After putting the pictures once again securely in her purse, she went back to the photo albums. Not certain what she was looking for, she kept flipping pictures until she found Dan in bathing trunks, carrying a younger Nate on his back. A heavy-muscled hunk, Dan was very well proportioned, broad-shouldered, with a near washboard stomach and muscle tone everywhere. Not quite that trim now, but almost.
"What are you looking at?"
Maria closed the album and turned around, not sure what to say. Next to Dan stood a pajama-clad boy who looked about nine.
"Well, you're a handsome guy, Nate," she said. She saw Dan's bone structure etched in the boy's lean face. "I'm afraid I was spying-looking at pictures of you and your father."
"And my mother?"
"Yes. And your mother. She's beautiful."
"Nate, this is Ms. Fischer. Ms. Fischer, this is my very inquisitive son."
Nathaniel's freckled cheeks broke into a smile. "Hi," he offered.
Attentive brown eyes looked up at her from under a reddish-brown mop of hair that sported a slightly unruly cowlick. She noticed Dan subtly attempting to smooth it.
"Ms. Fischer will be staying with us tonight."
"Well, we haven't discussed-" She thought better of bothering with an argument. If she felt the need, she would simply ask for a ride. The man was a force.
The phone rang. Pepacita glanced knowingly at Dan. ''She doesn't call this late," Dan said.
"Of course she does," Pepacita replied, picking up. "He's right here," she said warmly-with none of the bite of a moment before.
"Well, what grade are you in, Nate?" Maria asked, curious about the call but not wanting the boy to feel left out.
"Can I tell you in a minute?" Nate said. "My dad's really getting good at this."
"It's OK, sis. It's no trouble," Dan was saying. "Now look at the light for me." A pause. "OK and it's red, right?" A pause. "So stay right there in your bedroom. Nobody can get in that house if the light is red." A longer pause.
"I understand. It's a windy night. Have you got the cassette in?" A pause.
"Turn it on." A pause. "Now, you know I can be there in four minutes on my motorcycle. Four minutes!" A pause. "At eighty miles an hour I can." A pause. "I'm just kidding, sis.'' A pause.''OK, I'm sorry for exaggerating. Six minutes tops.
"Are you doing the tape now? Let's hear the breathing. Come on." A pause.
"I'm calling you back in thirty minutes to see how you're doing." A pause. "OK." A pause. "No, it's no problem. I'm up anyway." Dan hung up and looked at Maria.
"It's my sister, Katie. She has panic attacks. Having kind of a bad week."
"Every week's a bad week," Nate said.
Dan smiled and ruffled the boy's hair.
"It's the middle of the night, muchacha y muchachos," Pepacita said. Maria could feel that Pepacita wanted her to stay.
"You're right. Nate, my man, what say I go tell you the story about the time I scared off a grizzly bear?"
"Really?" Nate said. Maria supposed it was a story that never got old for Nate.
Dan chuckled. "Really."
''Ms. Fischer could take a shower and change clothes and then we'll have a midnight dinner."
"That sounds great," Maria said.
The shower was luxurious. A large head poured water down into a spacious Jacuzzi tub set within an ornate three-walled tile enclosure. It had a striking floral shower curtain with rose and blue. In seconds she felt drowsy and lost track of time as the water relaxed her. Leaning forward, she let the liquid heat roll down the back of her neck. Then for some reason she came to with a start and looked to the side. She was almost certain she had seen the bathroom door closing. But it was locked. Perhaps it was Pepacita. Couldn't have been Dan. But she thought she saw a hand. And it didn't seem like it was Pepacita's. After trying to reconstruct the fleeting memory, she realized that she was so tired she could be imagining things.
Although she sensed he would not spy on her, and tried to convince herself it couldn't have been Dan, it still unnerved her. Then she decided he might have forgotten something. He was such an independent type maybe he would do something uncouth like grab something out of the bathroom on impulse. Then she thought about it and remembered him putting his arm around her when the car was dangling. She remembered the firm security of it. If he did open the door, he meant her no harm and no disrespect. If it actually happened and it was him, he had a reason. But what would justify that?
Too tired to make an issue of it, or to figure it out, she went back to her reverie, content that if anyone was present they were gone now. When she was out and dried, Pepacita passed her everything she needed, including a pair of jeans and a blouse that fit perfectly. Even the bra was her size. She made her way from the bathroom back to the kitchen, where she saw Pepacita setting the chicken piccata on plates and neatly arranging the vegetables.
"I'll be right back." Once again Pepacita disappeared down the hallway.
Nate came wandering in. Maria walked to the table for one more bite of smoked salmon, when there was a noise at the back door. In an instant the house became pitch black. Then came a crash so forceful she thought it an explosion; black turned to bright whiteness, a giant sheet of flame burned into her face, leaving sparkles of light dancing in front of her eyes. As she fell to the floor, it felt as though someone had violently clapped their hands over her ears. Her body hit the oak flooring and rolled. There was no pain. She tried to remember where Nate was.
"Call an ambulance." She heard a faraway voice, and as soon as she heard it, her head exploded in a throbbing ache. "Call an ambulance."
She shook herself, struggling to regain her senses, trying to see something other than sparklers. She remembered standing in the family room. Now she was lying flat on the floor. Sounds seemed to travel down a long tunnel. Trying to touch the fingers of her right hand to those of her left, she felt-if she could make the contact-as though she would be able to put together her memory of standing in the room and the current certainty that she was now on the floor. Nothing connected.
She heard herself say aloud: "Where's Nate?"
"He's right here. He was farther back. He's shook up, but I think he'll be OK. That's more than I can say for the bastards who did this."
She saw a strange oblong head looking down at her. It was very fuzzy and indistinct and there were still myriad points of light in front of her eyes. "My head hurts."
"I know." Dan's hand smoothed her brow. Clasping his hand in hers felt good.
His face began to come into focus. Then Nate's. Dan had his arm around him and was holding him to his chest. Nate was looking a little bewildered, but then his dad gently shook him and he smiled.
"Those guys must have thought it was the Fourth of July, Nate."
"What blew up?" Nate said.
"On TV they call them stun grenades. And I'd say Ms. Fischer here was certainly stunned."
"My chest hurts-my purse."
"It's on the floor over there."
"Is the photo there? The papers?"
''Could you hand it to me?'' Dan said to a frantic Pepacita, who was studying Nate.
"Are they there?" Maria asked anxiously. "I'm scared," Nate said. She could see Dan still holding him close.
Dan shuffled through the purse with his free hand. "Gone," he said. "They wanted them so bad they came right in after them."
Finally Maria managed, with Dan's help, to sit up.
"This is a home, for God's sake," Dan said.
"Well, they didn't get what they wanted."
"What?" Dan said.
"I'll tell you later," she said. "I can see both your faces now. What a relief."
"Tell me now."
''OK, OK. I took pictures of the pages with your camera.''
"Brilliant. The ambulance will be here in a minute."