they bring their own security?”
“If they did, they’re at the Cascadia,” Judith replied.
“I mean, they’d want their own people for the premiere
and the costume ball, right?”
Joe gave a nod. “So they want me to watch out for
them while they’re here?”
“Sort of,” Judith hedged. “They also want you to
find out what happened to their thousand-dollar truffles.”
“Good God!” Joe paused, taking notice of Judith’s
jittery movements with the oven door. “What
The answer came not from Judith but from Winifred
Best, who had reentered the kitchen. “They were
stolen by a bushy-haired stranger.”
Judith froze with her hand on the oven door. “I think
I’ll let Ms. Best explain it.” Putting the rolls on to heat,
she scooted out of the kitchen and into the pantry,
where Sweetums was sitting by the shelf that contained his cans of food.
But try as she might, Judith couldn’t hear the conversation between her husband and Winifred Best.
Winifred had lowered her usually sharp voice a notch
or two; Joe always spoke softly when he was in his
professional mode.
Instead, Judith heard other voices, loud and angry,
coming from the backyard. The pantry had no win-
dows, so she tiptoed into the hall to look out through
the door. Sweetums followed, meowing pitifully.
The wind, which was coming from the north,
splattered rain against the glass and blurred Judith’s
vision. Ignoring Sweetums’s claws, which were affixed to her slacks, she carefully opened the back
door.
In the darkness, she could make out two male figures near the driveway. They were arguing loudly, and
it looked as if they were about to come to blows.
The wind caught just a few words, sending them in
Judith’s direction: “. . . trashed what was a solid piece
of . . .”
“. . . bitching when you got paid as if you’d come up
with the whole . . .”
“. . . Why not? I had to virtually rework the damned
thing . . .”
The door blew shut, clipping Judith on the arm.
Sweetums continued to claw her slacks. With an air of
resignation, she opened a can of Seafarers’ Delight and
spooned it into the cat’s dish.
“Enjoy it,” she muttered. “It looks better than the
way Mother described those blasted truffles.”
There was a sudden silence in the kitchen. Winifred
must have returned to the living room. Judith took a
deep breath before rejoining Joe.
“Why?” The single word was plaintive.
