Page 15 of Chosen Path
Greg decided to let the ladies work this out between themselves. He took a big step back and hovered in the doorway to the living room.
“It’s important, Wendy. We have a problem.”
“If it’s that important, then you need to convene thefullcouncil.”
Greg winced and leaned forward. “Now, Wendy—”
“No, Greg. If it’s so important that she shows up at our house in the dead of night—”
“It’s barely ten o’clock,” Kimberly protested.
Wendy held up a hand. Greg gave Kimberly a warning look.Don’t rile her up.
Kimberly relented. “I’m really sorry to come so late. It’s nothing that would require a full meeting. It’s about Nikolas. His, um, death.”
Wendy fixed Kimberly with a long look. Greg had been on the receiving end of that look more times than he cared to recall—especially lately. Each time, it felt like Wendy was staring into his soul and reading his mind, dredging up every white lie he’d ever told and every dark secret he’d ever kept.
Kimberly just looked back at his wife, her face impassive.
After a long moment, Wendy nodded, apparently satisfied. “I’ll go put on a pot of coffee. You two can talk in Greg’s den.”
As she headed toward the kitchen, Kimberly called after her, “There’s no need. I can’t drink caffeine this late.”
Greg waved a hand. “Let her go. She makes it so weak it’s like decaf, anyway. Plus it’ll give her something to do.”
Something to keep her occupied instead of eavesdropping with her ear pressed against the wall.
He led Kimberly to the wood-paneled den and flipped on the overhead light. He left the door ajar and gestured for her take a seat on the ugly overstuffed sofa they’d inherited when Wendy’s mother had passed.
Kimberly handed him her hat, coat, and scarf and plopped down on the couch. He looked around the small, cramped room and finally draped them over the back of his computer chair. Then he swiveled it around from the desk to face the sofa and lowered himself into the seat.
He was still groggy, half-asleep and foggy thinking. “So what’s going on with Nikolas’ service? Is there a problem getting a minister?”
Scandia Bluff had three struggling churches and zero full-time clergy. Among the Lutherans, the Episcopalians, and the Methodists, they could usually scare up one of the part-time ministers to officiate, so long as they weren’t too fussy about the specifics of the service. If a Catholic or a Baptist died, though, they had a real problem. And there hadn’t been a baptism or wedding in town in nearly a decade. All the young folks worshipped over in Greenview—if they worshipped at all.
He stared sleepily at Kimberly and waited for her to answer.
She rolled her eyes. “No. Pastor Carlson from Jarvisville is lined up.”
“Oh, good. Then what’s so urgent? Did you forget to activate the potluck phone tree for the reception?”
Kimberly leaned forward and hissed, “I didn’t say it was about the funeral, you old fool. It’s about hisdeath.”
Greg blinked hard, suddenly wide awake. “What do you mean?”
“You know how this evening, in between coughing up a lung, Corrine said Doctor Hart had concerns about the recent uptick in deaths?”
He ignored the catty remark about poor Corrine’s cold and nodded. “Yeah, and she also said she put the doctor’s fears to ease. Told her this isn’t out of the ordinary.”
“I know what Corrinesaid.But she was wrong. After I locked up the municipal building, I happened to look across the street and guess what I saw on Doctor Hart’s porch?”
“A pink elephant.” He chuckled at his own joke.
Kimberly glared. “She was struggling with that balky old lock, and she had a stranger on her porch. So, of course—”
“You went over there to snoop around.”
“I went over there to introduce myself and welcome her guest to Scandia Bluff.”
