Lethal Experiment

“Which is?”

“Kill her.”

Callie leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. The one with the scar.

“Thanks, Donovan,” she said. “Once again, you’ve saved my life.”

Such as it is, I thought.

Chapter 22

“The walls moved?” Kathleen said. “How?”

“It was like a Hollywood movie set,” I said. “There are five different scenes, with three sets of walls and two ceilings. One of the ceilings has crystal chandeliers.”

“But how does everything switch?” she said.

“They just quietly slide into place.”

“And dinner was good?” she said.

“You’d love it!” I said. “I’ll take you there sometime.”

“Tell me about it now, though.”

“Okay. There was a seafood tower with a sculpture of a seahorse. There were three levels of oysters on the half shell, and some of the display shells had real pearls in them!”

“And the lady you had dinner with?”

Oh oh, I thought. “What about her?”

“How old is she?”

I scrunched up my face. “Hard to tell.”

This was one of those times you had to weigh the benefits of honesty versus happiness. There wasn’t much incentive to tell the truth, since first of all, I wasn’t having an affair, and secondly, Callie and Kathleen would probably never meet. And even if they did meet, Callie would never rat me out. Our secrets were safe. We had each others’ backs.

I looked Kathleen right in the eye, the way President Clinton taught me, and I said, “Honey, Mrs. Calloway has to be at least sixty.”

“Sixty,” she said.

“At least. Maybe sixty-five.”

“And why did she need you to fly all the way to Vegas to take her to dinner and a show?”

“I told you that already. Her husband got sick. They had tickets for the show and dinner reservations. He’s one of my bosses. I felt obligated.”

“Hmm,” she said. “But it does sound as though you had a good time.”

“I put on a brave face,” I said.

Kathleen had trust issues, courtesy of her first husband, Ken Chapman. I could tell she was struggling with my explanation. I figured it was time to put her out of her misery.

I slapped my forehead with my hand.

“What,” she said, “you could have had a V-8?”

“I just remembered. I have a picture of me and Mildred.”

“Mildred?”

“Mildred Calloway. Our waiter took a picture of us on my cell phone.”

“At Switch?”