Murder in a Van Chapter 1
A/N: We own nothing! Post Costa Rica--following our stories of "A Few Days", Gil and Sara are no longer in Las Vegas. All fluff, just a peek into lives changed.
The phone rang six times before Sara managed to extradite her arm from underneath covers—that was after she managed to wake up, so whoever was calling was persistent. Her arm reached across the empty space and found the handset.
"Hello," she managed to say before the caller asked if she would be at home later for a delivery. Her response of "sure" ended the conversation and she returned the phone to its base and sought to return her own body to its former warm place.
All of her life, what she could remember of it, she never slept much, got by on a few hours of sleep and kept going. Once, she had actually gone three days without sleeping; she had gone a week by napping in a chair. Six or seven months ago, her sleep habits changed—abruptly now that she thought about it. One morning, she did not wake up after four hours of sleep. At first she thought it happened because she was exhausted, or the heat, or having a warm body next to her, the thought caused her to smile now.
Alone, she still slept. It was mid-morning judging by the intensity of the sun's rays between the bedroom blinds. She remembered waking in pre-dawn hours as her husband—she smiled again—dressed and left the house. Her husband, Gilbert Grissom—for ten years the two had danced around each other, sometimes with intent, other times at odds; she had always known she was meant to be with him. She smiled again.
He was gone for two days, back to Las Vegas for compound purposes—presenting a paper at a conference and visiting with friends. Sara remained at home. Hank, the dog, Tom, the new cat, their garden, all needed her attention—and her protruding belly added the real reason. She looked as if she had swallowed a basketball, or at least a soccer ball. Her hand caressed her abdomen and she felt movement, an elbow, or a foot or a knee.
"Hey, Baby Cake. It's you and me today."
Not exactly true, she thought. Her mother lived a mile away and would visit later with at least one friend. The women who visited were often more excited about this impending baby than Sara was. To have several of them and her husband in one room was almost more than she could take as they talked about Baby Cake. That was Sara's name for her daughter; her husband and father to this child called her Bizzy Bee. She pretended to have a degree of calm objectivity as opposed to the current state of amazed excitement exhibited by her husband.
Sara smiled again as she pulled a dress over her head. Her mother had brought the dress to her—cooler, she said, easier to wear. She was right. Sara skirted the detritus on the floor—a hundred pieces of some baby apparatus Grissom had brought in. Baby swing, he said. Why on earth a baby needed a swing was beyond her—they had a perfect porch swing which worked very well.
She took yogurt and juice and Hank to the swing and pushed back and forth enjoying the quiet, peaceful place they had found to call home. It was far removed from their previous life. This house, built for another family, had been well placed among old trees, well back from the paved road. Young fruit trees lined the driveway and a field of alfalfa helped to shield the house, the flowers, bee hives, and a vegetable garden from passersby. It was secluded but she never felt alone. She felt she was living a normal life for the first time in her life.
She laughed to herself. A normal life—what was normal, she thought. Certainly not their lives—she had no career, no gainful employment, pregnant as a stray cat. Grissom officially retired, found her in Costa Rica, got her pregnant, married her, and together they traveled for several months before returning to this farming valley to find this place. He found projects that kept him engaged—research reviews, occasional lectures in the city, consulting, but, he said, his primary project was his wife.
The cat arrived to curl against her thigh and the late morning settled around her. She had no place to be, no one expected her. Just as her sleep habits had changed, so had the pattern of her life. Gone was the rush of immediate work, of deadlines, and frantic motions. She pushed the swing with her foot and leaned her head back. She slipped into a day dream of rainforests, of Grissom, of a baby girl.
The movement of the dog brought her back to the porch. She watched as a car slowed and turned into the long driveway.