Page 57 of Chosen Path
How dare he try to push this whole mess off on her? Did he really think the council wouldn’t hold him accountable, too? He was the senior member, after all. Of all the nerve. He’d regret this. She would make him pay.
She was fuming and measuring flour when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the display but didn’t recognize the incoming telephone number. She wiped her hands on her apron and hit the speaker button.
“Hello?”
“What the hell, Kimberly?” an irate female voice demanded.
“Who is this?” she shot back.
“It’s Kara. Kara Gardener Anders. Joel’s wife. Laura’s daughter.”
“Oh, of course, Kara. What’s got you in such a lather?”
“Your freaking council,” Kara shrieked.
Kimberly turned off the speaker button and picked up the phone. “If you want to speak to me, Kara, you’ll do it with a civil tongue. Are we clear?”
Kara exhaled loudly. “I’m sorry, Kimberly. I’m just beside myself. Here I am, trying to get the kids off to school this morning, when my phone rings. I pick it up, and my sister starts screaming at me, without so much as a hello. Can you imagine?”
“Yes,” Kimberly replied dryly.
“Oh, right. Sorry. Anyway, Hope wanted to know why I didn’t authorize an autopsy to find out why our mother died, and why I thought I had the right to make that decision in the first place. I don’t know what even made her bring up Mom’s death out of the blue like that.”
I do, Kimberly thought.Doctor Hart.
What she said was, “I don’t know whether you’ve heard, Kara, but there’ve been two deaths in town this week. Under circumstances very similar to your mother’s passing. And your sister is actually the one who found Corrine’s body.”
“Corrine Wolf? She died like my mom? But she’s so young.”
“Well,” Kimberly said, “sometimes these things happen—as you well know.”
“Oh, poor Hope. No wonder she’s so worked up.”
“That’s a good idea, dear. Take a more charitable view of her outburst.” Even as she said the words, she wondered if she might not take her own advice.
Kimberly called up an old memory of being out on a double date with Greg and Wendy a million years ago. Greg and Ron had gotten tickets to some music festival down in Burlington. If she could go back and tell that carefree girl in the paisley top and bell-bottom jeans that, in fifty years, she’d be still living in Scandia Bluff, married to Ron, and baking casseroles and muffins, past Kimberly would laugh herself silly. Things hadn’t turned out the way she’d imagined. She certainly never thought she’d end up on the village council.
And perhaps that was true for Greg, too. Perhaps young Greg would be dismayed to know he’d end up running the local hardware store and sitting on a council that decided whether his fellow villagers lived or died. She felt herself soften, just a smidge, toward Greg. And Wendy. And even Ron—she supposed he’d punished himself, anyway, eating that brick of a muffin.
“I guess,” Kara said, somewhat sullenly. “But what about the autopsy thing?”
“What about it? Hope is probably just worked up. As your mother’s executor it was perfectly fine for you to make that decision without consulting your sister.”
“Well … about that …”
“What?” Kimberly didn’t like the sudden sheepish note that had crept into the young woman’s voice. Not one bit.
“I was the executor. But Hope was our mom’s health care agent, and the advance directive gave that power to her, not me.”
Kimberly pinched the bridge of her nose. She felt a headache coming on. “So why on earth didn’t you tell Ed Pratt that? What possessed you to make the decision, when you knew you weren’t authorized to do so?”
“Joel said not to. He asked Mr. Rockman what we should do. You know, because of, you know, how she died,” Kara protested. “Mr. Rockman’s the one who said to just tell Ed no, and never mention it to Hope! So who told her?”
“I’ll get to the bottom of it, Kara,” she promised.
“I hope so, because we don’t need this, Kimberly. Joel and I didn’t move all the way down here just to have that stupid village and your stupid council still running our lives. We came here to get away from all of you and your weird traditions.” And with that final outburst, Kara Gardener Anders had the temerity to hang up on her.
But Kimberly barely registered the rudeness. Kara had just given her the leverage she needed to keep Greg in line. He was every bit as responsible for what happened with Laura as Kimberly wasandhe’d covered it up.
