Page 80 of A Wolf After My Own Heart
“Hey!” From the escalator. “You want a ride?”
“Ha!” To Magnus: “Finally a bluff I can call. She can’t leave without me.”
“Er…lad…”
Oz could tell what had happened from Berne’s expression; there was no need to look. He looked anyway; Lila was waving his car keys at him from the escalator.Oh, who am I kidding? She probably knows how to hot wire anything with an engine. Probably could have taken the plane, too.
“Like I said, lad: Good luck.”
With that, Oz collected his keys and his dignity, then drove them back to Lilydale while Lila played with his radio and mocked his taste in music. He poked her back because (1) it was clear neither of them were ready to talk about what they hadn’t found in Iowa, and (2) anyone who liked Katy Perry that much deserved mockery.
But now, in her kitchen, the subject needed to be broached, and not just because Annette was there.
“That’s the new theory?” she asked, hanging up her raincoat on one of the pegs by the door.
“Huh.” Lila was giving the slicker a critical once-over. “I didn’t take you for a fan of salmon pink, Garsea.”
“No one is more surprised than I am. Well. Maybe Nadia. But the color has grown on me. Like lichen! You see, about six months ago—”9
“I don’t actually need the backstory on why you wear a pink raincoat when it’s not raining. Plus, laundry.”
Annette, Oz was glad to see, was also surprised by Lila’s abrupt segues. “It’s your laundry day?”
“No.”
“Okaaaaaay.” Then, as Lila left to…notdo her laundry? “So tell me.”
Oz sighed. “You’re not gonna like it.”
“I have no doubt.”
“Sometime between takeoff and Iowa, Sam Smalls got off that plane.”
“Well, hell.” Garsea sat at the table and nibbled her lip.
“Why did I think that trip would clear anything up?” he groaned, slumping into the chair opposite her. “Why do I think anything I’ve done on this case will clear anything up?”
He braced himself for “I told you so” and was pleasantly flabbergasted when Annette flashed him a sympathetic smile. “Some cases are like that. You’ve heard me make the same complaint.”
“I dunno, you complain all the time. Sometimes it’s hard to narrow ’em down.”
“Har, har. All I’m saying is I know our work can be problematic. You dig and dig but all you raise are more questions. You think you’ll never figure it out or, worse, youwillfigure it out, but nothing can be done to help the cubs in question. If David was here, he’d tell you the same thing.”
Is she talking about Opal?Because once upon a time, IPA had discovered neglect and abuse, but not in time to save Opal Adway. Only her brother. And there had been many dark days (several spent in the purple house up the street) when he doubted hehadbeen saved.
“You kick over rock after rock,” she continued. “You reread your files until the letters don’t make sense anymore and kick more rocks. But sometimes, when you can’t see anything besides your mistakes, when the night is darkest, you stumble over the right rock, and now I hear it, I’m mixing my metaphors when all I meant to say was hang tough.”
While she spoke, Annette had casually risen, casually sidled over to the stove, casually eyeballed the big black pot simmering away, casually reached for the small spoon
“Ouch!”
and casually got her knuckles rapped.
“Sorry.” From Lila. “Macropi made me promise to keep you out of it ’til suppertime.”
“When is that?” Annette whined.
“I’ve no idea. Macropi didn’t tell me when supper would be served in my kitchen.”
