Smoke

“Call Dax,” he said. “I’ll get our coats. It’s not like we’re going to get any sleep anyway.”

She watched him leave the office and then picked up the phone.

It’s late,” he answered, but she could hear the television in the background. He sounded cranky.

“Sorry to interrupt your late-night television viewing,” she said. “But I think we’re going to come by and get you. There’s something in your neighborhood we want to check out.”

She heard him turn off the set and sit up. “Oh, yeah,” he said, sounding happier, his Australian accent drawing out his syllables.

Dax had had kind of a tough year, recovering from two severed Achilles’ tendons, an injury he sustained while trying to help Lydia and Jeffrey. She knew that since then, he hadn’t been working as much as usual. Although exactly who Dax worked for when he wasn’t working for Mark, Striker and Strong was apparently a confidential matter. Lydia had gone to every possible length to find out, from snooping to begging. But he was like the sphinx, stony and inscrutably silent about his life.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“We’ll be up there in an hour; we’ll explain it all then.”

“Sweet,” he said and hung up.

Six

Benjamin was in bed, safe between his Lord of the Rings sheets. This was her favorite time, when they were both under the same roof. They’d ordered in from the diner across the street and watched Monsters, Inc. for the one hundred and fiftieth time. What was it about kids? Why did they want to watch the same things over and over? It must be a comfort thing.

With him sound asleep, she opened a bottle of chardonnay and curled up on the couch, listening to her child breathe on the baby monitor, which she still kept in his room though he was way too old for it. It relaxed her, the sound of him and the glass of wine. The television was on but the sound was down, and she zoned out on the images from the ten o’clock news. She pushed away any thoughts about Lily Samuels and Rosario Mendez; she’d done all she could for them today and thinking about them all night wasn’t going to help anyone. She’d almost succeeded when something on the screen caught her attention.

The words “Bizarre Halloween ‘Shooting’ ” popped red in the corner of the screen and Jesamyn reached quickly for the remote, turned the volume up.

“-when a young woman was shot three times in the back during the parade,” said a plastic-looking male newscaster. “Onlookers thought it was part of the show or a prank of some kind when a white van came to a stop on a side street off the parade route, pursuing a young woman running toward Main Street. When two men emerged from the van chasing her and shots were fired, the crowd dispersed in a panic. Spectators saw the two men lift the lifeless body, place it back in the van, and drive away. In the melee, no one was able to identify a license-plate number.

“Was it a Halloween prank? Police still don’t know. There was no blood found at the scene, leading police to believe that the shooting could have been staged. They are asking if anyone has any photographs or videotape of the evening, to please call the crime stoppers tip line.” He gave the number and the newscast went on to another story.

Jesamyn was about to pick up the phone to call Mount to tell him about the story, even though it probably didn’t mean anything. It could have easily been a prank, although a very sick prank. They could call the Riverdale precinct tomorrow and see what they had and get a description of the girl, at the very least.

But before she could dial, she heard a key in her front door. She got to her feet quickly and moved toward the front hall, cursing herself for not putting the dead bolt on yet. She had to get that key back from him. The chain kept the door from opening all the way.

“We both know that chain is useless. I could easily ram my way in there if I wanted to,” he said with a smile. She leaned against the wall and looked at him. He pressed his face up against the opening between the door and the jamb. Those ice blue eyes had caused her to betray herself too many times. He’d shaved his black hair down to the skull as he sometimes did when he wanted to look tough, and he had about two days of stubble on his face.

“But then I’d be within my legal rights to kill you,” she said pleasantly. He reached his hand through the door and playfully grabbed for her tee-shirt. She moved just out of his reach.

“The father of your child. I don’t think so.”

“He’s young. He’ll get over it.”

He gave her the smile. The smile that said, “I’m so sexy, so lovable, and you can’t resist me no matter what I’ve done.”

“Come on, Jez. I haven’t seen the kid in three days. I know he’s sleeping; I just want to poke my head in.”

She stared at him. Over the years, the effect that his smile once had on her had greatly diminished. But she’d just be lying to herself if she said it didn’t still ignite something within her. She considered her visceral sexual attraction to him a mutinous physical impulse to be quashed at all costs.

“I’ll let you in,” she said. “But I want that key before you leave. Otherwise, I’m changing the locks. I also want your word that you won’t come again without calling.”

“What about when I pick up Ben and bring him home from school?” he said.

“I’ll give the key to Ben. He’s old enough now.”

His smile faded a little bit and she thought she saw genuine sadness in his eyes. But with Dylan it was impossible to tell the difference between sincere feeling and calculated manipulation.

“Okay,” he said, softly. “Okay.”

She unlatched the door and he gave her a quick, hard embrace and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best,” he told her. “You really are.”

She followed him through the apartment and stood in the doorway and watched him watch Ben. She didn’t trust him not to wake Ben up. And once he was awake and knew that his dad was here, forget it. They’d all be up all night. But Dylan was good; he was quiet as he sat in the small wooden chair beside Ben’s bed. A night-light that looked like an aquarium rotated, casting the shadows of fish in a dim blue light on the walls. For a second she remembered what it was like when they all lived here together, when they were a family. There had been plenty of quiet, happy times that looked just like this moment.

Dylan turned to her and pointed at the baby monitor beside Ben’s bed, gave her a disapproving shake of his head. She crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows in a dare: What are you going to do about it? She didn’t stalk out of the room, which was her impulse. He was antagonizing her to get her to leave so that he could “accidentally” wake up Ben. She knew most of his techniques and had developed countertechniques to block them.

After another moment, he rose and walked past her and out of the room. She closed the door behind her. In the kitchen, she noticed that he looked tired. He’d taken off his leather jacket and hung it over one of the chairs. He reached into the refrigerator and grabbed a Corona.

“Make yourself at home,” she said, sitting down at the table.

“It used to be my home,” he said without heat.

It was an invitation to rumble. But she didn’t have it in her tonight. Besides arguing was a kind of intimacy for them, like if they could make each other mad it meant they still cared. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. In the light the refrigerator cast on him, she could see that he looked tense and strained. She hadn’t noticed at the door.

“What’s up, Dylan? What’s going on?”

She did care about him. He had been her husband for four years. He was the father of her child. And in the three years since their divorce, they’d been slowly and haltingly approaching friendship. They’d both done a lot of growing up.

He took the opener from the drawer by the sink and popped the top off his bottle.

“I killed someone last night,” he said, his jaw tensing. He closed the refrigerator and they were in semi-