fact that Kayla had turned up. And I told her about Winter, Victoria, and my talk with Edna, but I didn’t mention the scene with Winter in the gloom of that second-floor hallway. Something about that defied explanation.

I told her about going through the fence into Velma’s backyard to avoid media trolls in front of my house. I thought she’d appreciate that, but evidently not because she gave me a hard look. “Kayla,” she said. “Rosalyn Sjorgen, of all people. You went to Austin with her? Christ, Mort, I told you to lay off the case.”

“No charge for my time.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. But you could’ve screwed something up. There’s a nasty killer out there.”

“I didn’t, though. Screw things up.”

“Is that so? Is she pretty?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not to me.” Her voice was like a knife. Her head ducked down and she began pawing through the drawer again. She had on an ivory silk shirt and plum slacks, matching ivory sandals. She looked good. She wore earrings, a hint of makeup, hair nicely done up, poofed and feathery. I caught a whiff of perfume, something I hadn’t noticed before. Kayla was right, she was very pretty—gorgeous, in fact, even if she sometimes doubled as a hydraulic ram.

“Lose something?” I asked.

She slammed the drawer, hard. “No, I didn’t lose anything. You didn’t say anything about a Jacoba or a Victoria, Mort. Or anything about anyone named Winter, either. Not one word.”

“I sort of dropped by that day—at Sjorgen House. I didn’t think it mattered.”

“So, you went all the way to Austin with this Kayla person because it didn’t matter.”

Unfathomable anger. It’s another of their tricks, one more way to keep us rotating over the coals.

“I went because of what Clair Hutson said about Jonnie trying to rape Sarah Jean,” I told her. “About that time, Wendell Sjorgen gave up his house to Edna Woolley. All those events took place in roughly the same time frame. All within eighteen months.”

“So you and Kayla went and saw Oleson’s secretaries. Then the two of you charged off to Austin together for the weekend.”

“Hey, you’re quick.”

She glared at me. I thought she’d take me into her back room and slam me around a while to work off her anger. Instead, she picked up the phone and got hold of Dallas, then told me to please go get her a diet Coke from her refrigerator. I thought it would be a nice gesture if I did what she asked for once. When I got back—without the Coke because there weren’t any to get—Jeri was talking to a travel agent. All I got from that conversation were a bunch of “yeses,” “no’s,” and “uh-huhs.” After a few minutes of that, she hung up.

“Let’s go,” she said, standing, grabbing a purse.

“Where to?”

“Myrtle Beach.”

* * *

I was a hunk of newspaper, caught between two whirlwinds—Kayla and Jeri.

“Myrtle Beach?”

“The plane leaves at 9:20, Mort. In forty-eight minutes. They’ll be boarding before we reach security and they’re probably going to strip-search you, so let’s get going.”

“What about Fairchild?” I asked. “What about my not leaving the city or the county, whatever?”

She grabbed my wig as she came around the desk, rammed it into my arms with almost enough force to crack a rib. “You went to Austin, didn’t you? That’s out of the county. You survived that. What Fairchild doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

I followed her, not because I wanted to but because she had a hand on my wrist and was dragging me out the door. I had no choice in the matter. Christ, she was strong.

She left twenty feet of expensive rubber in front of her house-office-gymnasium, headed in the general direction of I-80.

“Jesus, Jeri.”

“We land at Dallas-Fort Worth first,” she said. “Then Atlanta and a hop to Myrtle Beach. Short layovers. My travel agent’s getting all that ticketing hoopla set up as we speak.”

“What’s the rush?”

She glanced at me. “Miss this flight, the next one’s late afternoon to La Guardia, of all the hideous places. We wouldn’t get to Myrtle Beach until noon tomorrow after a four-hour layover at Atlanta. Who needs that? This way we can be back tomorrow, if things work out.”

“We’re already booked on a return flight?”

“Not yet, but we will be by the time we reach the airport. Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t have a change of clothes, anything.”

“Neither do I. This comes under the heading of expenses, Mort. You can buy a change of underwear somewhere. Dallas already okayed it.”

She would. She always said clean underwear was important, like in the event of a plane crash. I patted my pockets. No cell phone. Backtracking through the morning, I remembered seeing it on my dresser in the bedroom, but didn’t remember picking it up as I went out. “I’ve got to phone Kayla, Jer.” I thought calling her “Jer” might loosen her up.

“If we have time.” She glanced at her watch and eased off on the accelerator. “Put on the wig. You’re still more recognizable than the vice president of the United States.”

Which wasn’t saying much. The VP could sing the National Anthem at Shea Stadium with a sign around his neck without anyone recognizing him.

We made it through security and into the plane with two minutes to spare before the doors closed and the plane backed out of its slot. No strip search by some nice TSA lady, which made my trip through security quick but bland. I sank back in my seat and closed my eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

“What’s the problem? We made it.”

My brain, such as it was, finally started to catch up. “Why are we going to Myrtle goddamn Beach, Jeri?”

“To find Jacoba, of course. And her child. And Edna’s sister, if she’s still alive.”

“Rooting through the past again.”

“You got it. You’re the one who opened that door, remember?”

“Why not phone someone out there? Turn it over to a PI firm in Myrtle Beach.”

“I don’t like to do that.”

“Greg did, all the time.”

“Well, I don’t. I do my own work. Then I

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