Page 27 of Truth, Lies, and Second Dates
The springs
The weather
The way I regress to a dim teenager whenever I’m here
The way someone I care about got murdered here
The lack of edible bibimbap
The fucking weather
“A mistake?” she cried as Dr. Tom Baker hurried into the alley behind the restaurant. For a moment, she was sure he was going to bang his hip on the dumpster—could almost hear the thud—but he avoided it at the last second. “This psycho fuckmuppet didn’t just kill my friend, he missed? And then came back years later? And might want to fix his mistake? Because he didn’t think he was enough of a gutless monster? His murder bingo card still has some slots left?”
“Yes,” he said, handing her a doggy bag and her purse.
“Jesus!” She snatched her purse and started rooting throughit. She knew she had a small packet of Kleenex, but by the Law of Purses, she wouldn’t be able to immediately find it. “And before you say anything, I didn’t almost barf like some wimpy dolt.”
“That’s correct. It was a dry heave.”
“It was the dill in my salmon scramble! It threw me off.”
“Dill: the most diabolical herb.”
She jerked her head up to stare at him and smiled in spite of herself. “No, that’d be cilantro. Who was the idiot who ate leaves that tasted like dish soap and declared, ‘You know what we oughta do? Put this in a bunch of food!’? Ha! Got you, you little sucker.” She grabbed a Kleenex and scrubbed her lips, then began what she suspected would be a vain search for Chapstick. “I hate this.”
“A simple organizational system would make your handbag more manageable.”
“No, I hate Minnesota.”
“To be fair, killers operate everywhere.”
“If you’re trying to cheer me up, it isn’t working.”
“I am not trying to cheer you up.”
“And if you’re trying to talk up Minnesota italsoisn’t working.” No Chapstick, but she did have a small dirty pot of Carmex, Satan’s moisturizer, which she applied, then resisted the urge to scrub off. “Okay, you gotta tell me everything,” she said, almost gagging at the taste of Carmex. “Beginning to end. Starting with how you knew about Danielle—I know I didn’t talk about her last night.”
“No, when I got home after our, ah, time together, I looked you up. I had recognized you from the Captain Bellyflopper stories—”
“Argh.”
“—but didn’t know you’d been involved in a murder when you were seventeen.”
“Involvedisn’t the right word, I think, but whatever. Can we get out of here?”
“I believe we have,” he said, gesturing to the alley.
“No, I mean leave the restaurant—”
“But wehaveleft—”
“—and go somewhere else and you can give me the scoop?”
“It seems odd to linger,” he admitted, adding, “especially as we’ve finished our meal.”
“Yes. Right. Exactly. Inefficient to lurk and gag in alleys. C’mon. We’re gonna go somewhere private and where my dry heaves will attract no undue attention and you’re gonna tell me all the stuff I’ve studiedly ignored for the last decade and—and—”
“Yes?” His dark gaze never wavered; he just stood there holding her salmon scramble and waiting for her to finish, all tall and dark and broad-shouldered and intense and annoying.
