Working Stiff

You ever have days like that?”

“All the damn time,” he said. “I get too involved. So Pat tells me. Come on. Let’s get some coffee. I’ve got to move the van and—”

The pager on his hip went off. Ten seconds later, so did Bryn’s cell phone, ringing a text alarm.

Both of them checked devices, and then looked at each other. “My apartment,” Bryn said. He nodded. “Someone tried to get in.”

“I’ll drive.”

The police were already on the scene when Joe parked the mortuary van—a cruiser, light bars strobing, and a curious bunch of her neighbors dawdling and gawking. Bryn jumped down from the passenger seat and dashed up the stairs, with Joe right behind her. Her front door was open, and the alarm was still going off in wild shrieks.

A uniformed officer held out his hand to stop her from going in. “Sorry, miss—”

“I’m Bryn Davis,” she blurted. “This is my place. Is my dog okay?”

Mr. French barked furiously from somewhere inside— full-throated roars of outrage.

“He’s fine,” the policeman said, sounding resigned. “We had to put him in the bathroom. Good little guard dog you’ve got there.”

That eased the knot in Bryn’s chest. “Thank God. What happened?”

The cop started to reply, but before he could, a slender hand grabbed the door and pulled it all the way open.

Bryn’s sister Annalie stood there looking tired, stressed, and bedraggled. She was shorter than Bryn, and curvy in ways that men seemed to much admire, but right now she didn’t look bouncy or sexy. Just shocked and frustrated. “Would you turn this damn thing off?” she shouted over the racket. “God, you could have told me you had an alarm!”

“Annie?” Bryn pushed past the cop and entered her code on the keypad. The pounding noise shut off, to the relief of Bryn’s ears, and probably everyone else in a five-block radius. “Annie, Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?” There was a flower-patterned suitcase sitting on the floor next to a bright aqua purse that had to be her sister’s. “How did you get in?”

“It wasn’t easy. Do you know, the key you gave me last time doesn’t work? What did you do, change the locks?”

“Annie—how did you get in?”

Annie grinned and shrugged. “I called a locksmith and got him to open it for me. I paid him triple. He wouldn’t do anything about the alarm, though, and he took off.”

Bryn rubbed her forehead. There was no system sophisticated enough that her sister couldn’t find a perfectly obvious way around it, apparently. “He’s supposed to check ID.”

“Well—I paid extra.”

“Don’t take this wrong but … why are you here?”

“Well … I know. It was kind of supposed to be a surprise. I brought you a present to celebrate your new job,” Annie said, and tried for a grin. “Surprised?”

“Bowled over.” Now that her heart was slowing down to a more normal pace, Bryn hugged her sister, then looked at the waiting policeman. “Uh … it’s okay; I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she was coming, that’s all. She’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

The policeman had been joined by his partner, a woman. She seemed more amused than angry. “Happens all the time,” she said. “Maybe you ought to let anyone with keys know that you’ve put in a new alarm system.”

“Nobody else has keys.” Well, Bryn imagined McCallister did, and Fideli, because that would be par for the course, but she’d never given out any other keys. “I am really very sorry about the bother.”

“That’s okay; you’ll get the bill,” the male policeman said, and nodded to her on the way out, followed by his partner.

Joe Fideli stepped in, shut the door, and leaned against it, looking much more amused than Bryn felt. “So?” he asked. “Going to introduce me?”

“I hope so,” Annie said, and gave him a smile. “Bryn, you didn’t tell me you had a cutie for a boyfriend. Holdout.”

Bryn rolled her eyes. “Annalie, this is Joe Fideli. He works with me at the mortuary. He’s a funeral director. Not my boyfriend.”

“You’re kidding. Really?”

“Tongue in mouth, please. He’s taken, and not by me.”

“Permanently?”

“Oh, yeah,” Joe said. “Afraid so, darlin’.”

“That is just Bryn’s luck.” Annie sighed dramatically and sank down on Bryn’s couch. “Since when did you need an alarm system, sis? Scared ten years of life out of me!”

“Since I got robbed,” Bryn said. “There’s such a thing as crime, you know.”

“Yeah, I bartend, doofus. I know all about it.”

“It’s really good to see you, Annie, but … why? What happened?”

Annalie shrugged and looked down. She seemed casual, but Bryn wasn’t fooled; there was a subtle tension about her that only someone well versed in Annie-speak would recognize. “I just wanted to get away for a while. You know how it is. Mom was driving me nuts.” Mom, it seemed, had always been hardest on Annie, but then, Annie had needed it. Bryn had skated by as the example against which everyone else was measured. It was a miracle, she thought, that she hadn’t been shivved by her siblings by now. Annie came out of it and gave her a bright, sweet smile. “You want your present now?”

“You shouldn’t be buying me things.”

“I didn’t. Well, I contributed, but Mom and Tate went in on it with me. I even got Grace to put in, believe it or not.”

“Wow. How’d you manage that?”

Annie opened up her suitcase and took out a small, neatly wrapped box with curly ribbons dangling from the top. It looked very festive. “I twisted arms,” she said. “You deserve a present, Bryn. You do a lot for us. Especially for me. I know I’m kind of a burden sometimes.” A cloud came across her smile, dimming it. “And I should have called—I know that. I’m sorry.”

That was typical of Annie—doing something thoughtful and thoughtless at the same time. The present, when Bryn unwrapped it, proved to be a beautiful, delicate watch, probably way too expensive; she put it on and loved it immediately. She hugged her sister, and Annalie hugged her back with fierce intensity. “There’s a card, too,” she said. “We all signed it. Even Kyle, if you can believe that.”

“Kyle?”

“I sent it through his lawyer. It took a week to get it back. Which is why I’m late, by the way; it was supposed to be a first-day-on-the-job kind of thing.”

Well, thank God for small favors. Having Annie involved in all that … Bryn didn’t even want to consider it. “I’m surprised Kyle even remembers who I am.”

Annie gave her a wide-eyed look. “He’s your brother. Of course he remembers!”

There were times, Bryn thought, when Annie could be kind of hopelessly naive. Not that it wasn’t a little endearing, but she conveniently forgot what Kyle was like. Family first—that was Annie’s motto.

Bryn felt a little guilty that she couldn’t see it quite that simply.

“You want a Coke?” she asked, to cover the awkward moment. That was Annie’s drink of choice, even at the bar. She nodded, and Bryn went into the kitchen to pour. “Joe? Would you like anything?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “Rain check on coffee for later, though.”

Bryn carried back two glasses, one for her, one for Annie. “All right. What’s Mom done to make you come running out here? Because you could have just mailed the present, you know.”

“I missed you!”

“I know, but come on. What happened?”

“She … Well, you know. She’s being Mom.” Annie drank, and fiddled with the glass. “She doesn’t like me working at the bar. She keeps trying to get me to quit and go to college. I just got tired of the lectures. I needed a