on, isn’t it?”
I locked my arms around her and she pressed herself into me. “It’s never very easy to pull one over on you,” I said.
“You’ve been running all over the place. When I was at the market, after we got home. What are you up to?” She turned her head up toward mine and breathed on my neck. Her hands were moving from behind my waist and settling on my butt.
“I really can’t tell you now,” I said, my mouth on her ear. “I want it to be a surprise.”
She grinned, and moved her mouth onto mine. She darted her tongue in a couple of times, then pulled away. “Go close the door,” she said.
“Aren’t there kids in the house?” I said. I needed an excuse not to go through with this. I was a bit concerned, what with all the things currently occupying my thoughts, that I might not quite be up to what Sarah had in mind.
“They still haven’t come back from McDonald’s,” she said. “We’ll hear them come in.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we should wait till later.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, unbuttoning the top of her jeans and slipping onto the bed next to a pile of rolled socks and clean towels. “Close the door.”
I went around the bed and pushed the door closed. Then Sarah reached up for me, pulled me down onto the bed, undid my belt buckle and the top of my jeans.
“Really, hon, I think they might come home any moment.”
“What do you think of Trixie?” Sarah asked.
“Trixie? What about Trixie?”
“There’s something about her. She’s very sexy, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. I never really noticed, I suppose. We’ve just had coffee a couple of times.” I had nothing to feel guilty about where Trixie was concerned, but under pressure I might confess to anything right about now.
Sarah pulled back and looked at me. “What’s with you? This isn’t an interrogation. All I’m saying is, there’s something about her, more than meets the eye. Did you catch that thing she said, about Catwoman? How she liked her outfit?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I remember.”
Sarah smiled at me, slipped her hand down into my jeans. “How would you like it if I got a Catwoman outfit?”
“Well,” I said, aware that I was not responding to Sarah’s touch the way I normally did, “it would probably be very hot. There’d be chafing. A lot of chafing.”
Now Sarah had noticed that her touch was not producing the desired effect. “Is somebody sleepy?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “I think he’s got a lot on his mind.”
Sarah pulled out her hand, rested it on my shoulder. “Is everything okay?”
“Sure, yeah. Everything’s fine.”
Sarah suddenly became very positive, like she was putting the best spin on a bad lab result. “It’s perfectly normal, you know. It happens. I wouldn’t worry at all. Like you say, you’ve had a lot on your mind, finishing up your book, and, you know, at your age, sometimes something like this is going to happen.”
“I don’t think this is an age thing.”
“I didn’t mean that. I’m just saying, that when you’re in your forties, and you’re tired, you know, this can happen.” But now her face was changing. Instead of worrying about me, she was thinking about herself. “Unless it’s me. Unless I don’t, I don’t know, please you the way I used to.”
“Believe me,” I said, “that is not the case. It’s what you said. I’m tired, and stressed out, and old. Very old.”
Sarah sat up on the edge of the bed. “I guess I was trying to sneak in a quickie because, well, there was another phone call.”
“What?” Oh God. Was this how it felt to jump out of a plane and then realize you’d forgotten your chute? Who could have called? Homicide investigators? The Mounties? The FBI? Agent Mulder?
“Work. I have to go in tonight.”
“You’re kidding.”
“The overnight assignment guy’s off sick. I’m going to have to cover it. I can’t believe it. If I’d known, I’d have had a nap as soon as I got home. I don’t know how the hell I’m going to stay awake.”
“What about tomorrow morning? You have to stay and do a double?”
“No, they’ll get someone else to do that. I’ll probably get home about 8 A.M., unless they can get someone to relieve me sooner, which I doubt. Don’t bother making me any coffee in the morning. I won’t want to stay awake then, I’ll just crash, sleep till noon or one, and I won’t have to go in the rest of the day.” She chuckled. “In a way, it’s like getting tomorrow off.”
“It’s a hard way to get it.”
She shrugged. Sarah had, some time ago, worked midnight shifts for five years on the city desk. This was after we’d had children, otherwise they might never have happened. But she had gotten used to it, so the odd night here and there wasn’t such a big deal to her.
She gave me a quick kiss. “I’ve gotta freshen up before I go in. But we’re going to talk more about this tomorrow. Maybe we need a dirty weekend. Get away for a couple of days. I think we owe that to ourselves.” Sarah disappeared into the bathroom. I zipped up, went downstairs and met Angie coming into the house. Just as I’d feared, I’d never heard her or Paul come back.
“Hey,” I said. “Two questions.”
“Shoot.”
“When’s Mom’s birthday?”
Angie rolled her eyes. “Day after tomorrow.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. There was still time, if I hadn’t been gunned down by then trying to evade arrest. “Okay. Number two. Did you know Kenny was gay?”
She’d been in his hobby shop a number of times, usually under protest if we happened to be running errands together, or if she was in there to pick up the obligatory birthday, Father’s Day, or Christmas gift. “Duh,” she said. “Only a retard couldn’t see that.” She was going to head for the kitchen, then reconsidered. “Mom said I should ask you for the money you guys owe me.”
“Later,” I said, and slipped into my study and closed the door.
I turned on my desk lamp, got the purse out from behind the box of papers, and set it down. I took out the wallet first. This was the only thing I’d really looked at, but not very carefully. Stefanie Knight carried three different Visa cards, a Master-Card, a bonus points card for a major drugstore chain, and, of course, the driver’s license I’d examined earlier. I withdrew other things from the purse, an item at a time. A brush with several blonde hairs caught in it. Half a dozen lipsticks and lip liners and various other lip things I didn’t know much about. Those tampons still in the paper wrapper. Some handfuls of coins that she’d obviously just thrown into her bag rather than slip into her change purse. VW and house keys, film canister, receipts from grocery stores, drugstores, self-serve gas stations, some dating back more than two years. Three ballpoint pens, one of which looked dried up, three nail files, half a dozen eyeliners. Two white letter-size envelopes, thick with papers. Real estate papers, I guessed. The flaps were tucked in, not sealed, so I decided to take a peek into one of them.
I felt as though someone had suddenly stomped on my chest.
Money. Lots and lots of money.
All fifties. Dozens and dozens of them in the first envelope. Dozens and dozens of them in the second envelope. Thousands of dollars. I couldn’t begin to guess how much.
I felt that what had quickly developed into a very bad situation was now a hell of a lot worse.
14
THEY WERE CRISP, NEW FIFTIES, AND I emptied both envelopes and spread the money
