Petra gets out of the shower, then wanders into Boone's bedroom, telling herself she's going to catch a quick nap, but really to snoop.
No, not snoop, she thinks.
Simply to find out a little more about the man.
Like the rest of the place, the bedroom is neat and clean. Nothing remarkable about it, save for the fishing pole sticking out of the window, except…
Books.
Used paperbacks on a bedside table and in a small bookcase in the corner. Some stacked by the bed. And not just the sports books or crime novels that she might have expected if she thought that he actually read, but genuine literature-Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Gorky. Over in the corner is a stack of-Can it be? she thinks-Trollope. Our oceangoing nature boy is a crypto-Phineas Finn?
She thinks of all the little jibes she's given him all day about being an uneducated philistine, then thinks about the books that are stacked on her bedside table-trashy romance novels and bodice rippers that she doesn't have to read anyway. And he's been having me on all day, his private little joke.
Bastard.
She keeps snooping.
There's a small desk in the corner, with a computer and terminal on it. Guiltily, she slides the desk drawer open and sees photographs of a little girl.
A darling, almost a stereotype of your classic California girl-blond hair, big blue eyes, a spray of freckles across her cheeks. She's looking directly into the camera without a trace of self-consciousness. A happy little girl.
Petra picks up the photo and sees the little nameplate at the edge of the frame.