Jessie,” Barbara cautioned. “Give Grammy a kiss. You, too, Melanie. We’ll take a look inside your bags when we get home.”
They shared kisses while Jessie hopped from one foot to the other. “No, now, Grammy!” she insisted, then let go of Melanie’s hand and opened her bag. “See?”
Barbara, deciding to choose another battle to win, stooped down and peeked into the bag. Inside, she saw two large hunks of fabric, each a different shade of green, lying next to what appeared to be a page of instructions. “Oh, my. What’s all this?” she asked, even as visions of some sort of costumes that needed to be made flashed before her mind’s eye.
“I’m gonna be a frog! So’s Melanie. Show her, Mel.”
Melanie looked shyly at Barbara for permission first, then opened her bag. “See mine, Grammy? I’m gonna be a frog, too.” She wrinkled her nose. “I wanted to be the princess, but I didn’t get picked. Susan’s gonna be the princess.”
Jessie tilted up her chin. “Frogs are better.”
“Frogs are my very favorite,” Barbara insisted. She took a quick look at the paper inside Melanie’s bag and skimmed the teacher’s note, but she did not bother to read the directions for making the frog costume. “So, you’re going to be in a play during the Book Fair next month. That’s wonderful!”
Jessie grinned. “We gotta. Miss Addison said so. But we gotta practice a lot. Like this.” She handed her bag to Barbara, squatted down, pinched her features together, and started hopping around. “Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit.” She stood back up and grinned. “See? I know how to be a frog already, but Mel’s gotta practice more.” She took Melanie’s hand. “Want me to show you how again?”
Laughing, Barbara stood up, rather ungracefully, since her leg muscles had cramped. “You’ll both be great little frogs, but we’d better practice at home. After homework.” She took one of each of the girls’ hands and started them all toward the car. “Then we’re going out for a pizza party before the puppet show.”
“Pizza! Pizza! Yeah!” Jessie skipped her way alongside Barbara, shouting for joy.
Melanie just smiled. “I like pizza the best.”
“Not as best as me,” Jessie challenged.
Barbara laughed again. “What about frogs? Do you think they like pizza?”
Melanie shrugged, but Jessie squinted her eyes for a moment. “Frogs don’t eat pizza. They eat bugs. Ugh!” she said and stuck out her tongue.
They bantered back and forth until they reached the car. As Barbara buckled each of the girls into their car seats in the rear seat, she heard someone call her name and looked up. When she saw Fred Langley, the police chief, approaching, her heart began to race. Why was it that every time she could actually keep grief at bay, even for just a few moments, reality had a way of bringing it back?
She stiffened her backbone, planted as much of a smile on her face as she could manage as she waved the chief over, and turned back to the girls. “Grammy needs to talk to someone. I’ll stay right here next to the car. While I do, why don’t you two practice sounding like a frog for a few minutes?” she suggested and closed the door halfway.
With the sound of ribbits behind her, she was satisfied that the girls would not overhear anything. When the police chief finally arrived, her fear that her son’s murderer had been caught was almost as great as hearing news he was still at large and no progress had been made in bringing him to justice. As if justice could bring Steve back. “Fred?”
“Sorry to bother you like this, Mrs. Montgomery. I haven’t been able to reach your husband, but I thought I might be able to track you down here.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
He took a deep breath. “I got a call from Detective Sanger, the Philadelphia officer handling Steve’s case. She said they’ve got a possible break in the case. News about possible suspects leaked out, so it’s probably gonna hit the news at five, maybe even earlier. She’s not gonna be able to get away for a while, and she just wanted me to warn you and your husband so you both weren’t caught off guard.”
Barbara closed her eyes for a moment until she could find her voice. “Have they found Steve’s killers?”
“They’re not sure, but Sanger said they had a gun. It’s the right caliber, but they’re waiting on ballistics, and there’s a lot of investigation that still needs to be done before any arrests can be made or charges filed.”
She struggled against images her mind had created to bring to life the monsters who had senselessly killed her son. A cold shiver raced up and down her spine. “Can you tell me anything about them? The suspects?”
His gaze softened. “I really don’t know much about them, other than one is seventeen and the other is fifteen. Sanger said she’d call you as soon as she has something further to report.”
“They’re just teenagers,” she whispered. “What kind of parents raised their sons to become murderers before they were old enough to graduate from high school or to vote? What kind of mother—”
“They’re girls, Mrs. Montgomery, and they’re sisters. That’s why the media has really grabbed hold of the story.”
Girls. Barbara nodded, too numb to even imagine two teenage girls as murderers.
“You’ll tell your husband?”
She nodded again.
“Is there anything more I can do for you?”
“No. Thank you.” She looked inside the car, wanting to shield the girls from the media. “I—I need to take the twins home,” she whispered, turned and closed the car door. Given the notoriety of the case, there was no way she could take the girls out for the pizza party tonight for fear of having reporters approach them. She did not have the heart to disappoint the girls, but right now, she had to call John on the private cell phone he carried for her emergency calls and tell him to come home.
Barbara heard John’s sports car pull into the driveway and looked out of the third-floor window to make sure. He was home. She popped the Finding Nemo DVD into the player, adjusted the volume, and leaned down to give each of the twins a kiss. “I’ll be right back.”
Jessie pouted and tried to pull out of reach. “I don’t wanna watch Nemo again. I wanna go to the pizza party and the puppet show.”
Barbara kissed the tip of her nose anyway and wished she had remembered a lesson she had learned the hard way with her own children: Never mention an outing until you’re ready to leave. “I’m sorry, baby. Not tonight. There’s ice cream in the freezer, though.” She tweaked Jessie’s nose and planted a kiss on Melanie’s cheek. “If you two eat all of your supper, maybe we can make ice-cream sundaes for dessert.”
Ever the one to please, Melanie smiled. “I like sundaes. Can we smash up some cookies to put on our ice cream like Pappy did last time?”
Jessie crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t like cookies on my ice cream. I like caramel sauce, but I like pizza—”
“We have cookies and caramel sauce, but we’ll have to have our pizza another night,” Barbara insisted. “Now watch Nemo while I go downstairs and see what I can make for supper.” She left without giving Jessie a chance to continue to be difficult and met John on the second-floor landing. Her hold on her emotions was so tenuous, she avoided his gaze. “The girls are upstairs watching a movie,” she managed.
He took her hand and led her back down the stairs. When they got into the parlor, he let go of her hand and she stepped into his embrace. With her arms wrapped around him, she could feel the tension in his body. She burrowed closer and laid her head on his heart before she let her tears fall.
He pressed his cheek to the top of her head, and they rocked back and forth. No words of comfort were spoken or necessary.