-edged sword. You didn’t want your child to lose faith in human nature, but you also didn’t want her to accept every Tom, Dick and Harry that came her way. Wasn’t teaching her that lesson the reason behind telling her Lili’s tale in the first place?

That had sure backfired on him.

“You want to hear why I think you don’t want to believe?”

“You’ll tell me even if I say no.” Tanner opened the fridge and pulled out one of Roscoe’s leftover beers from the previous night. “So I’m all ears.”

“You’re afraid of her.” Roscoe held up a hand when Tanner started to sputter out an answer. “You can’t categorize her. She’s illogical and impractical, and you can’t predict what she’s going to do next.”

She was all of those things and more, many of which he admired. “What does that have to do with whether she talks to animals or not?”

“Nothing. But if she’s illogical and unpredictable, you can’t control her. And if you can’t control her, that means you can’t keep her safe. So it’s easier for you to believe she has some ulterior motive for the whole thing.”

Tanner clenched his back teeth. He would not get pissed at his dad. He would remain rational. Logical and practical. “That is the biggest load of bullshit you’ve ever spouted, Roscoe, and believe me, I’ve heard you spout one helluva lot of bullshit in your day.”

“I’m telling you what I think.”

The beer bottle seemed to heat in his grasp. He set it on the table without slamming it down. “I’m sure she’s perfectly capable of keeping herself safe.”

“If she can take care of herself, then why not tell the police that she said Fluffy told her about the body?” Roscoe cocked his hip against the counter. “Go ahead, tell me that it had nothing to do with protecting her.”

Tanner simply took a slug of beer.

“You didn’t tell them because you didn’t want them to get into anything that would make them think Lili had something to do with what happened to that fellow out in the woods.”

“They wouldn’t have thought that.”

“That’s exactly what they would have thought, and
you —
” Roscoe pointed his finger “— didn’t want them to even go there.”

“Fine. So I don’t want them to go there. My concern is how that would affect Erika.”

“Now who’s bullshitting who?”

“Roscoe, check your lasagna. And kindly mind your own business.”

“Said like a man who’s afraid to face the truth.” But Roscoe did open the oven for a look.

It was all a bunch of psychological claptrap. It didn’t even hit home with his reasons for not wanting Karen to go on that Sedona trip. That had been all about Erika. So why did icy fingers stroke down his spine? “Maybe the simple truth is that I don’t want to look like an idiot by telling the police that my cat said there was a body.”

Roscoe merely smiled. “You’ve never minded looking like an idiot before.” Before Tanner could find a good comeback for that one, Roscoe added, “Do you want garlic bread with this?”

“A salad is fine.”

The conversation was thankfully over for now, but Roscoe’s continued smile said Tanner hadn’t heard the last of it.

The sooner he tackled Lili regarding what she was hiding, the better. He needed, however, to be calm and rational by the time he did it.