Back home at H&M Paint, Colleen did a quick perimeter check, verified that the fence hadn’t been breached, then called her answering service. No new messages. She climbed up on her desk, retrieved the .38 she had knocked out of the arsonist’s hand. She took it into her “bedroom,” slipped the gun underneath her pillow, undressed, climbed into her cot with its crisp, clean sheets and three blankets, pulled her head in like a turtle, and went into immediate hibernation.
Sometime later, she awoke from the deepest sleep she could recall in weeks, with no idea where she was, or what time or day it was. The phone was ringing in the office next door.
She climbed out of her cot, pulling a blanket over her bare shoulders, and stumbled into the office. She’d left the desk lamp on, since the break-in. The clock said it was just past midnight.
She answered the phone, half expecting to hear Alex’s inebriated voice. Bracing herself to turn her down again, without hurting her feelings. Stay strong.
“Security.”
“Is this the investigator?” a young man’s voice said. She knew the voice, even with the street noise behind it, young people laughing. The muffled sounds of primitive rock-n-roll. A bar, a club.
“Yes,” Colleen said. “Steve Davis, right?”
“Right,” he said, sounding distracted. Nervous.
“What is it, Steve?”
“Did you try and call me earlier? At my house?”
“I did. I need to talk to you. But I didn’t want to upset your mother.”
“Okay.”
“Okay what? You want to talk?”
“I guess.”
Yes! She was coming awake fast. She flipped open her file folder, got a pencil ready, sat down in the office chair with a squeak. “I’m all ears.”
“No,” he said. “Not on the phone. I’m at the Palms Café. Over on Polk. I’ll wait outside. By the pay phone.”