“Simon,” I said calmly, “tell Esterbud I’ll meet him at Fini at six. I think I’m capable of driving my own goddamn car to my own goddamn job. But thank you for caring.”
I pushed the end button on my cell phone, cutting him off mid-word. It wasn’t a nice word.
The yellow cat toyed with its little object, tossing it my way, chasing it, reclaiming it with the glee of a kitten. The first sign of real life I’d seen from him.
Why was Simon so flipped out, I wondered, turning off my phone. Was Savannah really so dangerous? Was she on to me? Or did he just not like having his plans messed with?
I went to the window. The light was fading. It was almost the shortest day of the year. In the distance I heard a high-pitched voice. Emma, skipping toward the Range Rover.
The outdoor lights popped on, the little ones that illuminated the footpath. The late afternoon was coming to life now: the singing of the child, the playfulness of the cat. He flopped onto his back, showing me his stomach as he played with his toy. I thought of the Oriental fire-bellied toad, Bombina orientalis, his body green for everyday life. When push comes to shove, he flips over, arching his back and exposing his red belly, threatening predators with poison.
How angry Simon had been. You never really knew someone until you pissed them off. People’s styles of rage were so personal. As individual as sex.
I felt like someone had kicked me. What was I thinking? My God, if I pulled it off tonight, my own evidence-gathering mission, we would never have sex. I would never kiss Simon Alexander again.
I had to sit to absorb this. There would be no going back. He would never kiss a whistle-blower, someone who’d gone behind his back, to the cops, to the press. But how could I want to kiss someone willing to sacrifice my friend Annika?
But I did want to.
The room grew cold.
Emma’s singing was stopped by the slam of a car door and the sound of an engine starting. I moved to the fire, thinking of the song still going on inside the Range Rover. What was it about being three that made you sing the same song over and over?
Not three, though. Two and three-quarters. Fractions. Math. It was everywhere.
It’s strange how a mind works, how you can puzzle over something, a riddle, a song lyric, a poem… and then you relax and look away for a moment and things slide into place like thread across a loom, revealing the pattern you hadn’t seen before. Maybe that’s all math is, a design. Maybe if I’d done the math…
I thought of Emma saying, “Two and three-quarters,” and her mother saying, “Two and eleven-twelfths. Santa brought you to me,” and my own mother saying, “Christmas. Jesus was a Capricorn, didn’t you ever hear that?”
My breathing changed. The coldness in the pit of my stomach spread to my intestines and down my legs.
The yellow cat threw his toy in the air, the paws tossing it like a volleyball. It landed at my feet. I looked at it. It was a strange-looking thing, no bigger than a thumbnail, but thick. I’d been watching it for minutes, ever since I walked in, seeing something flash bright in the firelight. I reached down to touch it with my fingertip.
It was hard and dry and gray.
I drew my hand back.
It was an earlobe. The small, once soft end of an ear. In it was a gold stud earring. Embedded with a red gem. A ruby.
A gold stud earring I’d seen once before, worn by Rico Rodriguez.
I felt a burning in my eyes. The coldness inside me turned to nausea.
I heard the crunch of leaves outside. I saw the doorknob turn. I watched the door open and Maizie Quinn come into the studio.
39
“No luck,” Maizie said, locking the door behind her. “But I thought of one more place the pill might be. I’m sure I didn’t toss it, and it’s not like I mailed it to Annika’s mother.”
I snapped out of my paralysis and pushed the earlobe aside with my foot. The yellow cat, thinking it was a game, bunched himself up, swaying, ready to pounce. I stepped lightly on the earlobe, covering it with my sneaker.
“Check this out.” Maizie bent down to a braided area rug and moved it aside. “I designed it and, I have to admit, I’m pretty proud of it.”
She knelt on the white floor and counted tiles. She found the one she wanted, pushed on one end with her thumb, then lifted it out to reveal an aluminum-like surface underneath. A metal ring rested in the aluminum. She hooked her finger through it and pulled. A section of floor lifted up and became a trapdoor.
She stood and smiled, gesturing to the open door. “After you,” she said.
I thought of Seth, the Krav Maga instructor, and something he’d said in class: “Don’t get in their car.” I hadn’t understood it then, but now it was obvious, which was funny because this wasn’t a car but an underground room Maizie was inviting me into. I knew that going down there was a bad idea. Bad, bad, bad.
“Wollie?” She seemed not to notice that I hadn’t said a word since she’d walked in.
I stepped forward and looked down. A light had gone on automatically, revealing a spiral staircase of polished oak. Spiral staircases, Fredreeq said, were bad feng shui.
The yellow cat nuzzled my foot.
Maizie was waiting. Smiling.
“I’d rather not,” I said. “I get… claustrophobic.” It wasn’t a lie. I’d never been before, but now I had a profound need to be outside and far away.
“Wollie, it’s incredible. I have something so similar, with airplane cabins. Severe. I can’t fly, not for all the tea in China-it’s not flight itself, it’s the closed cabin. Believe me, you’ll like this.” Maizie put a hand on my arm, guiding me toward the trapdoor.
I kicked the earlob aside, talking loudly to mask the sound of its journey across the tile. “It’s not claustrophobia, technically, it’s-” I searched through what was available of my brain. “Spelunkophobia. Fear of caves. Basements, subways. Rec rooms.”
“Try it. If you hate it, we’ll come back up. Cat! Leave that alone, the primer isn’t dry.”
I turned to see the cat batting at the torso of a wooden reindeer leaning against a counter. The earlobe must’ve landed behind it.
I should run for it. Maizie stood between the door and me, but I could just barrel over her. We were probably in the same weight class, although I had two inches on her, even given her high heels. But she looked solid whereas I was a jellyfish. And there’d be no going back. There’s no alternative scenario, no polite reason for bashing into someone. Once you do it, from then on it’s all about who’s stronger, who’s meaner, who’s been to the gym more. And that wouldn’t be me.
But I couldn’t go down that staircase. Only an idiot would go down there.
Unless she had a gun.
She did have a gun.
It was in her apron pocket, not even hiding. Part of the outfit. Had it always been there, or had she gone to the house for it?
Okay, once a gun shows up, the rules change. Don’t they? Wasn’t it better for the gun to stay in her pocket than get pointed at me?
She was looking at me. Her hand went to her pocket.
“Maizie!” My voice was shrill. “I’ll do it. Before I lose my nerve. Feel the fear and do it anyway. I think that was the name of a book. Anyway, I love to see how other people do their houses. Did you design all this yourself? I think your husband mentioned that you did.”
“That’s right, you met Gene.” The cat knocked over the reindeer torso. Freaked out, he raced across the room. Maizie grabbed him. She walked toward me, the cat wiggling and mewing, wanting to get back to the earlobe. Rico’s earlobe. The earlobe of Rico Rodriguez.
The cat was no match for Maizie Quinn. Nor was I. She held him in one hand, the other hand in easy reach of her gun. The three of us were going down.