In Big Trouble

the memories would last much longer.

'Are you coming back for our wedding?' Kristina asked.

'Are we both invited, or just Crow?'

'Both.' She paused. 'Although you'll probably be seated on the groom's side.'

'We'll see,' Tess said. 'It's still a year off. A lot can happen in a year.'

'Yes. I'm sure Kris and I will break up at least six or seven times before then,' Rick said. Then very casually, too casually, he asked: 'So what are you guys going to do?'

'First I have to break it to Mrs. Nguyen that Esskay is relinquishing her role as La Casita's mascot. That's going to be hard on both of them. But we've got to drive Crow back to Charlottesville, where he can reunite with his parents.'

'Then what?'

'Yes, Tess?' Crow looked up. His face was so thin, his color so pale. How Felicia would love putting twenty pounds back on him. 'Then what?'

'My business is in Baltimore, I have to go back there. My place is in Baltimore. But I thought you might want to come back, too. Eventually. Charm City could use some avant-garde polka music, too, you know.'

'Give up all this'-he waved a hand at the beautiful day, at their food, at the slyly seductive city that surrounded them-'for Baltimore?'

'You'd also get me in the deal. If that's what you want.'

'Is it what you want?'

'Yes.'

'And we'll live together?'

'No.' She couldn't help smiling at the shocked look on his face. 'Life at Bond and Shakespeare streets is much too complicated these days, what with Tyner having a toothbrush on the premises-although not for long, I hope. Besides, living together, even unofficially, was what tripped us up the last time. We were playing house, which allowed me to play at our relationship. If I ever decide to live with you, I'll go whole hog. I'll get down on one knee and ask you to marry me.'

Crow's mouth was a tight line. 'I would like to point out that, traditionally, it's the man who gets down on one knee and does the asking. Even these days.'

'I'd like to point out that, traditionally, it's the man who rides to the damsel's rescue,' Tess said. 'Even these days.'

Kristina and Rick laughed, but Tess had never been more serious. Neither had Crow, it seemed. He sipped his iced tea-the others were drinking Tecates, but his antibiotics couldn't be mixed with alcohol-and cut his quesedilla into careful fourths, then eighths, still not eating any of it.

'Okay, your terms,' he said. 'But I have a condition, too. One day, I get to save you.'

'Oh Crow-' She reached out and took his hand. The world was almost unbearably vivid. She was aware not only of the blue sky above them, but the coolness of his hand in hers, the peppers in the thin brown salsa, the lime in her beer, the prisms of light refracted by Kristina's diamond. It was enough. It was too much. Plentitude. She finally got it.

'Oh Crow,' she repeated. 'I think you just did.'

About the Author

LAURA LIPPMAN was a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore Sun for fifteen years. Her Tess Monaghan novels-Baltimore Blues, Charm City, Butchers Hill, In Big Trouble, The Sugar House, and The Last Place-have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony and Nero Wolfe awards, and her novel, In a Strange City, was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her latest standalone crime novel, Every Secret Thing, was published by William Morrow in September 2003.

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