Silent Killer Page 0,103

I might show up.”

Cathy wondered if she had imagined the competitive glare the two men had exchanged.

“Are there any updates on the case?” Cathy asked, hoping to defuse any tension between Jack and Donnie.

“None that I can discuss,” Jack replied.

“I’m sure y’all are doing everything you possibly can,” she said.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Donnie said. “But we really should get going. I imagine, considering this crowd, that traffic is going to be a nightmare leaving here.”

“Call me,” Cathy told Jack, her voice little more than a whisper. A part of her longed to go with him, to forget about everything and everyone except Jack and the way she felt about him.

“Yeah, sure,” Jack said before he walked away.

Donnie came around from the back of the pew and called to his daughter. “Missy, honey, Seth and his mom are riding with us.” Then he turned to Cathy. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

She fell into step alongside Donnie, but she kept track of Jack as he made his way through the horde of people ahead of them. Before they reached the front steps, she saw Jack walking across the road to where his car was parked. He didn’t look back, not even once.

Was he angry with her? Disappointed? Hurt? It was difficult to tell exactly what Jack was thinking or feeling.

Jack shouldn’t matter so much to you, she told herself. You have enough problems to handle without adding a love affair with Jackson Perdue into the mix.

After an hour-and-a-half church service, followed by the congregation’s own prayer vigil for Bruce Kelley, Seth left with his grandparents, and Donnie insisted on driving Cathy home. Missy had remained in the car while he walked Cathy to her door, and she’d been sure he would have tried to kiss her if his daughter hadn’t been with him. If only she could feel half the attraction for Donnie that she felt for Jack, it would make her life far simpler. J.B. and Mona would approve of Donnie. Even now they were beginning to think of him as an honorary member of their family. And she suspected that Seth would approve of her dating Donnie solely because he reminded them both of Mark. Not that the two men were by any means identical, just similar.

Perhaps, in time, she could learn to care for Donnie. After all, when she’d married Mark, she hadn’t been in love with him, nor had he been in love with her. She had learned to love him, and they’d had a good life together.

But could she settle for less than being passionately in love for a second time in her life?

No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She deserved more.

Even if she lived the rest of her life alone, it would be better than settling for less than real love.

As she unbuttoned her lavender silk blouse, Cathy kicked off her black sandals in the bedroom before walking into the bathroom. She placed the blouse in the dry-cleaner pouch she kept hanging on the back of the door. Then she stripped out of her dress slacks and peeled off her bra and panties. Feeling hot and sticky, she looked forward to a nice lukewarm shower, something to relax her and cool her off before bedtime. Temperatures were already in the low nineties, and the humidity was horrendous for this early in June. It wasn’t even officially summer, but in Alabama, summertime weather often hit in late spring.

Twenty minutes later, scrubbed clean, her hair damp and her pajamas on, Cathy headed for the kitchen. During her marriage to Mark, she had adhered to his teetotaler philosophy, but while living in Birmingham during her recovery, she had discovered the pleasures of a glass of good wine. Although not a connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, she knew what she liked. She loved a crisp, white Zinfandel and happily poured a glass from the bottle she kept in the refrigerator.

When the doorbell rang, she glanced at the wall clock. Ten-thirty. Not late by most people’s standards, but certainly past the hour for visitors. Had Donnie taken Missy home and returned? She hoped not. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt his feelings, but she couldn’t encourage him.

She set her glass on the kitchen table and ran through the house to the bedroom. After grabbing her housecoat off the foot of her bed, she slipped into it, rushed to the front door and flipped on the porch light. The moment she recognized her visitor, she opened the door