WHEN I GOT back from meeting the pelotari, I was tired and needed to switch off for a while. It was one of those times I wished I had a television. I opened the door and found Danielle sitting at the kitchen counter. She was in plain clothes; jeans and a T-shirt. I always looked forward to walking in the front door and seeing her smile. It was one of those smiles, a real traffic stopper. But there was no traffic hitting the brakes tonight. There was no smile. She spun on her stool with a frown.
“Did you find him?”
“Yes,” I smiled, hero of the hour.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“What? I just found him, like an hour ago.”
“An hour? You don’t have a cell phone? I’ve been sitting here, worried.”
I threw my keys in the bowl and put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t think a few minutes was going to make a difference.”
She pushed my hand away and stood. “You’re such an idiot. You don’t think a few minutes make a difference? You don’t think. How about this morning? Were you thinking when you left a small boy alone?”
“He’s not that small, he’s eleven. Besides, we went to find who threw him in the ocean. I didn’t know he’d run away.”
She shook her head as she walked away. “I’ve been at work since 3 a.m. I’m going to bed.”
I watched Danielle stride into the bedroom and close the door, my jaw open to somewhere around my navel. I waited for a moment to gather my thoughts. Sure, I didn’t feel great that Desi had run away, but he wasn’t under house arrest, and we were trying to find the guys who had attempted to murder him. It wasn’t like we’d ducked out to Longboard’s for a couple beers. And we’d spent the rest of the day hunting him down, which we had succeeded in doing. So no autopsy, no foul.
I cracked the door open and stepped into the dark bedroom. I could hear Danielle breathing—rapid not relaxed—a long way from sleep. I sat on the bed and put my hand on her arm.
“I’m sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t completely sure what I was apologizing for. “I should have taken more care, but we found him. He’s okay. And we got his money back.”
Danielle let out a big sigh. “I’m just really tired. Let’s talk in the morning.”
I kissed her cheek and left her to sleep, returning to the kitchen. I was hungry but my hunger was only matched by my apathy. I couldn’t be bothered opening a pickle jar, let alone making dinner. Instead, I poured a scotch and wandered out onto the patio. The night was cool, and as I sat on my lounger I wondered what had happened to the sweatshirt I had put on Desi. But Florida in winter is no great hardship, so I sat in shirtsleeves and warmed myself from the inside, with hints of tobacco and peat. Watching the water was where I did my best thinking. It was why I had bought the house—the only original rancher left, right on the Intracoastal side of the island. After I picked it up for a song at a tax lien auction, I had surprised all the other residents by doing absolutely no renovations whatsoever. It was a seventies original, just like me, and just like me, it was aging naturally and with a distinct lack of grace. But this evening the water and tinkling of masts didn’t weave their magic. My brain wouldn’t relax, and I felt the energy bubbling inside of me. I couldn’t shake the bad feeling inside, as if the thing with the bad guys who had hurt Desi was going to get bad before it got good, and that maybe the same could be said for things with Danielle. The look on her face was as if the Desi thing had revealed something in my character, something she hadn’t seen before, something she really didn’t like. It wasn’t the first time I had messed up, and it wasn’t the first time I had cleaned up my own mess. But her look said something had changed. I sipped my Scotch to drown that thought, and eventually fell asleep.
I must have woken at some point in the night, because when the morning light hit I was in bed. I rolled over to put a hand on Danielle but came up with nothing but sheet. I padded out into the kitchen to make a smoothie. Winter in Florida is a good time for kale, and the best way to eat kale is in a smoothie. It really does taste rotten, but everyone assured me it was the healthiest food on the entire planet, so I blended it up with some peeled Florida oranges and some hempseed. I was just pouring when Danielle came bursting through the sliding door, breathing heavily and covered in a sheen of perspiration. Her hair was tied back, and her running tank top and tight shorts left just the right amount to the imagination.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I replied, the epitome of linguistic sophistication.
“You went for a run?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t wake me.”
“I thought you’d want the sleep.”
She’d never left me to sleep in lieu of a run before, short of having busted ribs, and I hadn’t hit the beach for a jog in ages, despite it having been a daily habit not so long ago.
“Okay. You want some smoothie?”
“Sure, thanks. I’m just going to jump in the shower.”
I delivered the smoothie to the steam-filled bathroom and considered getting in with her, but the internal radar said go easy, and although I didn’t understand the source of the signal, I still knew what a flashing red light meant. When Danielle came out, she was in uniform and drying her hair with a towel. She dropped the finished glass in the sink.
“Thanks for the smoothie.”
“Sure, anytime. Kitchen’s always open.”
Danielle kept rubbing at her hair as she wandered back into the bedroom. When she came out again she was buttoned up, her dry hair tied back. She came over to the counter where I was washing out the blender.
“Listen, MJ, I’m sorry about last night. I was just tired, is all. And worried about Desi.”
The worry had been plain for all to see. It was the rest of the look that concerned me, but I didn’t have a clue how to verbalize it, so I left it alone until I could figure it out.
“It’s okay. I get it. I was pretty worried myself. I just don’t deal with kids all that much, you know? It didn’t occur that he’d run off. But lesson learned.”
“Yeah. And he’s okay?”
“Sheepish, but fine. He’s got some family here, so they’ll look after him.”
“I didn’t find much out yesterday, but I did hear from a friend at the ER.”
“That right?”
“Aha. She said they had a couple known crime figures, low-grade thugs, come into the hospital, beat up pretty bad.”
“I suppose it’s an occupational hazard.”
“Doesn’t usually happen at lunchtime.”
I made a face that resembled a guppy, and Danielle came around and laid a kiss on me. “I have to get to work,” she said. “You got a good day planned?”
“Peachy. I’m gonna go see your ex-husband.”
Danielle shook her head as she grabbed her keys.
“Play nice.”