He spun her around, yanked her into a long, hard kiss. “Maybe I’ll miss you a little, if a stray thought of you happens to cross my mind.” He brushed her hair behind her ears. “Have a good time.” Then he grabbed her hand. “Really. Have a good time.”
“I will. We will.” She got in the car, then leaned her head out the window. “Don’t forget to—”
He used the palm of his hand to push her head back in.
“Okay. Okay. Bye.”
He watched her go with the dogs plopped down beside him. “All right, guys, it’s man-time. Scratch your balls if you’ve got them.”
He walked back to the house, did a quick walk-through check. “It never smells like dog in here,” he muttered. “How does she pull that off ?”
He locked up, strode to the truck. “Everybody in. Going for a ride.”
They scrambled up, except for Newman, jockeying for the passenger side or the narrow bench seat behind it.
“Come on. Gotta go,” Simon ordered as the dog sat and studied him. “She’ll be back in a couple days.” He patted the seat. “Up, come on, Newman. Don’t you trust me?”
The dog seemed to consider the question, then apparently took Simon at his word and jumped in.
He had a stray thought of her—maybe a couple of them—as he worked through the morning. He ate lunch with his feet dangling off the porch of the shop, tossing bits of salami (Fiona wouldn’t approve) to the dogs and watching them field. He took another twenty minutes, tossing sticks and balls on the beach, laughing his ass off when every one of them bounded into the water.
He went back to work, radio blasting and four wet dogs snoring their way dry in the sunlight.
He didn’t hear them bark, not with AC/DC screaming, but looked over as a shadow crossed his doorway.
He set his tool aside and picked up the remote to cut the music when Davey stepped in.
“Got yourself a gang of dogs out there.”
“Fiona’s away for a couple days.”
“Yeah, I know. Girl trip with Syl and Mai. I thought I’d run by her place a couple times a day, just to check. Listen... What is that?”
Simon ran a hand down the side of the stump. He’d stripped off the bark, done the first of some rough sanding. It stood, roots up.
“It’s a sink base.”
“It looks like a naked, upside-down tree stump.”
“It does now.”
“I gotta tell you, Simon, that’s pretty fucking weird.”
“Maybe.”
Davey wandered the shop. “You’ve got a lot going on in here,” he commented, winding around chairs, tables, the frame of a breakfront, doors and drawers glued and sporting clamps. “I saw the built-ins you did for the Munsons. They’re nice. Real nice. Hey. This is a beauty here.”
Like Davey, Simon studied the wine cabinet he’d designed for Fiona. “It’s not finished. You didn’t come by to critique my work.”
“No.” Face grim now, Davey shoved his hands in his pockets. “Shit.”
“They found her. The girl who got taken last week.”
“Yeah. Early this morning. Crater Lake National Park. He kept her longer than the others, so the feds thought maybe she got away, or it wasn’t the same guy. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe. Jesus, Simon, he beat the hell out of her before he killed her. Perry never messed them up that way. The other three we know of weren’t beaten. But everything else matches. The scarf, the position of the body. She had the number four written on her hand.”
Because he wanted to pummel something, Simon walked over, opened his shop fridge. He took out two Cokes. Tossed one to Davey.
“He’s finding his own way. It’s what you do. You learn, you emulate, then you create your own style. He’s experimenting.”
“Jesus, Simon.” Davey rubbed the cold can over his face before popping the top. “I wish I didn’t think you were right on that. I wish I didn’t think the same thing.”
“Why are you telling me about this?”
“I want your take. Do we contact Fee, let her know?”
“No. She needs a couple days away from this.”
“I’m with you on that, too, but it’s going to be all over the news.”
“Call Syl. Tell her, and tell her to... shit, make a girl pact—no news, TV, papers, Internet. Nothing to... you know, disturb the nirvana or estrogen field or whatever the hell. Syl will know how to handle it.”
“Yeah, she will. That’s good. That girl, Simon, she was barely twenty. Her dad was killed in an accident about two years ago. She was an only child. Her mother lost her husband and now her only child. It makes me sick.”
He shook it off, gulped down Coke. “I guess you’ll be talking to Fee every night.”
He hadn’t planned to. It seemed so... high school. “Yeah. I’ll be talking to her. She’s fine there.”
But he knew as he went back to work, he’d worry until she was back home again.
Fiona all but floated back to her villa, gliding on bliss and massaged feet. She stepped inside where the scent of flowers and the subtle strains of New Age music embraced her. She drifted through the living area with its sink- into-me furniture and glossy wood, then straight out to the pretty flower-decked terrace where Sylvia basked in dappled sunlight.
“I’m in love.” Sighing dreamily, Fiona dropped down onto a chaise. “I’m in love with a woman named Carol who’s stolen my heart with her magic hands.”
“You look relaxed.”
“Relaxed? I’m a noodle. The happiest noodle in the Pacific Northwest. How about you?”
“I’ve been detoxed, scrubbed, rubbed, polished. My biggest decision is what to have for dinner tonight. I’m considering living here for the rest of my days.”
“Want a roommate? God, Syl, why haven’t we ever done this before?”
Sylvia, her masses of hair messily pinned on her head, her rose-shaded glasses covering her eyes, set aside the fashion magazine open on her lap. “We fell into the busy-women-with-no-time-to-indulge-themselves trap. We’ve broken out of the cage now. And I have a decree.”
“At your command.”
“During our much-deserved indulgence, we’ll read only entertaining fiction and/or glossy magazines.”
She tapped the cover of the one she’d set on the table.
“We will watch only light, frothy, fun movies—if we so desire movies—on TV. We will banish all thoughts of work, worry and responsibility from our minds. Our only concerns, our only decisions during this time out of time will be room service versus restaurant, and the color of polish we want during our pedicure.”
“I’m behind that. I’m so behind that I’m inside it. Mai’s not back yet?”
“We crossed paths of bliss in the relaxation room. She said she was going to take a swim.”
“If I’d tried that, I’d have sunk like a stone and drowned.” Fiona started to stretch, then decided it took too much energy. “Carol balanced my chi, or maybe she aligned my chakras. I don’t know how, but having my chi balanced or chakras aligned results in something beyond ecstasy.”
Mai glided out wearing one of the spa’s cushy robes, slid into a chair. “Ladies. Is this a dream?” she wondered. “Is this all just a dream?”
“It’s our reality, for three glorious days.” Sylvia rose, wandered inside.
“I had the Mind, Body, Spirit Renewal. I’ve been renewed.” Mai tipped her face up, closed her eyes. “I want to be renewed every day for the rest of my life.”
“Syl and I are going to live here, and I’m going to marry Carol.”
“Good. I’ll be your permanent houseguest. Who’s Carol?”
“Carol used her magic hands on my chi or chakras—possibly both—and I have to have her for my own, for always.”
