Toni smiled as she unlatched the box and flipped the lid open, and then all hell broke loose.
Toni screamed and pushed back from the table so fast that her chair fell over backward when she stood up. She knocked her teacup over, and it spilled on the table and dripped onto the floor. I was sitting at the other end of the conference table and couldn’t see what was happening, so I jumped up as well. I could feel the adrenalin surging through my body. I moved to the side so that I could see over the lid into the box of donuts. At that moment, an enormous, black, hairy tarantula stepped gracefully across the top of an apple fritter to the edge of the box and stopped. It waved an arm in Toni’s direction as it looked for a place to take another step.
“Oh my God!” Toni said. Her eyes were wide open-she had a look of abject horror on her pale face as she stared at the spider. She tried to retreat further from the table, but her chair was blocking her way.
“What the-?” I started to say, when Kenny suddenly burst out laughing.
I looked at him, then at the spider, then back at him.
Toni glanced quickly at Kenny, then looked back at the spider, which was still in the same position, waving at her, apparently unable to figure out how to get down from the top of the box to the table.
“Did you-?” Toni sputtered.
Kenny laughed hysterically, nodding his head up and down. “I got you!” he managed to say, tears starting to run down his face.
“You got me?” she asked, incredulously. “You got me? You put a spider in the donuts?”
Kenny was still nodding. “I did,” he managed to say, stopping his laughing long enough to answer. “Still want an apple fritter?” He started laughing uncontrollably again. He was barely able to stand.
I looked over at Doc. He was doing his best not to laugh, but he looked like he was about to blow any second. Even Richard was chuckling to himself.
I relaxed and shook my head and started to laugh.
“You little bastard,” Toni said, regaining her senses, the start of a smile on her face.
“I got you,” Kenny said.
Toni kept a wary eye on the spider, but she nodded. “Okay,” she said, nodding slowly. “You win. This one.”
“What do you mean ‘this one’?” Kenny said. “I owed you. Now we’re even.”
Toni looked at him. “You think?”
“Yeah, we’re even.”
She smiled a wicked, nasty smile that probably should have scared him. “You’re right,” she said, with false sweetness. “We are even.” She looked up at him. “And you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Uh-oh for you, dude,” Doc said to Kenny. “I told you she’d be pissed-payback’s a bitch.”
I smiled. “What are you going to do with that thing now?” I asked.
Doc reached over and placed his hand flat in front of the spider. The tarantula, looking like he’d been standing on a curb waiting for a taxi, immediately stepped aboard.
“Eeww!” Toni said.
“Guess he’s tired of donuts,” Doc said. He looked at Kenny. “You still got the cage in your office?”
“Great,” I said. “Let’s get this crap cleaned up, and we’ll try this again at 8:15.”
Fifteen minutes later, the spider was safely back in his cage in Doc’s office. Turns out he belonged to one of Pri’s nephews. Doc had been babysitting when Kenny came over and was inspired by the possibilities. He actually paid fifty dollars to rent the spider.
We reassembled back in the conference room, where Toni had cleaned everything up.
“That was fun,” I said, smiling, after we were all seated.
“Oh, bucket loads,” Toni said. “Good prank.” Kenny wore a smug smile, satisfied with himself.
“We all done with the fun and games? Okay. Moving on to business,” I said. As soon as I had everyone’s attention, I started. “First off, I checked this morning before I came in. No news on Isabel. She’s still listed in critical condition in ICU.”
“Do they know what the problem is?” Kenny asked.
“They say her miscarriage led to an infection. Her body reacted badly to the infection, and it triggered a condition called sepsis. Sepsis is apparently very serious.”
Doc said, “Pri says that with sepsis, it might take a week or maybe more before they’ll even know for sure if she can pull through. Even then, she could be hospitalized for maybe a month.”
“Well, say your prayers for her,” I said. “Isabel’s been through too much as it is.”
We spent the rest of the meeting outlining our duties and roles in the upcoming Ferguson and Sons surveillance job. The retainer check had arrived in the mail over the weekend-just in time to keep me from having to dip into the reserves. We were scheduled to begin installing hidden cameras later that evening. It would be nice to have things back to normal.
After the meeting, I called Toni into my office. I closed the door when she came in.
“Uh-oh,” she said, smiling, as we sat down. “Am I getting fired?”
“Nope,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“What? You didn’t get your fill of me over the weekend?” she asked.
I smiled and shook my head. “No. How ’bout you? You sick of me yet?”
“You kidding? I can barely stand you.”
I smiled. “You look really pretty today.”
She smiled. “Thank you,” she said. She paused and then said, “Just today?”
“Let me rephrase. You look beautiful. Every day.”
“Why, thank you.”
I continued. “Yesterday, when I got home, I had the chance to do some thinking,” I said.
“In addition to all the other thinking you did over the weekend,” Toni said.
“Will you stop and let me finish?”
“Sorry.”
I looked at her. “I was with you all weekend long and an hour after you’d left, I found myself missing you.”
“Go figure,” she said.
“Exactly. So I started asking myself ‘what’s up with that?’ See, whenever I’ve been with someone in the past, and I knew that they’d be leaving soon-well, that was pretty much a good thing. A relief. I’m a pretty private guy, and I like my space. Now, though, with you-I’m to the point where just knowing you’re going to be leaving-like yesterday afternoon-well, it really sucks. And you actually leaving-like last night-well, that’s even worse. I don’t like it.”
She smiled. “So you’re saying you like me?”
“No,” I said. I stood up and walked over to her. “I’m saying it took us five years to get together. Silly me. But it’s only taken me three months to realize that I’ve fallen in love with you. I’m flat crazy about you, Toni. And I think I’m getting more that way every day. That’s it.”
She smiled and stood up. “So you’re saying-”
“I love you, Toni.”
She looked at me, and her eyes started to moisten. Then she smiled. “Me, too,” she said, quietly. “I love you, too, Danny Logan.”
I stepped forward and took her in my arms. We hugged for a solid minute, saying nothing. Then I pushed back just far enough to kiss her softly.
“Wait,” I said after a few seconds. “I’m not done. I wanted to give you a present.”
“A present?” she said, sniffling, “This is good. Presents are good.”
I turned and picked up a small box on my desk. I handed it to her.
“Whoa. What’s this?” she asked, looking at me warily.
“Open it and find out.”
She fiddled with the lid, got it off, and then pulled out a shiny gold key. She held it up, knowing immediately what it was.
“When you’re over at my place,” I said, “I don’t want to have to suddenly start worrying anymore about you leaving to go home. I want you to already be home. Us-together.”
She looked at me. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?” she asked.
I nodded. “I am definitely ready. I want you to move in with me. I want us to be together.”
She was quiet for several seconds. Then she said, “I’ve been thinking about this, too. Maybe you’d better sit back down.”
Oh, shit. That didn’t sound good. Could I have misjudged this thing really badly? I took a seat.