“I’ll need to get going soon,” he said.
Julia nodded.
“Actually, that’s perfect,” she said. “I have a bunch of stuff ahead of me today, too.”
She entered, paused inside the door, and glanced around. The living room was medium sized with a pale gray carpet, a small sofa, a plump bustle-backed wing chair, and a television/satellite box setup on a plain black stand. It gave way to an open sort of hallway that led in turn to a combination kitchen and dining area. Everything seemed clean and orderly and comfortable enough in a sterile, impersonal way that reminded Julia of a motel room on check-in.
Ricci closed the door and led her toward the dining room. As she passed the wing chair, Julia noticed a big, packed sporting duffel — or
“Planning to visit the great outdoors?” she asked, and nodded at the duffel. “I like to go camping myself a couple of times a year… y’know, just to clear my mind.”
Ricci’s glance went to the chair. He seemed a little thrown by her question, as if he hadn’t realized what was on it. Then he looked at her.
“Don’t need to clear my mind,” he said.
His chill tone, coupled with the stony expression on his features, caught Julia unprepared. She momentarily wondered if she’d done the smart thing coming to see him, then decided his reaction was proof enough that she had. Or at least that was how she was determined to take it.
She followed him to the table and set her bag down.
“I brought chocolate chip and macadamia nut muffins, my pick of the month,” she said, opening it. “Ever try them?”
Ricci’s head moved from side to side in the negative. “They’re from that bakery practically around the corner from here, Michael’s Morning Toaster,” she said. “Good luck to anybody who tries finding them in Pescadero, which is why I drove all this way to relieve my sicko addiction.”
Ricci turned to her.
“We going to need dishes?” he said.
She flapped a hand in the air.
“C’mon, we can rough it,” Julia said, and patted the tabletop. “We’ve got paper cups, napkins, paper plates… the bakery guy even tossed in plastic knives and forks. That’s, God forbid, in case you’re the type who’d actually use them to eat a muffin instead of your bare fingers and teeth.”
Ricci stood stock still, quietly watching her. She had reached into the bag and begun to empty it, laying out its contents on the table, carefully peeling the lids off the coffee cups, setting the muffins onto the paper plates.
“You don’t need to thank me,” he said.
Julia stopped what she was doing and looked up at him, her face abruptly serious.
“Would you prefer I didn’t? Or can’t I be the one to decide that?”
“I’m saying you don’t need to,” Ricci said. “I was doing what I got paid to do.”
Julia stood there holding a muffin halfway out of the bag in its waxed tissue wrapper.
“All right,” she said. “Want to hear my stroke of genius?”
Ricci’s piercing blue eyes went to hers. He held them there for a full thirty seconds, and then nodded.
“Let’s just enjoy a nice breakfast before we go about our busy days,” she said. “I won’t spout on to you about my feelings of gratitude, and you won’t talk about why you’ve dropped off the face of the earth when it comes to your friends. And we’ll consider it a fair bargain.”
A silence. Their gazes held together across the little dining area as the aroma of the hot fresh coffee rose in wafts of steam to permeate it.
Then, slowly, Ricci gave Julia another nod, and approached the table, and pulled out the chair opposite her.
“How’s Vivian?” he said after another long spell of silence. “She come around okay from those gunshot wounds?”
Julia reached for her muffin and raised it to her mouth. “Viv goes jogging with me every other morning,” she said. “Rain or shine, like it or not.”
Ricci’s face took on an expression she interpreted as pleased.
“Great dog,” he said.
Julia glanced at him, about to take a bite of the muffin.
“Yeah,” she said, and smiled. “She sure is.”
And with that they got started on their food.
SIX
“Good on ya, luv. Take hold a’ me hand’ere and I’ll getcha right up.”
His shoulder-length golden mane sweeping around his tanned face in the onshore breeze, Blake the Bronze leaned over from the pontoon boat Annie had reserved and extended a sculpted arm toward the pier. He wore a pookah shell choker, a yellow tank top, paisley swim trunks with a lot of bright pink and blue in the print, root- beer-colored wraparound Oakley sunglasses with reddish-pink lenses, and flip-flops.
Annie reached out from where she and Nimec stood on the floating gangplank and let him help her onto the boat’s flat fiberglass stern platform.
“Okeydoke, mate, you’re next!” Blake shouted over the side at Nimec. “Or don’t you need an assist now?”
“Think I can manage on my own,” Nimec said.
He grabbed the boat’s rail, climbed aboard, and a moment later was standing next to Annie under the twenty-footer’s sun canopy. Both were wearing swimsuits and windbreakers, their snorkeling equipment in mesh totes on the deck. Nimec, in addition, had a pair of standard rangefinder binoculars on a strap around his neck. All around them a diversity of pleasure boats were making their way to and from the busy marina, one of them a double-deck cruiser booming hip-hop music from its cabin as it left a nearby slip.
Nimec pulled a face. “Loud,” he muttered.
Annie rolled her shoulders to the beat.
“
Nimec looked at her and, before he knew it, had a wet kiss planted on the tip of his nose — an instant frown-killer despite everything on his mind. He had deliberately failed to tell her what he’d hashed over with Vince earlier, and when she asked about it had just offered a few general words about them having to look into some things. No sense getting Annie disturbed over what were really just questions at this stage of the game. It was possible that by the time he and Vince consulted again, Vince might have cleared them up.
He put his arm around her waist and moved toward the middle of the boat, walking easily on the wide, well- balanced deck mounted atop its pontoon hull. Blake, meanwhile, had reeled in the aft mooring line, then started forward to do the same at the bow.
“It’s really great of you to take us out,” Annie said, turning to him. “I wouldn’t have even asked if I’d known we’d be imposing on your day off.”
Blake smiled as he unfastened the bowline from its support.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “The reefs’re in a favorite spot a’ mine, and it’s a joy sharin’ it with a lovely couple like yourselves.” He neatly wound the line in his hands and set it down. “Gem of an afternoon like this, it’s fair odds I would’ve gotten my bathers on and headed out to relax on me own.”
The Aussie went into the helm station, slid in behind its console, and adjusted the tilt wheel.
“Another bit an’ we’re off ’n’ away, won’t be more’n a half hour’s ride,” he said, and then tipped his head toward the plush lounge chairs to his left. “Settle back if you’d like, friends; the seats’re comfy’s can be an’ you’ve got acres a’ room. And if you lift the top a’ that ottoman there in front a’ your legs, it’ll open into a cooler full up
