False Impressions by Terri Thayer Page A

Aldenville.
    She wanted to kick Kit for making her a part of this. Mary Lou would have a fit if she knew. April found a light switch and went down the basement stairs. The stairs were wooden, and the walls were plain cinder block. She stepped slowly, scanning for the promised folding chairs.
    The room was a sea of black plastic.
    All she could see were trash bags, filled to capacity. Wow. These kids really have been busy, she thought. She finally spotted the chairs against the wall at the bottom of the stairs and wrestled three upstairs.
    Kit had covered the bucket with a piece of fabric and stuck a candle in the middle on a small plate. She’d lit the candle. April was touched by the effort to make the place look fancy.
    She took one of the chairs from April and set it up, fussing with the position. April set the other two out and let Kit arrange them. She looked to April, her need for approval nakedly apparent. “How’d I do? These are the old curtains I found in a closet, and the candle was left behind in the bathroom.”
    April smiled. “It looks great.”
    Headlights raked across the ceiling. Tires crunched on the driveway.
    “He’s here.” Kit flew to the front door and yanked it open.
    “Be . . . careful,” April finished as Kit flipped on the porch light. Outside, it was as dark as the deepest night, even thought it was barely suppertime.
    She looked back at April and beamed. “It’s him. I’d recognize him anywhere.”
    She flew outside to meet the man getting out of the car, even as April tried to grab her back into the house. The temperature had dropped again, and the porch steps might be icy. But Kit was young and impervious to the dangerous cold as she flung herself into the man’s arms.
    He’d parked behind Kit’s car. With the door open and the dome light on, April got a glimpse of a man slightly taller than Kit.
    Out on the road, a car slowed. April couldn’t see the driver, but she was suddenly aware that a supposedly dead man was in Kit’s front yard. One wanted by the police.
    “Come in here, you two,” she hissed, holding the door open. “Now.” They complied.
    “Are you okay?” she heard Kit say as they crossed the threshold.
    “I’m so sorry, Kitten. I never meant for you to suffer.”
    They ignored April as J.B. wrapped his arms around Kit. Kit rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. April hadn’t sighed like that since she was in high school. She shut the door behind them.
    Kit broke away from him. She held on to his hand and turned to April. “This is my uncle,” Kit said. “J.B. Hunsinger.”
    He was skinny legged, with a belly bulging under his plaid shirt. He wore a red thermal Henley shirt underneath, probably for warmth as the flannel looked thin and worn through in spots. His jeans were Wranglers. He had inexpensive fur-lined ankle boots. This was a man who did his shopping at Walmart. Unlike Mary Lou, who traveled to Philadelphia to shop.
    J.B. reached over and shook April’s hand. He seemed a bit nervous to find someone else with Kit. He looked around her. “Is there anyone else here? I asked you not to tell anyone.”
    “Of course not. April’s different. She won’t tell anyone. I wanted her to hear your story. She can help you with the police, maybe.”
    April cocked her head at Kit. Seriously? Did this kid think she had a good relationship with the Aldenville police?
    Kit directed them to the kitchen where she shyly pointed J.B. to the vignette she’d set up. He smiled at her, but J.B. didn’t sit. He wandered around the room, touching the half-stripped wallpaper and testing the crooked miniblinds over the window. He walked on the balls of his feet, so he was in a jigging motion much of the time. He looked like someone who found it impossible to relax.
    “So this place going to be okay for you?” he asked.
    Kit laughed. “I guess. It’s not a Victorian on Main Street, my dream house. But I guess those don’t go into foreclosure that often.”
    His