The headstone was cold to the touch. She traced the carved letters of her mother’s first name with her fingertip, then pressed her hand on the brittle grass in front of it, as though feeling for a heartbeat.
She had foolishly imagined that she might be able to communicate with her supernaturally, but the only sensation she felt was that of the stubbly grass pricking her palm.
“Mother,” she whispered, testing the word. “Mama. Mommy.” The names felt foreign to her tongue and lips. She’d never spoken them to anyone before.
“She swore you recognized her just by the sound of her voice.”
Startled, Alex spun around. Pressing a hand to her pounding heart, she gasped in fright. “You scared me. What are you doing here?”
Junior Minton knelt beside her and laid a bouquet of fresh flowers against the headstone. He studied it for a moment, then turned his head and smiled wistfully at Alex.
“Instinct. I called the motel, but you didn’t answer when they rang your room.”
“How did you know where I was staying?”
“Everybody knows everything about everybody in this town.”
“No one knew I was coming to the cemetery.”
“Deductive reasoning. I tried to imagine where I might be if I were in your shoes. If you don’t want company, I’ll leave.”
“No. It’s all right.” Alex looked back at the name carved into the cold, impersonal gray stone. “I’ve never been here. Grandma Graham refused to bring me.”
“Your grandmother isn’t a very warm, giving person.”
“No, she isn’t, is she?”
“Did you miss having a mother when you were little?”
“Very much. Particularly when I started school and realized that I was the only kid in my grade who didn’t have one.”
“Lots of kids don’t live with their mothers.”
“But they know they’ve got one.” This was a subject she found difficult to discuss with even her closest friends and associates. She didn’t feel inclined to discuss it with Junior Minton at all, no matter ho
w sympathetic his smile.
She touched the bouquet he’d brought and rubbed the petal of a red rose between her cold fingertips. In comparison, the flower felt like warm velvet, but it was the color of blood. “Do you bring flowers to my mother’s grave often, Mr. Minton?”
He didn’t answer until she was looking at him again. “I was at the hospital the day you were born. I saw you before they had washed you up.” His grin was open, warm, disarming. “Don’t you think that should put us on a first-name basis?”
It was impossible to erect barriers against his smile. It would have melted iron. “Then, call me Alex,” she said, smiling back.
His eyes moved from the crown of her head to the toes of her shoes. “Alex. I like that.”
“Do you?”
“What, like your name?”
“No, bring flowers here often.”
“Oh, that. Only on holidays. Angus and I usually bring something out on her birthday, Christmas, Easter. Reede, too. We split the cost of having the grave tended.”
“Any particular reason why?”
He gave her an odd look, then answered simply, “We all loved Celina.”
“I believe one of you killed her,” she said softly.