for picking me up, Uncle Kyle. I'm really sorry I screwed up. I didn't mean to make you worry.'
Pulling into traffic, Kyle studied the road ahead. The windshield wipers squeaked a bit. 'I should be seething right now,' he said. 'Just consider yourself lucky that I met this total hunk on the beach while I was looking for your sorry ass. I was so worried about you, I didn't even pick up that he was interested in me. Anyway, I was just on the phone with him ten minutes ago, and we have a date tonight.' At a red light, he glanced at Eli. 'Is this too much gay stuff for you?'
'No, it's cool,' Eli said. 'I'm just glad you're not really, really pissed.'
His uncle squinted at him. 'Hey, where's your backpack?'
Eli's hand automatically felt along the side of the car seat--even though he knew the backpack wasn't there. He realized now that in his panic, he'd left it in the library. He tried to remember if there was anything valuable in it: his book, a beach towel, and sunscreen.
His uncle pulled forward as the traffic light changed. He was looking ahead once again. 'You had a backpack when we went to the beach. What happened? Did you leave it in the store?'
'Um, no, I--I let Earl borrow it,' he lied. He figured he'd call the library when they got home. Maybe they had the backpack in their Lost and Found unless that creepy man with the weird eye ended up stealing it.
Eli asked if his mom was home yet. His uncle explained that she was probably still visiting this sick old lady. It was the mother of the kid she'd saved from that fire. 'We'll call her when we get home,' his uncle said. 'I can't stick around too long. I need to get ready for my big date.'
Because of the rain, parking spaces had opened up near the beach, so his uncle was able to park right in front of the Tudor Court. They walked through the courtyard together. 'Well, it looks like Earl was here before you,' his uncle said, as they approached the front door.
For a moment, Eli didn't know what he meant. But then he saw something by the doorstep, and Eli stopped dead.
It was his backpack.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A soft breeze drifted through the kitchen window as she washed the dinner dishes. Sydney shook the water off her hands, then turned and grabbed the pot and dish towel from Aidan. 'You're a guest here,' she said. 'And you've been through a hell of a lot today. Let me pamper you, okay?' She pointed to the kitchen table. 'Sit.'
She'd watched Aidan for nearly two hours this afternoon in his mother's pigsty of an apartment. He seemed shell-shocked as he'd dealt with the police, paramedics, and finally the coroner. Sydney had made her exit when the two men from the funeral home had arrived, but before leaving, she'd invited Aidan to dinner. She'd figured he shouldn't be alone tonight. He'd given her a sad smile and nodded. 'Here you are, rescuing me again,' he'd said. 'Dinner would be great, thanks.'
Sydney had returned home to Eli, in her office using her computer, and Kyle, all pumped up about a date tonight with some guy he'd met on the beach. She hadn't heard back from Troy Bischoff, and thought about calling him again. Sydney had wondered if perhaps she'd indeed overreacted about the Heimlich maneuver fax. Maybe Kyle had been right. Yes, the news about Leah and Jared's and Angela's deaths had been a shock, very disturbing and sad. But she'd let her imagination go wild with her theories and paranoia.
Maybe all it took for her to stop obsessing was someone who really needed her right now--someone who wasn't her son.
In fact, she'd even left Eli alone in the apartment for a few minutes while she'd run to the Apple Market to pick up some food for dinner. She hadn't seen any sign of Mr. 59 since Saturday--two days ago. She'd figured Eli would be safe for twenty minutes, and he had been.
While dinner had cooked, she'd jumped into the shower, and then thrown on a pair of white slacks and an orange print top. She'd even put on some makeup. In the middle of getting ready for Aidan, she'd wondered why it was so important that she look pretty tonight.
While polite all through dinner, Eli had seemed uncomfortable around Aidan. Maybe he'd just felt awkward around this stranger whose mother had just died this afternoon. Yet he'd also seemed a bit resentful of the handsome young man at their dinner table, this man who wasn't his father.
Eli was in the living room right now, watching
'That was a terrific dinner,' Aidan said, sitting on one of the stools. 'I hope you didn't knock yourself out too much.'
'Oh, please, a bottle of Newman's Own, some Italian Chicken Sausage, and pasta. I didn't have to do much.' In the darkened window above the sink, she could see him sitting at the table behind her.
'Eli's lucky to have a mom who cooks. I grew up on Chef Boyardee and Spaghetti-o's, which I learned to cook for myself when I was eight. Way too often, my mother wasn't around at dinnertime, and I had to fend for myself.'
'Well, Eli has had to fend for himself on a few occasions, too,' she said, eyeing his reflection as she scrubbed out the salad bowl.
'It's not the same thing, Sydney,' he muttered. 'Rikki was a pretty crummy mother. I don't have many good memories of her. Well, you know what she was like. You had to deal with her from time to time. On the way here tonight, I was racking my brain trying to come up with something nice about her that I could hold onto. Right now, I'm just angry with her.'
Turning off the water, Sydney dried her hands. She looked at him and shrugged. 'Well, maybe anger is what you need right now to get you through this. People grieve in different ways.'
Aidan sighed. 'Did you see the way everyone was looking at me this afternoon? The cops, the paramedics, the funeral guys--I could tell they thought I was total shit for letting my mother waste away like that.' He shook his head. 'I can't believe how quickly she slid downhill since I saw her last weekend. I really did as much as I could for her...'
'Your mother's neighbor told me how you tried to get her some help,' Sydney said, leaning back against the sink. 'And you flew up from San Francisco to visit her every weekend. That really adds up--in time and money and patience.'
'Well, money hasn't been that much of a problem,' he mumbled.
'So--the acting is paying off?' Sydney asked.
'Two commercials for a Honda dealer in Oakland, one for a bank in Sausalito, and eight weeks doing
Sydney remembered Aidan's mother saying something about an older woman who was supporting him. She decided not to ask about her.
Aidan glanced toward the wall at her autographed poster of the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer. He pointed to it with his thumb. 'I guess if it hadn't been for me, you'd have been on that team, maybe even brought home a medal.'
'Oh, I doubt it. There were some incredibly talented skaters that year.' Sydney came and sat down at the table with him. 'To be honest, I do miss skating sometimes. But I really love what I'm doing now. And that might never have happened if I hadn't...been incapacitated for a while. I probably wouldn't have met my husband either. Anyway, I can't complain.'
'Speaking of your husband, what's happening with you two?' Aidan leaned forward a little. 'Do you mind me asking?'
Sydney hesitated. 'We're--separated right now.'
Aidan looked into her eyes for a moment, and then he smiled. 'Well, he's a damn fool for letting you go. You're so beautiful.'
Sydney felt herself blushing. 'Thank you,' she said. She felt a spark with him. It was strange, like having a little crush on someone she used to babysit. Maybe she was just lonely--or mad at Joe--but she felt a real attraction to Aidan. 'As long as we're passing out the compliments--and I'm not just saying this--you certainly turned out to
