The Other Side - J. D. Robb [110]
Bonnie was considered one of the most qualified teachers in the state of California, having spent more than twenty-five years working with special children. After just six months with Tyler, she had formed a bond of trust with the boy. Though he had yet to speak, he had begun to interact with her, occasionally joining in the activities she initiated, and once or twice stopping to listen to certain words as she read aloud to him from a book. Small steps to some, but to the Crenshaw family, each simple act of normalcy was a milestone.
Bonnie shoved a hand through the wild tangle of salt-and-pepper corkscrew curls that refused to be tamed. “Lunch sounds good to me. How about you, Tyler?”
The boy was holding a wooden square, turning it around and around in his hand, as though enjoying the feel of the smooth, polished texture.
“I think he’s hungry. I know I am.” Bonnie got slowly to her feet and tugged on the colorful cotton shirt covering her ample bosom.
Christina was always amazed that this woman could spend hours on the floor, playing with toy trucks and tractors, stacking wooden blocks, or just kneeling eye to eye with Tyler while patiently telling him something, without ever knowing whether or not he heard a single word. To most people it would seem a thankless job. To Bonnie, with her boundless enthusiasm, each quirk of the boy’s eyebrow, each pause in his constant pacing meant a breakthrough of sorts.
Christina led the way to the kitchen, where Mrs. Mellon was just adding a fat bowl of flowers to a glass-topped table set in a little window alcove. Since returning to her parents’ home, Christina had asked the housekeeper to serve all their meals in the kitchen. The dining room felt far too formal. Besides, it still caused her pain to think about the joyous meals she’d shared with her mother and father in that special place.
Special. Everything about this house was special to her. The lush flower gardens that had been lovingly tended by her mother. The master bedroom upstairs, now closed off, where she and her mother had sat together for endless hours, planning her wedding. But of all the spaces in this house, the one most dear to her was her dad’s office, which still bore the scent of his occasional cigars. This was where she’d gone to him with plans to attend Wharton. And where she’d confided that, more than anything, she wanted to follow in his footsteps and make her mark in the advertising world.
Theirs had been a special bond that few fathers and daughters were fortunate enough to share. Though Ted Crenshaw had urged his daughter to follow her own dreams, he’d been fiercely proud when she’d joined his advertising agency. And when she landed the Lyon Entertainment account, garnering national attention not only for herself but for the agency as well, he’d been over the moon.
She felt tears prickle and had to blink hard. At least she’d had the satisfaction of making her dad proud before he’d been swept out of her life without warning.
In the years to come she’d surely find some comfort in that. For now, her heart lay like a stone, and she wondered if she would ever again feel even the smallest measure of happiness.
“Why are we here, darling?” Vanessa studied the drab metal desks littered with file folders and half-filled paper cups of lukewarm coffee.
“I want to see if the investigators have made any progress on our”—Ted’s nostrils flared in anger—“accident.”
He studied the faces of the men and women at work behind the desks. “Fascinating. I’ve never had a reason to be in the state police crime lab before.”
He peered over the shoulder of a man whose sleeves were rolled above his elbows, reading from scribbles on a notepad and entering them on a computer.
“This one isn’t ours.” Ted drifted to another desk. “Not ours.” He paused in the midst of two young men commiserating over their long hours and lack of overtime pay. “Let’s hope they’re not working on our case.”
One of the men glanced