Relative Danger Read Free Page A

recently broken up with a boy named John Winston.
    While I drove aimlessly, I tried to imagine murder connected in any way to my grandchild. My mind couldn’t set them both in the same scene. Kat had said that at first everyone believed the custodian’s death was accidental.
    “That’s it,” I said, my statement letting the image sink in. “The man tripped and fell.” And police ordinarily treated deaths as homicides until they determined otherwise. That’s all that was happening at Kat’s school.
    Tension left my shoulders. Kat and her mentor teacher probably had a misunderstanding. Kat was upset because Miss Hernandez wasn’t giving her attention. The woman could have distractions from her life or job—too many papers to grade, a breakup with her boyfriend? If she was so kind to Kat, she couldn’t possibly be a murderer—could she?
    I shook my head, noting that I’d merged into thickening traffic. Kat wouldn’t like Miss Hernandez so much if the woman could be violent. And Kat had said the custodian’s funeral was tomorrow. If she quit going to classes, she’d probably only missed a day or two. With a little nudging, she would make more effort to talk to her friend, tell her how she felt, and life would resume as before. All I had to do was make sure Kat returned to her high school.
    I breathed easier. Life was much simpler without worrying about a murder, especially one connected to my family. I felt almost positive that Kat’s anxiety stemmed from the disruption of her relationship with the teacher. Still, a nagging doubt remained. I needed to be sure. Ever since I’d adjusted to being a widow, I’d learned to make decisions on my own, but this extrasensitive issue concerned my grandchild. I needed to discuss what happened with someone else.
    Roger was too detached for analyzing disturbed tender moments Kat had shared with her mentor. But I did not want to see Gil Thurman. He was the only other person I really knew in this city, but I was driving in the direction opposite his restaurant.
    The feel of Gil’s warm hands enveloping mine returned. I recalled the rich texture of his voice and, especially, his wisdom. I forced my rental car into a sharp turn.
    Gil had been out of my life for almost a year, and I didn’t plan to open it to him again. He’d been my shoulder to lean on throughout too many happenings and almost got me pregnant when I was certain I was past all of that. In those fretful days my breasts felt fuller, my lower abdomen tender. “I’m afraid we might have created a baby,” I told him the night we snuggled in his den listening to a downpour.
    Gil’s head fell back with the deep-throated laughter I admired. Until that moment.
    “What’s so funny?” I asked, anger heating me.
    He rubbed thick fingers through my hair—which was then natural strawberry blond—and said, “That’s wonderful, Cealie. Us, new parents. Just think of it.”
    I had thought of it. I wanted to shove his hands out of my hair and punch his arm till it throbbed. I wanted to scream about all my plans. I’d expected to tell him I had toiled for decades with my husband to create a successful business. Managers now ran all the offices of my Deluxe Copyediting agency. I’d worked hard to learn to live without a mate and was no longer needed as a mom. My time had finally arrived.
    The morning after my announcement, Gil drove me to the doctor, who assured me I could no longer conceive. My body carried only a urinary infection. The tingling in my breasts? Gil was surely connected.
    Later he snuggled me on his lap on the recliner, rubbing his big hands in circles on my back, saying, “Oh baby, it’ll be all right.”
    And that’s why I needed to avoid him. Instead of letting me make my own way, Gil almost made me want to settle down again and try to start a new family. And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t!
    “No way,” I reaffirmed, tapping my brakes now on the freeway. The cars I drove past all seemed