Chapter 8

 

Freckles and I walked to our little neighborhood park, the one where Stacy and I used to meet. I unclipped the dog’s leash and tossed a tennis ball across the grassy space.

Elsa’s comment about the teenaged twins had put me back in the world of my own high school days. Unlike a lot of friends who remembered high school as a time of dances, football games and singing in the choir, my experience had been completely overshadowed by the loss of my parents, the uprooting of routine during my life with Elsa, and spending too much time in the world of lies and deceit that kids create when they start hanging out with the wrong crowd. The counselor who’d suggested accounting classes had no idea how decisively she had set me on the right path.

Back to the twins. I decided I would start paying more attention, see whether it seemed Elsa’s observations had any merit. She may have turned into the neighborhood busybody, but she’s far from senile. I thought back to what she’d told me so far. The parents had been away for awhile now, most likely on one of their movie jobs.

The girls were apparently living at home alone, but they were eighteen or nineteen years old—I’d done the same at that age. I realized I knew little else about them. Were they in college, did they have jobs, did they have a lot of friends? I had no idea.

I must have thrown the ball a whole lot more times than I realized. Poor Freckles was beat. She had taken the ball off to the side and now she was lying in the cool sand beneath one of the swings.

“Okay, baby, we can go home.”

The suggestion revived her and she trotted over to me. I snapped the leash on once again and stuffed the ball in my pocket. We retraced our route and I caught myself staring at the Delaney house as we passed. One of the girls came out and noticed me. Oops—caught spying.

She said hi, I said hi. She wore a skin-tight black mini dress, impossibly high platform shoes and her blonde hair hung straight as a plank to the middle of her back.

“How are you girls doing?” I asked. “Elsa Higgins says your parents have been away. Everything going all right for you two?”

“Oh, yeah. We’re fine.” She turned her attention to the phone in her hand and started thumbing a message to someone as she walked toward her driveway.

“Okay, well … good.”

So, there you have it. They’re fine. I wasn’t sure whether I’d spoken to Zayne or Clover, and wasn’t at all sure she remembered how, long ago, I had babysat the two of them. Anyway, I could now report to Elsa next time I saw her, although I had a feeling this was exactly the response she’d already received when speaking with the twins.

The girl paused beside the blue sports car and looked up at me. I realized I’d stopped in front of their house. I gave a little wave and yielded to Freckles’s tugging at the leash. The car didn’t start moving until I’d reached my own yard, which seemed a little strange. Normally those girls got in, threw their cars in gear and raced out of the neighborhood. I took a moment to get mail from our box, glancing back up the street as I did so. The red car was still in the Delaney driveway.

I supposed I could walk over there and ask the other girl a question or two, but wasn’t that putting me in the same busybody mode as Elsa? And, frankly, I had plenty of other things going on in my life right now. It wasn’t my place to insert myself into someone else’s family situation.

To underscore the point, Drake pulled into our driveway just then and Freckles bounded toward him. As soon as his truck came to a full stop I dropped the leash and let her run to greet him. He got out and bent over to ruffle her ears and speak to her in baby talk.

“So, your customer seemed happy with the photos he got,” I said.

“Yeah, he did. Depending on his editor’s feedback, he may want to go again in a few days. And we earned several hours of flight revenue even though the job was close to home.” He stepped onto the porch and pulled me close. His flight suit smelled of jet fuel.

“We’re just back from a walk,” I said. “How about I feed this kid while you shower and then we’ll meet at the gazebo with some wine and cheese?”

I puttered around the kitchen as Freckles scarfed down her kibble as if it were a race to finish. In a short time I had a small platter of sliced cheese, salami, some olives and an assortment of crackers. I was rummaging for the wine opener when Drake came in, wafting the scent of his favorite soap, a vast improvement over jet fuel.

“Shall we open the new bottle we bought today?” he suggested, taking over the duty.

I carried the food plate and some napkins outside. “Better bring light jackets,” I called out when he opened the back door.

Once the sun goes down in a desert climate the temperature can drop dramatically. And our shady spot chosen for summer appeal had not exactly warmed much during the day. I slipped into the fleece jacket he brought me and took my wineglass from him.

“Here’s to a possible new venture,” he said, raising his glass to touch mine.

At my puzzled look, he added, “The little cabin? I’m serious about checking it out, finding out who owns it.”

“It could be a great little getaway. As quickly as we can get there by air, we’d both be handy to our businesses if need be.” I made myself a stack of cracker, cheese and olive.

“And a fun project,” he said, sitting back in his cushioned chair and staring up at the gazebo’s ceiling. “I really enjoyed making this little retreat for us.”

We finished our light dinner and sat bundled in the blankets I retrieved when I went back for the rest of the wine. The day’s events kept playing through my head, starting with the discovery of the cabin and going through our sighting of Bobby Lorrento at the wine festival. The woman I’d spoken with at the wine booth had been very certain Lorrento was with someone other than his wife. I could call Ron and report, but the evening was too pleasant to bring his investigation into it. The news could wait for morning.