24 Hours

Hickey was instantly on his feet, Will’s gun in his hand. “Who’s that?” he asked, his eyes flicking around the room as though a SWAT team might burst in. “You expecting somebody?”

Karen shook her head. She had no idea who it could be.

“Don’t answer it. We’ll just let them go on their merry way.” He took a step toward the pantry. “Which door are they at?”

“The garage,” she whispered, shocked by the sense of conspiracy she felt with Hickey. But the last thing she wanted was someone disrupting his carefully organized plan while Abby was under his control.

The bell rang twice more. The urgency of the ringer was like a finger poking Karen in the side.

“How come I didn’t hear a car?” Hickey asked.

“Sometimes we don’t.” As she spoke the words, she realized who the visitor might be. Stephanie Morgan, the co-chair of the Junior League flower show. Stephanie drove a Lexus that ran so quietly Karen never heard it pulling up the driveway. And of everyone she knew, Stephanie had the most reason to drop by over the next couple of days.

She and Hickey jumped when the kitchen window rattled. Karen turned and saw Stephanie Morgan’s face pressed against the glass. She was shaking a reprimanding finger, and beside her was the little moon face of her eleven-month-old son, Josh.

“Open the door,” Hickey said in a flat voice.

“Hide,” Karen told him.

“I can’t. She’s looking at me right now.” He slid the gun behind his right leg. “Go open it.”

Karen didn’t want to invite Stephanie into her nightmare, but if she refused to open the door now, Steph would throw a fit, and Hickey’s plan would come apart. She held up her hand and motioned toward the garage. Stephanie nodded and disappeared from the window.

“Let me handle this,” Karen told him. “Please.”

He looked skeptical. “Let’s see if you can.”

When Karen opened the door, Stephanie pushed right past her with Josh in her arms, talking as she went. “Karen, you’ve got to come down to the Colisseum in the morning. I mean first thing. I’ve been down there all day, and the place is a wreck. They were supposed to have those livestock people out of there by lunch today, but there are still cows on the floor. Cows, Karen.”

Stephanie had reached the kitchen. “Hello,” she said to Hickey. “Are you Karen’s secret lover? I always knew she had one. It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”

Karen stepped into the kitchen and rubbed Josh’s arm. The little guy was obviously exhausted from his day at the flower show venue, and he was resting his head on his mother’s shoulder. Or had he sensed something frightening in Joe Hickey?

“Stephanie, this is Joe, my second cousin. He’s from Washington State. Joe, Stephanie Morgan, Junior League soccer mom.”

“Puh-lease,” Stephanie said, giving Hickey a little wave and turning back to Karen. She obviously hadn’t seen the gun. “I want to know why you didn’t answer that doorbell.”

Hickey was watching Karen over Stephanie’s shoulder. His eyes had gone dead the moment she turned away from him. “I had some Mormons around before,” Karen said. “I thought they’d come back for another try.”

Stephanie pulled a wry face. With her overdone makeup, it made her look like a circus clown. “Likely story. I know what you’re doing. Hiding from me. But I’ve got news for you, honey. You can’t. You’re the queen bee of this show, and I need you. When I saw those cows on that floor, I said, ‘There’s only one woman in the Junior League for this job, and that’s Karen Jennings. She’ll have those damn bovines out of here before another cow patty hits the floor.’”

Karen didn’t know what to say. The only thing in her mind was getting Stephanie and Josh out as quickly as possible. She felt a frightening energy radiating from Hickey, a sort of survival desperation. It was in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders and mouth. Something he’d developed in prison, maybe. If he perceived Stephanie as a threat, he would kill her. And eleven-month-old Josh? Karen didn’t want to think about that.

Josh began to cry. Stephanie gave his back a perfunctory pat and began rocking on the balls of her feet.

“I’ll be down there in the morning,” Karen promised. She took Stephanie by the arm and began walking her back toward the pantry. “But Joe’s father passed away recently, and he’s down here to work out some estate problems with me. We only have tonight and the morning to do it.”

“Karen.” Stephanie planted her feet at the kitchen door. “You know how important this is. Lucy Childs is just waiting for us to screw this up.”

Good God, Karen thought. Junior League politics. Could anything in the world be less important? She kept moving Stephanie toward the door. “I’ll take care of the cows. You take Josh home and get him some supper. Where’s Caroline?”

The second she asked, she wished she hadn’t. Because Stephanie would now ask where Abby was.