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The dog’s tail wagged tentatively. Joanna had to coax her to come back into the cool interior of the rammed- earth house. She took off her weapons and put them away, then she stopped in the laundry room long enough to fill dog dishes. Butch had decreed that feeding the dogs in the garage would help cut down on the mess, so that’s what she did.
Once the three dogs had finished mowing through their food, Joanna let them outside.
Then she pushed the button that closed the automatic garage door. Back in the laundry room, she closed and locked the door to the garage as well. As she did so, she couldn’t help thinking about Carol Mossman. She, too, had closed and locked the doors to her home, thinking those barriers would somehow keep her safe and protect her dogs as well. But nothing could have been further from the truth. She had locked death inside her tumble-down mobile home rather than keeping it out.
Thoughtfully Joanna extracted the small notebook and stubby pencil she kept in her pocket. “Why were dogs inside?” she wrote.
Still pondering the question, she walked through the house. In the bedroom she changed into a T-shirt and shorts. Back in the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of lemonade from the fridge.
With Butch and Jenny both gone and with the dogs outside, the house was unnaturally quiet. Taking her glass with her, Joanna went into the family room and settled on the couch to watch the evening news. Peter Jennings had no more than opened his mouth when Joanna fell sound asleep. She was awakened much later by a chorus of barking dogs and the sound of the door opener operating on Butch’s garage. Except for the flickering light from the television set, the whole house was dark.
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When Joanna switched on a lamp, she was astonished to discover it was almost nine o’clock. She had slept for nearly three hours.
The door from Butch’s garage opened, and all three dogs careened into the family room. Lady sidled up on the couch, where she cuddled next to Joanna.
“There you are,” Butch said as he and Jenny walked into the room. “When we didn’t see any lights, Jenny and I decided you still weren’t home.”
“I was tired and fell asleep,” Joanna said. “Did you get some boots?”
“We’re booted,” Butch replied. “What about dinner? We ate, did you?”
“Haven’t, but I will,” Joanna told him, heading for the kitchen. “I’m famished.”
“You’re feeling all right, then?” Butch asked.
She paused long enough to give him a kiss. “It’s called ‘morning sickness’ for good reason,” she told him.
He studied her face. “You look upset.”
“I suppose I am,” she agreed. ‘At least four people are dead so far. On three of them, we’re making very little progress.”
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Early the next morning, the smell of Butch’s coffee brewing in the kitchen sent Joanna scrambling out Of bed and into the bathroom. A miserable half hour later, when she finally dragged her body into the kitchen, Butch took one look at her pale face and shook his head. “You look like hell,” he told her.
“Gee, thanks,” she muttered. “I can tell you how much better that makes me feel.”
“Do you think it’s worth it?” he asked.
“Being pregnant?” she returned. “Ask me that again in a month or so when I’m no longer barfing my guts out.”
Butch came across the room to give her a gentle squeeze. “I have water on for tea.
Want some?
“This morning, tea doesn’t sound any better than coffee.” “If you’re not careful,”
he warned, “you’ll go into caffeine withdrawal, and then you’ll really be in trouble-headaches, mood swings …”
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Joanna hitched her way up onto one of the barstools at the kitchen counter and then glowered at him. “I’m not having mood swings,” she retorted.
“Oh, really?” Butch said with a grin. “In the meantime, as requested, here are your English muffins, madame.”
After delivering her breakfast, Butch turned back to the cook top Using only one hand, he expertly cracked two eggs at a time into a heated frying pan. While Joanna watched, he deftly flipped the eggs in midair and then, after a few more seconds over the heat, slid the over-easy result, with yolks perfectly intact, onto a waiting plate. A former short-order cook, Butch Dixon was disturbingly adept in the kitchen, enough so that watching him at work made Joanna feel inadequate. She herself had attempted that midair egg-flipping trick on only one occasion-with disastrous results for both egg and cook top
“I wish I could come with you today,” Butch said thoughtfully, placing his own plate on the counter and settling on the stool next to Joanna’s. Worried about the state of her innards, Joanna kept a close eye on her remaining muffin.
