'No. I picked it. There's a difference.' The door squeaked on its hinges. 'Come on. We haven't got all night.'
She made her way cautiously to the rear door and gazed into the darkened kitchen. She glimpsed another shadowy movement and realized that Rafe was already inside. She started to join him.
And promptly stubbed her toe on the concrete step she had not noticed.
'Ouch. Darn it.'
'Watch the step,' Rafe said from out of the darkness.
'Now you tell me.' She flexed her toes inside her sneakers and decided that nothing was broken. Gingerly she entered the house.
It smelled musty and stale, as if it had been closed for several days. Which it no doubt had been, she reminded herself.
'Any reason we can't turn on the flashlight?' she asked as she trailed after Rafe down a narrow hall.
'Sorry. Forgot you couldn't see as well as I do in the dark.' There was a soft snick as Rafe clicked on the small flashlight he had brought along. 'Better?'
'Much.' Orchid trailed after him down a short hall into the sparsely furnished parlor. The lovingly polished vio-piano in the corner was the only object in the room that had any personality. 'Theo didn't get out a lot. He was either at work or here, playing his precious vio-piano.'
Rafe's face was unreadable behind the narrow beam of the flashlight. 'I'd gathered that much. Let's see what else we can find.'
There was nothing on the walls except a calendar. When Rafe aimed the flashlight at it Orchid saw that it was the cheap kind traditionally handed out as advertising by insurance companies.
'He didn't even hang any pictures,' she said.
'Probably just as well.' Rafe skimmed the flashlight across a small, neat row of technical magazines. 'I hate to think of the kind of taste in art a guy like Willis would have had.'
Orchid smiled sweetly. 'Come now. Surely it couldn't have been any worse than my taste in poetry.'
There was a beat of silence from Rafe.
'You did make your opinion of my literary tastes very clear when we were in Mrs. Turlock's gallery, you know,' she said.
'They're not quite the same as mine.' He paused meaningfully. 'On the other hand we do share similar tastes in architecture.'
'Okay, so I like your house. But it's probably just a bizarre fluke that we both have a thing for Later Expansion period architecture.'
'Probably.' Rafe opened a cupboard door and aimed the flashlight inside. 'What happens if Affinity Associates comes up with a match for you who likes meta-zen-syn philosophical poetry?'
'I'll use it as an excuse to reject him,' she said lightly.
Rafe swung around so quickly she jumped in surprise.
'You'd reject a potential agency match just because he doesn't share your taste in poetry?'
'Why not? I rejected the one match they got me because I didn't like his psychic talent. Hey, when it comes to shallow, I can outdo anyone.'
Rafe pinned her in the glare of the light 'What kind of talent was he?'
'A charisma-talent.' She held up a hand. 'I know, I know, charisma is not supposed to be a talent It's a personality characteristic. But trust me, Preston Luce has a talent for charisma. What's more, he uses it to get what he wants. He's a worm-snake with really great teeth.'
'Preston Luce?'
'Dr. Preston Luce, if you please. Look, are we going to search this place or stand around all night discussing my one and only agency date?'
'At least you got one.'
'You want the truth?' she said. 'I'm scared to death that Affinity Associates will send me another very nice candidate one of these days. Maybe they'll send someone who actually appreciates the same books that I appreciate. Someone who likes to eat leftover pasta casserole at midnight. Someone who won't interrupt me when I'm writing. Heck, I'm terrified that the agency will send me Mr. Right.'
'Why does that scare you?'
She exhaled slowly. 'Because I don't trust any marriage agency to find Mr. Right for me.'
'Why not?'
'Because I'm an ice-prism. I don't think the syn-psych people know enough about ice-prisms yet to match them properly.'
'You don't trust their para-profiling capabilities?'
'No. Heck, they couldn't even weed out Preston Luce, professional charmer and all-around bastard.'
'I wouldn't hold that against Affinity Associates. You said he was a charisma-talent. I met one once, a politician. They're hard to detect.'
'All the same, I'm not looking forward to getting a second call from the agency.'
Rafe looked as if he wanted to argue the point. She wondered why her marriage prospects or lack of same interested him. But before she could ask, he turned and splashed the beam of the flashlight across a chest of drawers.
'It would probably be a good idea if we finished our business here and got out. No sense arousing the curiosity of a neighbor.'
Orchid thought about the nearly deserted street of darkened houses outside. 'I don't think anyone in this neighborhood signed up for the local block watch.'
'Probably not.' Rafe began to go through the dresser drawers in a methodical fashion. 'You take the closet.'
Obediently she opened the door to reveal a small collection of precisely hung slacks and shuts. 'What am I looking for?'
'Anything that looks like it doesn't belong there.'
It did not take long to go through Theo Willis's limited wardrobe. Ten minutes after she had started work, Orchid closed the closet door and looked at Rafe.
'Nothing,' she said.
'Nothing here, either.' He started back toward the hall. 'There must be something. There's always something.'
'You didn't know Theo,' she muttered as she followed him back into the living room. 'He was a man of limited interests.'
Rafe paused half way down the hall when the flashlight played across the wall calendar. 'Hang on a second.'
'What is it?'
'Morgan Lambert said Willis was seeing a syn-psych shrink.'
'So?'
'So he must have had regular appointments. Maybe he noted them on the calendar.' Rafe took a closer look at the little squares around each day. 'Here we go. Looks like he had several appointments during the last couple of weeks with a Dr. Q.A.'
Orchid was intrigued. 'How do we find out who Dr. Q.A. is?'
'There are three possible ways to find out the doctor's name. We can go through the phonebook and call every syn-psych shrink with those initials. Or we can look for Willis's bank book to see if he paid for the visits with a check.'
'What's the third method?'
'The easy way.' Rafe flipped the pages on the calendar. 'We go back to the day Willis made the first appointment and hope that he wrote out the doctor's full name the first time he noted it down the way most people do.'
Orchid edged closer. She scanned the little boxes as Rafe turned the pages. A thrill of discovery raced through her when she spotted a name. 'There. The fifteenth, two months ago. Dr. Quentin Austen. That must be it.'
