Heather’s car wound up the road.
“Good times, Tank,” I said. “Good times.”
I hurried outside. We hugged. Her damp hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I inhaled the clean scent.
We walked into the kitchen. “My favorite way of eating,” she said. “Little bites of lots of different things. Saves me from stealing off your plate.”
“It’s a lot easier being a hunter-gatherer if there’s a Whole Foods nearby. Are you feeling hungry?”
Heather gave me a mischievous look.
“I’m feeling frisky,” she said. “How about you? Are you feeling frisky?”
“Um,” I said.
“My mother taught me to never arrive at a dinner party empty-handed,” she said. “Now it may look like I’m empty-handed, Ten, but no one’s searched my pockets yet.” She put her hands in the air. “This girl needs to be searched. Is there a policeman in the house?”
I had no idea where she was going with this, but I played along.
“Ex-policeman,” I said. “Okay. Turn around, ma’am. Place your hands against the wall.” She spun and planted her palms, leaning.
“What about my legs,” she asked.
“Uh, okay, um, spread your legs, please. Ma’am.” I was feeling incredibly self-conscious. Heather’s game was pushing me right up to my edge of ease, if not beyond it.
Heather, on the other hand, appeared to be thoroughly enjoying herself. She adopted a limber, wide-legged stance, complementing all the right body parts.
“Okay,” she said. “Frisk away, detective!”
I glanced at Tank. He looked as befuddled as I felt. Spacious confusion, Ten. Do not resist. I patted Heather down, starting at her shoulders, and working my way south. The curves at her waist and hips were warm and firm to the touch.
“You’re clean,” I said.
“Don’t forget my jacket pockets.”
I obliged. “Suspicious round object in your left jacket pocket. Permission to search that pocket, ma’am?”
“Permission granted.”
I came up with a small black plastic canister. I popped it open. A neatly-rolled joint nestled inside.
“Busted!” Heather said brightly.
Her delighted expression reminded me of Lola’s triumphant Baw! and it made me laugh. “I don’t know,” I said. “I might arrest you. Or I might let you go with just a warning. It depends.”
“Does this help?” She pulled a laminated card from her purse. “I’m street-legal. Exhibit A: one medical marijuana prescription card.”
“Did you write yourself a prescription?” I asked, amused. “How handy.”
“Nope. I just happen to suffer from a mild anxiety disorder, not to mention, I’m connected. Don’t you just love California?” Heather nuzzled against me. “Actually, I’m feeling a little anxious right now.”
We walked onto the deck, and soon the joint was traveling back and forth between us. The pungent herb flavored up my bloodstream immediately. My head filled with a light fizz.
“Wow,” I said. “Strong.”
“Got to love my local dispensary. You should try their Cannabis Caramels—like hash and childhood rolled into one.” Heather exhaled a stream of smoke and giggled. “Hmm. Floaty. Uh oh. I sense my first big confession coming on. My deepest, darkest secret.”
I smiled into the darkness. She pouted.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?”
“Okay. What is it?”
Her smile was sly. “I guess you could say I was your opposite in high school. The oppo-monk. I was a cheerleader.” She peeked at me. “No mocking.”
“I can’t mock you, because I have no idea what being a cheerleader entails. Except pom-poms, I’m guessing.”
“Short shorts, push up bras, and a lot of wiggling. And yes, pom-poms, on occasion. Play your cards right and you might get a sample cheer later.”
She was such an interesting woman.
An owl hooted in the distance. We finished off the joint. Heather glanced at me.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to partake.”
“It’s been a while,” I admitted. I smiled, remembering the last time I’d smoked marijuana. That, too, was the direct result of a medical marijuana prescription, belonging to John D, an elderly cancer-stricken almond farmer with a heart as big as the Pacific. “I smoked dope in India, you know. Ganja, I should say.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. There wasn’t a drop of alcohol within fifty miles of our monastery, but we lived smack in the middle of a region that’s been producing ganja for centuries. There was this Hindu temple near us, totally rundown, but it was dedicated to some little-known ganja-smoking Hindu deity. A bunch of scraggly, bloodshot-eyed devotees lived there. They’d taken a vow to smoke weed every day until they reached enlightenment.”
“Ha! The original wake ‘n’ bakers. No wonder the place was rundown.”
“Exactly. Anyway, we were strictly forbidden to go anywhere near them. Naturally.”
“Naturally.”
“But somehow our elders forgot that the fastest way to get a teenager to do something is to forbid it.”
Heather laughed softly.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re not at all what I expected.”
“Is that good?”
She patted my arm.
“Yes, Ten. That’s very good.”
It was getting cold. I tucked my hands in my pockets. Something crinkled. I pulled out the circular covering from Julius’s bathroom.
I showed it to Heather. “Do you know what this is?”
“Looks like the backing of a nicotine patch,” she answered. “You know, for quitting smoking.” She looked more closely. “Strange, though. Usually they’re well marked. So you know what you’re taking.”
“Huh.” I pocketed it. I was positive Julius didn’t smoke. Maybe Otilia was a secret, three-pack-a-day gal in her other life. I snickered.
The night sky shifted. “Is it getting darker out here, or lighter?” I said.
“Okay, that’s it. Time to get some food in us,” Heather answered. “Doctor’s orders.”
We weren’t a small army, but we were two people who had just shared one very potent joint. We mowed through the containers of food.
“Best for last,” I said, moving to the freezer. I lifted out the coconut sorbet and tossed it to her. “Sorbet!”
Heather’s palms flew up and she jumped back, as if I had lobbed a grenade. The container landed on the floor between us. I must have looked as startled as I felt. “Sorry,” Heather said. She picked the container up and handed it back. “I don’t do sorbet.” She craned her neck. “Hey, can you aim me toward your bathroom?”
I pointed her in the right direction. Tank, who detects people’s anxiety spikes better than a Geiger counter, lifted his head from his bed, the tip of his tail flicking.
“I know,” I said. “And we were doing so well.”
When Heather returned a few minutes later her eyes were slightly reddened, as if she’d had a quick cry.
“So, no sorbet then,” I said, trying for humor.
“I’m sorry. It’s a sore point for me.”
“That’s okay. You don’t have to . . . “
“No. I kinda do.” Heather sat at the table. “Confession number two. I was the chubby kid in the family.”
“Really?” I said. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well, eventually I grew out of it. I mean, I look at pictures from my childhood and all I see is a happy, slightly chunky little girl. But my Mom was pretty plump herself as a child, and apparently her classmates teased her mercilessly. I guess it kind of scarred her, and she decided to spare me the same fate. So she put me on a low-fat regime pretty early on. Skim milk. Steamed vegetables. And no second helpings for Heather!” Her bright little laugh hurt my heart. “When I was eleven, Mom and Dad took the three of us kids to England. We’re Anglo-Saxons up and do
wn the genealogy tree, and they decided it was time for us to connect with our roots.” Heather shook her head. “Big Ben. Changing of the guards. Winchester Cathedral. Do you know the only thing I remember about the trip?”
I waited.
“Everywhere we ate, my older brother got to finish with a Knickerbocker Glory—this fabulous tower of ice creams and syrups. My younger brother would order an enormous banana split. And me?”
“Sorbet?”
“Fucking sorbet. One scoop.” She laughed that brittle laugh again. I felt a surge of anger toward her parents.
Heather checked my expression, and her smile wavered. I let the tightness in my neck dissipate.
“In that case, how do you feel about rice pudding?” I asked. She relaxed.
“Bring it on,” she smiled.
Dessert devoured, we moved into the bedroom, and climbed under the covers. We lay side by side, still fully clothed.
“The second bowl of pudding may have been a mistake,” Heather murmured to the ceiling.
“Unh,” I answered.
We drifted off to sleep.
I was awakened by the insistent buzz of my cell phone. I grabbed it off the table.
“Hello?” I croaked. I heard labored breathing. “Hello?” I said again.
“Lossssht.” The voice was slurry, and familiar.
“Julius? Is that you?”
“Lossssht,” he repeated. “No point.”
“Who’s lost?” I said. “Sadie?”
“No,” Julius breathed into the phone. “Me.” He hung up so gently it took me a moment to realize he was gone. I checked my watch: 3:20 A.M., the witching hour. Heather had slept right through the whole thing. I pushed “return call,” but Julius didn’t pick up.
I stripped down to my boxers and climbed back into bed, pulling the duvet over both of us. I nestled against Heather and was asleep in an instant.
I woke up at dawn to a delicious sensation: Heather’s warm hand circling me in its clasp.
“Lean to the left,” she chanted softly, illustrating. “Lean to the right. Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!” I groaned with pleasure. “Give me a T,” she continued, squeezing lightly. “Give me an E. Give me an N, give me a . . . “
I rolled on top of her miraculous, naked body, cutting her off mid-cheer with a deep kiss. Tank thunked to the floor and padded out the bedroom door. I pulled away.
“Are you . . . is it safe?” I asked.
She nodded. Then her eyes seemed to darken. “Define safe,” she whispered, and drew me to her.
Afterward, there we lay, side by side on our backs, as if nothing, instead of everything, had changed. Heather reached for my hand.
“Oops,” she said. “Now what?”
“Now, I don’t know,” I answered, honestly.
“Me, neither.”
I gave her hand a squeeze.
“Coffee,” I said.
CHAPTER 17
I served up two French-pressed Sumatras and two bowls of rough-cut oatmeal, drizzled with honey, and topped with sliced banana and Fuji apple. We avoided any heavy heart-to-hearts, by mutual agreement. Instead, as we ate, I told Heather of my concerns about Julius. I wanted her professional take on my employer’s extreme mood and energy swings, not to mention last night’s mysterious call.
“How advanced is the Parkinson’s?”
“I can’t really tell. Like I said, sometimes he’s razor sharp, others, he’s pretty loopy.”
“Well, everything you’re describing could be caused by the PD. I mean, it’s a brain disease. The slurred speech. The freezing and lack of affect. And some people, especially in the later stages, do develop memory problems and a loss of mental clarity, though at his age, that can happen anyway. With PD, the main thing is to keep on top of the medicine.”
“He has his caregiver, Otilia,” I said. “Plus a boutique, live-in doctor.”
“Then he should be fine.”
I couldn’t stop looking at her—the way her blonde hair cupped her face, the depth of blue in her eyes.
“What?” she smiled.
“Nothing. It’s just—don’t you have any flaws?”
For a split second, something darted from behind her eyes, some small fear perhaps. Then it was gone. She smiled across the table at me.
“We’ve all got flaws, Tenzing. Some are just harder to spot than others.” She glanced at the clock. “Sorry, gotta go. FYI, I have a crazy day ahead, between a pathological science seminar and this insane toxicology rotation.”
My intuition tapped me on the shoulder. “You’re doing toxicology?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I handed her the waxy backing. “Would you mind seeing if you can determine what this patch is for?”
“Sure. No problem.” Heather stood up. “So, are we really doing this thing tomorrow?”
“What thing?” As I said it, I remembered. “Ah. The retreat . . . “ I made a small face. Heather smiled.
“I know, right? It seemed like such a good idea a few days ago.” She put on her coat. “Your call. I will if you will.”
I so wanted to back out. I was feeling swamped with unfinished business. But the terrified faces of two teenagers—looking for treats and finding a stressed-out man with a gun—floated before me. I sighed.
“See you there. Nine A.M. sharp.”
After Heather left, I jotted down her observations about Julius. Something still didn’t feel right over there, but there were too many variables to lock in on one cause. I’d call him later, in any case, to check in.
My plan was to keep busy enough today to avoid thinking about how “taking things slow” with Heather had become anything but.
I put in a call to Mike.
“Hey,” he said. “I thought you’d dumped me.”
“Sorry. It’s been pretty crazy around here.”
“Me too. I got promoted to the one A.M. slot this weekend. That makes your old pal ‘dj mk’ super-cool, in case you’re wondering. So what’s up?”
“Can you come by this morning? I need some virtual-sleuthing. I’ll throw in a Harpo’s thin crust. With meat.”
“On my way,” he said.
I called in an order at Harpo’s Oven for a large pepperoni, sausage, and mushroom, thin crust, plus two Red Bulls. I knew Mike’s dietary habits almost as well as my own.
I washed the breakfast dishes and set them to dry on my slotted wooden rack. Tank and I played five minutes of “chase the beam” with a red laser pointer, and I followed that with 35 minutes of weights and 10 more on the meditation cushion—if I was in for a full day of sitting tomorrow, I figured I could cheat a little today.
After a quick shower, I sat at my computer and organized all the Sadie information for Mike. I was getting much better on the Internet, but this next stage of the chase required the services of a genius-level computer jockey; one who made unerring leaps of logic and didn’t mind engaging in a little unauthorized hacking. Mike was all this and more.
Next, I called Julius. He answered on the first ring.
“Tenzing,” he said. “Just the person I wanted to talk to.” His pronunciation was crisp this morning, his tone rigorous.
“Me, too. How are you doing?” I said.
“Fine, fine. Listen, I’ve been thinking things over, and I’m . . . I . . . well, quite frankly, I’ve decided I no longer need your services.”
I said nothing. My right hand clenched into a fist. I uncurled it.
“Ten? Are you there?”
“Yes. Can you tell me why?”
“Yes. Quite. Well, it’s just . . . “ He started over. “I’ve spent most of my life chasing a ghost, Ten. That’s not how I want to spend what little is left of it.”
Again, I waited.
“Keep the money, of course.” He was breathing a little faster now.
“Julius, you know I can’t do that.”
The next few words were delivered in a rushed whisper. “It has to be this way. Don’t contact me aga
in. I’m sorry. Good bye.”
Tank must have picked up on my distress. He hopped onto my desk, and lay across the keyboard, facing me.
“Hgjjjjjjjjjjjjjjdddddddddkkkkkkkkkk,” he wrote.
“I know. Not good. Not good at all.”
I peeled him off the keyboard and carried him onto the deck to ponder this unexpected news, just as Mike, long legs askew, motored up the driveway on his unique hybrid bike. The eRockit is skinny but streamlined, a little weird, and a lot street smart, exactly like its rider.
Mike pulled off his helmet. Not to be denied, his mop of dark hair immediately sprang to life, a wild crown of curls.
“Hey, boss. Hey, Tankster.”
Mike grabbed his bulging commuter backpack of equipment and followed me inside. He started setting up his gear on the kitchen table.
“So, there’s been a slight change of plans,” I said. “Maybe.”
Mike looked up.
“Julius Rosen just called me off the hunt. He told me to stop looking for Sadie.”
“For real?”
I considered the question. For not-real was more accurate. Simply put, I knew Julius was lying to me about something. But I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know why.
“Technically, officially, I’m no longer hired to do this job. Are you okay with that?”
Mike’s eyes glinted. “Off the proverbial grid. Now we’re talking.”
Mike hates when I hover, so I paid a visit to my carport. The heap of heavy garbage bags beckoned from the corner, and my Shelby sat waiting for a long overdue tune-up. Let’s see: sift through overripe garbage or get my hands dirty cleaning an engine?
I glanced at my watch. I only had enough time for the latter. Oh, well.
I opened the hood of the Shelby and got to work. First, I wrapped the connectors and distributor in foil. Pulling on a pair of rubberized work-gloves, I doused a wet sponge with Simple Green and worked my way in, around, over and under all the tiny crevices, widgets, hoses, and pipes that made my Mustang run. Soon, the sponge was filthy. I ran it under the outdoor faucet and did a second round of scrubbing. After one more rotation, I was satisfied, and I hosed out the soapy insides until the water ran clear. I started the engine, and let it idle for about ten minutes, until most of the moisture had evaporated. Using a torn T-shirt, I wiped away every remaining droplet. I peeled off the foil, closed the hood, and gave the shiny yellow finish a pat. Next week, I’d change the oil.
The Second Rule of Ten Page 20
