So, he has twins and a babysitter, which must mean his wife works, too. Katie pulled all of the shades and curtains, shutting out everything in sight, and went back to the kitchen where she’d been making herself some supper. It was comforting to know there was a policeman living across the street, she thought, and dropped his card in her purse.
***
Once inside his house, Sam went through his normal coming-home routine. He hung up his clean uniforms, locked up his gun, and then changed into old jeans and a T-shirt before going into the kitchen.
Roxie was sitting on a barstool with a cold drink.
“How’s Beth been since I brought her back?” Sam asked.
“Oh, fine until she thinks about it. I know it must hurt. And I think all of the pain meds have worn off. She’s pretty cranky this evening, bless her heart.”
“Yes, bless her heart is right,” Sam said. “She’s had a pretty rough day. Go on home, Roxie. Put your feet up and rest. You’ve earned it.”
“I’m happier here being tired than I am at home being alone, and don’t ever think otherwise,” she said. “See you tomorrow, and I’ll let myself out. Oh…I got chops out of the freezer this morning and put them in the fridge to thaw, if you want to cook them tonight. If not, I’ll cook them for their lunch tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. He was digging the chops out of the fridge as Roxie left the house.
The girls came dragging into the kitchen. From the looks of them, they were in need of a bath and an early night, and Sam felt like they looked. As soon as he got them fed, he was calling an end to this day.
“What can we do, Daddy?” Evie asked.
“Go wash your hands and you can set the table,” he said.
“I don’t feel like helping,” Beth said.
“Then sit at the table and talk to me,” Sam said. “Has your arm been hurting much?”
She nodded. “A lot.”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he said. He stopped what he was doing and got her a juice box and a baby aspirin. “Here, chew this up, then wash it down with your drink. It should help with the pain.”
Beth chewed the pill and swallowed, then took a sip of her drink. She watched as Sam began putting pork chops in the skillet to fry, then dumped frozen french fries on a baking sheet and put them in the oven to cook.
“Do we want corn or green beans?” he asked.
Beth looked at Evie to answer because Evie was the one who made the food decisions for them.
“We want corn tonight, Daddy!” Evie said.
“Amazing! So do I,” Sam said, and then winked as he got a package out of the freezer and popped it in the microwave to cook.
Evie had just finished setting the table when Beth pointed to the fridge.
“Sissy, we need ketchup for the fries.”
Evie nodded, and as she was getting the bottle out of the refrigerator, she paused and looked up at Sam.
“Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I have a juice box, too?”
“Absolutely,” Sam said. “And thank you for being such a good helper and taking care of your sister while I was at work.”
Evie crawled up beside Beth and patted her on the hand. “Poor sissy,” she said.
Sam eyed his girls. Poor sissy, indeed.
He stood tending the chops until they were done, then put them directly on the plates and carried them to the table. Took the fries out of the oven and slid them on a platter; put the corn in a bowl and seasoned it with a little butter and salt before carrying it to the table, too.
He made himself a glass of iced tea and then sat down at the table with his girls and thought himself the luckiest man in the world.
“Who wants to say the blessing tonight?” he asked.
“I will,” Evie said, and bowed her head. “Hi, God. It’s me, Everly Ann. Thank you for our pork chops, fries, and corn, and for Daddy and Miss Roxie, and one other thing. Somebody needs to be in trouble for putting that glass in our yard. Amen.”
“Amen,” Sam said, and hid a grin.
Everly Youngblood might look like her mother, but she was him all over. Injustice had no place in her world, and she wasn’t afraid to speak up when she witnessed it.
By the time he got their plates filled and the meat cut up, and the girls began eating, he finally tended to his own. As always, they talked about everything about the day as they ate. Sam could tell that Evie was the tiniest bit envious that Beth rode to the ER in Daddy’s police car with the siren going, but she didn’t seem to hold it against them. After all, Beth had a ’mergency, while she did not.
They were getting down to talking about dessert, and Sam was clearing the plates from the table when Evie offered information of her own. Something she knew that Beth didn’t because she’d been asleep.
“Daddy, I saw a woman go into the empty house across the street,” Evie said.
“It’s not empty any longer,” Sam said. “It’s been rented to the new first-grade teacher. She just arrived this afternoon, and she said her furniture will be arriving tomorrow.”
They both looked up, their mouths agape.
“Is she going to be our teacher?” they asked.
“I don’t know. There are two first-grade classes, remember?”
“Is she nice?” Beth asked.
“She sure seemed to be,” Sam said. “Who wants a cookie for dessert?”
Both of them raised their hands.
He got the cookie jar off the cabinet and carried it to the table. He watched them get a cookie apiece and then hold them together to see if they were alike in shape and size. He smiled, watching Beth maneuver Evie into them sharing a bite of each other’s cookies, and thought of the woman across the street again. Now that he’d seen the teacher in person and seen the shadows in her eyes, it reminded him that he had been going to run a background check on her.
Later, after he had the girls asleep, he went into the office, sat down at his computer, pulled up a link from the precinct to run a background check, and typed in Katie McGrath, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Chapter Six
The moment Sam saw articles regarding the school shooting in Albuquerque, his heart sank. Now he remembered where he’d heard that name. She was the teacher who was shot in the back saving two of her students. No wonder she was freaking out because of the firecrackers. The magnitude of her sacrifice left him speechless, but curiosity pushed him to delve further, and he began reading every article he could find with her name attached.