given himself a serious talking-to about the age difference between them. What did it matter if she was almost the same age his mother would have been, had Louise LaGrange lived, that is? Gayle was beautiful, she was rich, and she wanted him. What else counted? Erik had asked her more than once if she ever considered leaving her husband.
She’d laughed and said, “Every day and twice on Sunday,” and let it go at that. She never spoke of getting a divorce. She never spoke of making any changes. She seemed perfectly content with the way things were-as if she didn’t mind if she and Erik went on the same way indefinitely. And they had done exactly that-for more than five years.
Erik wondered sometimes about what would happen if Lawrence Stryker croaked. The man was pushing sixty-five. According to Gayle, he had lost all interest in sex, or at least all interest in sex with her. He took medication for high blood pressure, and there had been talk about his needing a pacemaker, although, as far as Erik knew, one had never been installed.
So, if Larry died, what then? Would Erik and Gayle’s affair evolve into a more normal relationship? Or was normal not what Gayle had in mind?
That was how things stood right up until the day that damnable birth announcement arrived. Thirty- something women were supposed to be the ones with biological clocks, but suddenly Erik heard his own clock ticking loud and clear. He was thirty-five; Gayle sixty-two. Having kids had never been part of their equation, but still…Did he want to spend his life with someone almost twice his age? In the little cocoons where they spent their private time together, age didn’t matter, but at work sometimes, there were things that struck him-music playing on someone’s radio, for instance, or someone else cracking a joke-that made him realize he and Gayle came from different generations.
“Where are we going?” Erik said finally.
“Going?” she asked. “Well, now that we’ve had dinner and dessert, I’m going home.”
“Not that,” Erik said. “I mean, where are we going long-term?”
“Does it matter?” Gayle returned. “Seems to me we’re doing just fine. What’s wrong?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to get dressed and go home?” Erik asked. “If we could live together like normal people?”
“Like husband and wife, you mean?”
He nodded. “That, too.”
Gayle’s eyes blazed with immediate fury. “You’ve met someone, haven’t you!”
“No,” Erik said quickly. “Nothing like that. I swear to God.”
“You’re tired of me, then?”
“No. Of course not. You’re wonderful-the best thing that ever happened to me.”
But by then Gayle had already hopped out of bed. She pulled on clothing without taking her usual detour through the master bedroom’s spacious shower.
“What, then?” she continued. “You probably want to go find some sweet little twat to have babies with! From what I’ve heard, having babies is vastly overrated.”
Gayle’s words bristled with so much hostility that Erik couldn’t bring himself to say she was right. In the face of her fury he couldn’t admit that having a regular life-with a home and a wife and a couple of kids, and maybe even a dog-was exactly what he wanted.
As Gayle strode down the hallway, buttoning her blouse, Erik went after her. “Come on,” he said. “Why are you so upset?”
She rounded on him so suddenly that he almost smashed into her. “Why?” she demanded. “If you’re not smart enough to figure it out, I’m not going to tell you.”
He caught up with her when she stopped in the kitchen long enough to slip on the high heels she had shucked off when she came in through the garage earlier in the afternoon.
“Please, Gayle,” Erik pleaded, touching her shoulder. “Don’t do this. It’s all a misunderstanding.”
She shrugged out from under his hand. “Misunderstanding?” she asked, glaring up at him. “I don’t think so. I read you loud and clear!”
When they were in the bedroom-hers or his-she was always careful to keep the blinds closed and the lights properly dimmed. But out here in the kitchen with its bright fluorescent lighting and with anger distorting her features, the lines a team of skilled plastic surgeons usually kept at bay were clearly visible. Seeing them Erik realized suddenly that Gayle Stryker was old-old and shrill and very, very angry.
Once she sped out of the garage, Erik’s first reaction was relief. This wasn’t how he would have chosen to end their relationship, but ending it was probably a good idea-if he ever was going to have a chance at a “normal” life. But then, after the first shock wore off, Erik realized how much else would be ending as well-his love life, his job, his company car. Those were all irretrievably intermingled. His involvement with Gayle affected every aspect of his life. Walking away from her meant walking away from everything else.
When that realization hit him, he tried calling her cell phone-the one on a family-plan program that he and Gayle shared and where the bill never showed up at the offices of Medicos for Mexico. Erik called several times. She never answered, and he didn’t leave a message.
Erik had spent the rest of the night trying to figure out how he would manage in a Gayle Stryker-free world. The future had looked pretty bleak and dismal to him in those black predawn hours. Now, reduced to almost crawling back down the mountain on his hands and knees, it looked even worse.
J. A. Jance
Day of the Dead
Twelve
Brandon sat in the Suburban outside the supermarket, watching people come and go, as he waited for Andrea Tashquinth to get off work. The more he thought about losing Fat Crack, the sadder he became. There had been many losses in Brandon Walker’s life, and no matter how many times it happened, dealing with the loss never became any easier.
In giving Looks at Nothing’s medicine pouch to Lani, Gabe Ortiz was passing a torch that possibly had been handed down from one medicine man to another stretching all the way back to that ancient medicine woman, Kulani O’oks.
Brandon was a born and bred Mil-gahn. Try as he might, he could never quite reconcile in his mind how Fat Crack Ortiz could be both a devout Christian Scientist and a powerful medicine man. Was the same thing true for Lani? How could she possibly return to the Tohono O’odham Nation as a full-fledged physician and also as a medicine woman? Yet neither Fat Crack nor Lani seemed to have any doubt that these two seemingly diametrically opposed ideas would someday become reality.
Brandon understood why Fat Crack had entrusted the medicine pouch to his old friend. He was saying good- bye. It meant Fat Crack knew he was dying. And what exactly am I supposed to do about it? Brandon wondered.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Much to his surprise, he had a full signal. He could call Lani right then if he wanted to, but should he? If that’s what Fat Crack had wanted-if he expected Lani to hurry home to be with him-wouldn’t he have said so?
In the end, Brandon put the phone back in his pocket and continued to mull over what had transpired. Why, for instance, was Fat Crack so troubled that Delia and Lani weren’t friends?
Brandon had never given much thought to Delia. He knew she was the tribal attorney. He knew, too, that she had married Fat Crack’s younger son, Leo. Wanda had told Diana something about a family squabble that had resulted in Leo and Delia’s moving out of the Ortiz Compound and into what had once been Delia’s aunt Julia’s place in Little Tucson. Wanda had been heartbroken about it, especially considering that Delia was even then pregnant with this boy child who would be the first grandson to carry on the Ortiz name.
Thinking back on the pained expression on Fat Crack’s face when he had mentioned Delia and Lani, Brandon wondered if perhaps the breach within the Ortiz family had something to do with the Walkers. Maybe that was the reason Fat Crack had wanted to be certain Looks at Nothing’s medicine pouch went to Lani.
I’ll be sure she gets it, Brandon vowed as he opened the glove box and placed the medicine pouch inside.
When he looked up again, Andrea Tashquinth was standing outside the supermarket’s sliding door and surveying the parking lot. Brandon slammed the glove box shut and locked it. Then he opened the door to the
