“I agree,” Gretchen said. “Steve’s going to be away from Boston for a few days, and it doesn’t make sense for me to go home now. I can’t leave you here alone with some psychopath running loose.”
She hoped Nina wouldn’t pursue a discussion of Steve. She wasn’t anxious to share her confused feelings with her aunt. Her emotions were too close to the surface, and she needed time to think about what she wanted to do next.
Nina was too delighted when she learned of Gretchen’s change of plans to follow up with any comments about Steve. “Let’s get started then. The key, obviously, is important. Important enough to risk breaking and entering.”
“But the thief wants us to know he’s angry.”
“Or she,” Nina said. “I still think we need to watch April more carefully. My aura might be off, but every time I’m around her, I get mixed signals and a confusing blend of colors.”
“And how about Bonnie?” Gretchen said. “She was lying about the Rescue Mission.”
Nina held up her copy of Martha’s hidden key. “Let’s start with April and Bonnie and see if this fits in either one of their door locks.”
A flash of lightning struck nearby, and Nimrod’s ears flattened to his head. His tiny poodle body shook violently, and Gretchen picked him up. “It’s storming outside. Can’t we wait until it passes?”
“During monsoon season in Phoenix?” Nina said. “It’ll continue to storm at least until midnight. Besides, we can use the rain and darkness as cover.”
“Great. Just what I want to do. Stand in the rain.”
“Slink around in the rain,” Nina corrected her, ignoring the sarcasm. “We are going to slink like an Arizona rattlesnake.”
They drove toward Tempe, taking one detour after another to escape entrapment in flooded washes. On the left side of the road, coyotes appeared in the Impala’s headlights, gaunt, running loosely in a pack, eyes red and glaring. Their heads swung in unison to look at the car, but they continued moving on through the spears of rain.
The windshield wipers slapped against the window in high gear. Occasionally, Nina pulled over to the side of the road until visibility returned. At times, all they could see ahead of them were taillights and streams of water rushing down the windshield.
April’s modest home came into view through the descending gloom. Nina parked across the street and killed the lights, and Gretchen saw April’s car parked in the carport. Through the rapidly fogging windshield of the Impala they watched an undulating glow behind April’s front curtain.
“She’s watching television in the dark,” Nina said, rubbing her palm in a circle on the driver’s window to clear her view. “This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”
Gretchen clutched the key. “Only one of us needs to go,” she said, watching April’s window for movement.
“You can,” Nina said, looking away.
“Who’s idea was this in the first place?”
Rain hammered on the roof of the car, reminding Gretchen of one Boston hailstorm so intense that it pounded circular dents into the hood of Steve’s Porche.
“I have an umbrella,” Nina said, reaching onto the backseat floor and pulling out a long white umbrella with pink polka dots. She handed it to Gretchen.
“Pink and white? How can I hide with this?” Gretchen cast a dubious expression Nina’s way. She tossed the umbrella into the backseat and quickly jumped out into the rain. Sometimes, she thought, you have to take a deep breath and plunge in, like a dive into frigid water. The longer you wait, the harder it is to go through with it.
Her flip-flops splashed through sheets of water, and her hair hung from her face in dripping strands even before she made it to the first porch step. She clomped under an overhang and flattened against the brick wall, wiping water from her face and listening to the sound of the television, muted by the pounding rain. The light through the window flickered.
She edged over and risked a peak between the curtains. April’s enormous frame covered her sagging sofa, and in the glow from the screen, Gretchen could tell that she was fast asleep, eyes closed, mouth hanging wide open.
She wiggled back to the front door, careful to stay under the protection of the eave, although she wasn’t sure why she bothered, since she was soaked to the skin. She tried to slide the key into the lock.
It didn’t fit.
In one mad rush, she lunged back to the car. Nina, encased in fogged windows, searched Gretchen’s face. “Well?” she said.
“It isn’t April’s key.”
“You didn’t try the back door.”
“The back door?”
“We have to be thorough,” Nina said.
“We?” Gretchen was annoyed by Nina’s use of a plural noun to describe a singular act. It wasn’t as though Nina was making a significant contribution. “We?” she said again. “Remember what you said? We are going to slink around in the rain like a rattlesnake. Your turn.”
“Don’t be silly,” Nina said, crossing her arms in protest. “You’re already wet. And rattlesnakes know better than to slink around in the rain.”
Gretchen climbed up on the seat and reached into the back for the umbrella. “April’s sleeping. I’m through slinking.”
She made her way carefully over the AstroTurf in April’s yard and circled around the back. Lightning struck nearby, too close for comfort, and Gretchen hoped her umbrella wasn’t the tallest structure in the vicinity. Not a single tree or large shrub grew near April’s yard. Aside from an antenna on top of the house, she held the only other lightning rod around. With her recent streak of bad luck, electrocution was a distinct possibility.
She hurried to the back door and transferred the umbrella to her left hand, hooking it with her thumb, which protruded from the cast. The umbrella swayed and tipped out of her hand, falling to the ground. Abandoning it, she fumbled in her pocket for the key, retrieved it, and tried it in the lock. It didn’t fit.
As she bent in the rain to pick up the umbrella and make a speedy exit, she heard the back door squeak open. She straightened. April’s face loomed in front of her.
“Thought I heard something out here,” April said. “What you coming to the back door for when the front’s so much closer? And look at you, you’re soaked through. Come on in.” April held the door open.
“I’m too wet,” Gretchen said. “I’ll come back later.”
“Nonsense, girl, I’ll get you a towel. Well, come on.”
While April went for the towel, Gretchen stood in front of the window, hoping Nina was paying attention and had spotted her. She turned and swept her eyes over the clutter in the room. Miniature dolls scattered over the tables, empty bags of chips, a collection of soda cans on the coffee table.
Overnight bag still on the floor with its contents thrown carelessly on top.
Gretchen realized that the overnight bag could have been on the floor a long time. Judging from April’s nonexistent housekeeping skills, her earlier assumption that the bag had been used recently could have been wrong.
“How are you feeling?” she asked when April handed her the towel.
“This valley fever has me feeling awful,” April said, coughing and sinking back into the sofa. She looked ashen and languid, and Gretchen couldn’t help but believe that she really was ill. April probably did suffer from Phoenix’s infamous lung infection. She hadn’t been away on some furtive mission after all.
While toweling dry the best she could, Gretchen told April everything-about the break-in, Martha’s bag, the key, and the hung doll. As she talked, April sat up straighter.
“Hanging a doll is scary business,” she said. “You better go back to Boston until this is cleared up. You might be in danger.”
“Someone is trying to scare me off. I can’t let them win. I need to know who else you told about Martha’s bag.”