give me my clothes,' he muttered.
They were nowhere to be found. Casting aside the blanket, he remembered the research he was going to do on local mines, the further work on Corey Schneider, the memo from the professor he had to study, and all the other things that would come to mind when he returned to his den and bulletin board with a cup of coffee.
In the closet he found his clothes, hand-washed and half-dried. Given that he came in the middle of the night, that must have taken some doing. He pulled on his pants and T-shirt, socks, and shoes. He would go home to his den, regroup, and try to find her.
Dan walked across the street. There was nobody about but a lone dog pawing at a garbage can. Palmer seemed particularly desolate this morning. Other than the Mercedes, there was only a single car parked on the street, a van. He looked at his wrist. He'd left his watch in the hotel room. That was what was wrong.
He wondered if Maria had propped him up under the shower. Vaguely he remembered her robe getting wet. Fundamentally, he was humiliated but really didn't want to go there in his mind. Normally, he controlled his drinking to the extent that he never became falling-down drunk. Last night he was nearly that, and it unnerved him. On the way back to the room, he decided he had taken his last drink. The decision made him feel better. In three minutes he was back at the car. He put his cell phone in the carriage, looked in the rearview mirror, and saw Maria's Cherokee pull up behind him.
In the hope of salvaging the situation, he climbed out of the Mercedes and walked back. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the van pull away.
'Hi,' he said. He knew that despite himself he had a grim frown on his face. 'I've had my last drink. I mean, I decided that would be best.'
'I believe you,' she said without hesitation. 'But if you want anything to do with me, don't ever, ever forget you said that.'
'Nothing like a clear understanding,' he said.
'Someone else in your office could work on the Highlands. You don't have to do it personally. That's a choice.'
'Plunging right in, are we? This is my area. I don't want to give it away.'
'There isn't anything else you want more?'
'Well, like what?'
'I still can't accept our little rapprochement if you're fighting to cut the Highlands.'
'What if I said I would like to be friends. Kind of a personal thing.'
'I'd say prove it.'
'Well, shit.'
She started the Cherokee, threw it in gear, and backed up. Evidently, his expression had spoken as loudly as his words.
21
Dan slouched into his chair and stirred the papers on his desk. He couldn't stop thinking about Maria. While he drank his coffee and waited for some brilliant plan for reconciliation to reveal itself, he thought about the Highlands and all his projects for the day.
He felt tired in his mind. When Tess was alive, it used to be that late on Saturday morning after his trip to the office he would get recharged by an intense physical workout. Get the blood flowing, the arteries expanded, and turn his body into a physical machine that glowed warm and healthy. Now he was starting to feel weak in every respect. His exercise routine was turning into a few halfhearted push-ups and a little jog. The alcohol had done that. He knew he could work smarter, do more, think clearer, if he went back to his old habits. Before he started in on the afternoon's sleuthing, he would work out. Like the old days.
A little less angry after an hour of trying to parse through the mysteries of the Highlands, he tried chasing down Maria. First he called the local Environmental Center, where the woman's voice turned cold when he identified himself over the telephone. They hadn't seen Maria Fischer all day. He tried Maria's room at the Palmer Inn three times about ten minutes apart and got no answer. Just when he was about to go out the door, he called one more time.
'Hello,' she said crisply, surprising him.
'I'd like to talk. We have things to talk about.'
'So talk.' Her voice sounded worse than distant, harsher than cold.
'Maybe we could meet for a cup of coffee.'
David Dun
At The Edge
'Oh yeah, and then dinner, then coffee at your house. Lose the line, lose the gimmicks. What do you want?'
'I want the friendship back.'
'Good luck.' There was a click and she was gone. What a hard edge that woman had on her. At least she didn't deny that there was a 'friendship' of sorts. He decided to view that as a start.
It took twelve minutes to drive home from his office, one minute longer than usual. Pepacita looked positively shocked when he began rummaging through the boxes in his closet for his gym shorts and jockstrap. After more than two years, some of the elastic stretch was gone. The shorts would fit but barely. Disgusting. He had thickened a little around the middle.
'Wanna go?' he asked Nate, who had been standing by watching with a somewhat doubtful eye.
'I think this is gonna be like Mrs. Ogletree singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' Dad.'
'And what is that like?'
'She wheezes and we all wish she'd stop.'
'Well, thank you, son. Didn't know I was that bad off.'
'Well, you aren't fat like Mrs. Mullins.'
'Another vote of confidence.'
'You used to be really buff.'
He stood straight and pulled his stomach tight. 'I'm not that bad. You could shoot baskets while I work out.'
'There's a bunch of tall guys that'll just grab the ball.'
'Life is full of tall guys.'
'I don't have to play with 'em.'
Finally he had his old white socks, shoes, and sweat clothes free of the boxes. Realizing he hadn't called his mother for a week, he picked up the phone and found her in the house reading. By the time he finished a somewhat halting explanation of Maria Fischer, twenty minutes had passed. On his way to the gym, he spent another fifteen minutes on the cell phone talking with his sister, Katie, trying to avoid her somewhat pointed questions about Maria. He refused to allow any hint of desperation in his tone.
Feeling slightly exhilarated at the prospect of a workout, he pulled into the parking lot of the health club with building confidence. Then he saw the clientele going and coming. Out of eight people in the lot, one had a beer belly and most didn't look all that athletic. Still, there was that one hard-body guy. By the time he got the car lined up for the narrow parking space, everybody was in the building or gone- save one couple. They were leaving and looked beat, especially her, but the way she leaned on her guy had a warmth to it and he remembered what he missed.
Corey watched Dan pull into the health-club parking lot. Frustration at not being able to get to the Mercedes and blow his ass to hell had turned to fury. On her seat under a newspaper was her silenced Colt. As she watched Dan Young walking out of the back of the lot, she gripped the gun and fingered the trigger. Shoot the bastard. For a second her knee shook, her mind perched on a razor blade of indecision.
People had faded away into the club. There was only a couple in the lot. If they drove off, she could just blow him away. She could actually do it and be done in thirty seconds. She released the brake, rolling forward. Then she
