A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [111]
“Okay,” Matt agreed, but he didn’t seem convinced.
Steven shut the door, walked around the truck and hauled himself up behind the wheel. He was only thirty-five, but he felt about eighty that morning.
The dreams he couldn’t remember still weighed on him.
He shoved a hand through his hair and started the engine.
Matt was quiet during the drive into town; Steven could almost hear the gears grinding in that little head.
When they pulled up at Creekside Academy, Matt didn’t seem happy to be there, as he usually did.
Kids, Steven reassured himself, as Matt dawdled along the sidewalk, delaying entering the building for as long as he could, are resilient.
Must be nice, he thought, trying to remember what it felt like, being good at bouncing back.
He watched until Matt was safely inside the building, then turned and got into the truck again. Zeke, still in back, craned his neck and laved the side of Steven’s face once with his sandpaper tongue.
Steven chuckled, checked all the mirrors and backed out of the parking space.
The Stop & Shop was back to business as usual, had been since the morning after the robbery.
Talk about resilience.
On impulse, he turned into the lot and parked.
Martine was back at work, as he’d hoped—she’d taken some time off after the robbery, and Steven hadn’t wanted to bother her at home.
After adjusting the windows and telling Zeke he’d be right back, he walked into the store.
Martine was there, looking a little pale around the gills, but otherwise she seemed pretty cheerful.
A plain young woman standing at the counter paid for her purchases—a half gallon of milk and two lottery tickets—and nodded to Steven as she passed him on her way out of the store.
Steven nodded back, waited until he and Martine were alone, then reintroduced himself. They’d already met, of course, but she’d been through a trauma and he figured she might not remember.
“Hello, again,” Martine responded, with a wan smile, proving him wrong. He recalled last time’s reference to her unmarried daughter. “What can I do for you, Mr. Creed?”
“Steven,” he corrected, approaching the counter. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions about the other night, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Martine looked reluctant, almost pained, but she nodded. “You and half the cops in the state of Arizona,” she sighed. Evidently not one to be idle, she wiped ineffectually at the glass countertop with a cloth as she spoke. “It started out as a normal night. Things were quiet, so I went back to the storage room to call my boyfriend on my cell. We’ve been having some trouble lately, him and me. Anyhow, when we were finished talking, I was too antsy to finish my break, so I headed for the front of the store. And the guy with the ski mask was standing there, right about where you are now, with a gun in one hand—” she paused to point, blanching as the experience replayed itself in her mind.
“And you recognized Byron, even with the ski mask covering his entire head?”
“I recognized Velda’s car,” Martine stressed. “I was too scared to identify anybody, notice eye color or height or anything like that. I just wanted to give the robber whatever he wanted so he’d get out of here—without shooting me.”
Steven nodded. “Any customers in the store right before your break?” Steven asked moderately.
But Martine shook her head. “As I said, it was quiet. Everybody in town was over at the dance.” She paused, gave a husky, rueful chuckle. “Everybody except George and me, anyhow.”
George, Steven assumed, was the boyfriend, the one she’d been on the outs with on the night in question. He didn’t pursue the subject. “No strangers came in? Say, early in your shift?”
Another shake of the head. “Last strangers I recall seeing were an older couple traveling in an RV, and that was at least a couple of days before—before it happened.”
Steven didn’t respond directly. Since he hadn’t gotten around to having cards printed yet, he helped himself to a stenographer’s notebook resting on the countertop, along with the accompanying pen, and wrote down his cell