Old World Murder - Kathleen Ernst [65]
“Hey! It’s Chloe!”
She slapped her notebook closed as Justin ran to greet her, scattering sand. Libby followed more slowly, with Dierdre in her arms.
“Well … hi!” Chloe managed.
“What are you doing here?” Justin asked.
Chloe was wondering the same thing about them. “Just relaxing.”
Libby let Dierdre slide to the ground. “Sorry to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding.” Chloe tried to smile. Today was not a good day to make small talk with Roelke McKenna’s cousin.
“I’m going in the water,” Justin announced.
“Stay where I can see you,” Libby warned. “And don’t go in above—”
“I know.” Justin ran toward the water. His baggy red swimsuit flapped around his legs, and the strap holding his glasses in place made a funny horizontal line against the back of his head.
Libby pulled a plastic scooper and bucket from a beach bag and handed the toys to Dierdre. The little girl wore a frilly pink bathing suit. Her skin showed a few white traces of recently applied sunscreen.
“My ex didn’t show.” Libby’s profile was tight as she tucked a floppy hat over Deirdre’s head. “Again.”
“Men can be pigs.”
“They can indeed.” Libby leaned back on her hands, watching her son.
After a moment Chloe began to relax. This still might be OK.
“So, what do you write?” Libby asked.
It took a moment to make the transition. Then Chloe considered her last project, a work of historical fiction set in Switzerland, burned page-by-page when she’d left Brienz. “Um, well, I—”
“Hey, Libby!”
Libby looked up sharply, cast a quick glance at Chloe, and jumped to her feet. “Therese! Don’t tell me you’ve got that little guy out already!”
Chloe belatedly recognized the approaching brunette. The swell of her belly had transformed itself into a small lump in the middle of a safari-print sling worn across her chest. Chloe sat very still, watching Dierdre shovel sand, trying hard not to listen to Therese’s chatter: “Here, Libby, want to hold him? No, it’s OK, really! Just keep him wrapped against the sun.”
The lump was transferred into Libby’s arms. “He’s so sweet,” Libby murmured, swaying back and forth the way women do when cradling a child. Chloe shifted her gaze to Justin. Someone needed to keep an eye on Justin. After a few more eternities she was aware of Libby easing the infant back to his mother’s arms.
Then Therese’s attention landed on Chloe. “Oh, hi!” Therese bubbled. “We met last week, remember?”
“Of course. Hi.”
Therese dropped to her knees. “I went into labor later that night! Princess Di hasn’t had her baby yet. Oh well. Derek’s a week old already, see?”
Derek was thrust forward for review. “He’s lovely,” Chloe said.
“Want to hold him?”
“No, I—”
“It’s OK, really!” Therese slid the baby toward Chloe’s lap. “Just watch his head.”
Chloe felt the soft nap of a thin cotton blanket, and the solid warmth of the tiny life it cradled, being eased into her unwilling arms. The warm weight stirred—an arm moving in sleep, perhaps, or a leg. She smelled baby, talcum and milk and something indefinable.
The air seemed to get thinner, less able to satisfy her lungs. “Please—take him,” she said. Libby was already scooping Derek up and away.
Tears spilled over as Chloe rose to her feet. “He’s beautiful. Congratulations.” She tossed the words at Therese as she grabbed her things and stumbled away. She aimed for her car but swerved at the last minute and bolted into the public restroom, a smelly cement-block affair. Chloe dove into one of the stalls, latched the door, dropped onto the john. Curled over her knees, trying hard to be quiet, she sobbed.
Chloe emerged from the stall damp-faced, hiccupping, and slightly nauseated. Libby was leaning patiently against the sink.
“Oh,” Chloe said. Her head felt fuzzy. “Where are the kids?”
“I asked a neighbor to watch them.” Libby turned toward the door. “Come on. You’re coming home with me.”
Chloe watched a daddy longlegs walk up the wall. “I don’t want to see Roelke.”
“Roelke’s not there. Come on.”
Ten minutes later, Chloe was sitting in a chaise lounge on Libby’s patio.