The taxi’s meter read $17.40 when we reached Kay’s shop. I told the driver to wait while I stepped inside for some money. The dogs followed me onto the streaming pavement, and the steady drizzle re-plastered my hair to skull.
Inside, Kay and a broad-shouldered man were gazing down at a blueprint spread on the sales counter. As the door opened he was saying, “—going to take all my tricks to make a space that seats over three hundred feel like a cozy English tea room. These may well be the most tasteless people who have ever bespoken my services.” At the jangle of the bell over the door, he looked over his shoulder. It was Kay’s friend Ambrose. His lips twitched as he took in my bedraggled appearance. “Ah, Louisa, how delightful to see you.”
“Um, hi. Kay, I need—” Emily Ann surged forward to greet Ambrose, pulling me and Jack with her. “Emily Ann, wait,” I said, leaning over to snap the leash from her collar and unwind it from Jack’s. Both dogs rushed to Ambrose, and Emily Ann leaned on him adoringly. Fortunately her ultra short hair didn’t hold much water and his natty clothing—today a taupe silk turtleneck and brown slacks topped with a brown tweed vest shot through with threads in amethyst, navy and emerald—was none the worse for her attentions.
Ambrose patted her enthusiastically before turning to Jack. “Well hello, you handsome boy,” he said. Jack accepted a pat on the head, then danced and bucked his way to Kay. She stooped to pick up his long ears and held them straight up. “Jack, sweetie!” she crooned. “Is he just an old bunny? Who’s the rabbit? Who’s got the bunny ears?”
“Kay, I need some—”
She dropped Jack’s ears, gave his butt a pat, and straightened to look at me. “Jeez, Lou, what the hell have you been doing?” Her eyebrows shot up. “You look like you’ve been on one of those awful TV reality shows. And lost.”
“I need seventeen dollars to pay for the cab,” I said.
“Cab? What cab? Where’s your car?”
Ambrose headed for the door. “I've got it,” he said. I started to protest. “No, no, my treat, dear Louisa,” he said. Through the window we saw him pull money from his pocket and hand it in to the cab driver. He straightened and gave a little wave, and hurried back inside.
“I'll be on my way for now,” he said to Kay. “Could you lunch on Thursday to talk more about my little project?”
She nodded. “Latish would be good for me, say one thirty. Meet at the Bluebird?”
“Wonderful. That sounds perfect. Louisa, I hope to see you again soon,” and he was out the door once more. He paused while closing the door, stuck his head back in and said, “Kay, thanks for letting the guys pick up that piece so early this morning.”
“You bet,” she said. When he was gone she turned to me. “Louisa, are you okay? You look like a drowned rat. Where is your car? Is this part of the Bob thing?”
“I'm all right, I'm just wet.”
“What happened?”
“I went to Bob’s house to see if he was back, and I looked out and saw a guy searching my car. The dogs and I ran away through the woods and we found an old barn and the guy followed us and we had to hide behind some hay bales. Then we got lost in suburbia and when I finally found a phone I called a cab and came here. What time is it, anyway?”
Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times but for once Kay was at a loss for words. “Almost eleven,” she said at last.
“No wonder I'm so hungry.” I gave an involuntary shiver. My clothes had reached a perfection of clamminess, and my shoes made little slurping noises with every move. “All I had before I left home was some juice.”
“You’re soaked through,” she fussed, reaching over to feel the sleeve of my soggy sweatshirt. “Go upstairs, take a shower and put on something dry. After that you can tell me what happened. Go on, I'll take care of the dogs.”
I obeyed, my climb up the steps to her apartment slowed by the heavy tiredness that comes after an overload of adrenalin. I went to the tiny back bedroom where I sometimes spend the night. I’d left a few clothes in the closet, and it was utter luxury to be able to grab dry jeans, a soft old cotton sweater, clean socks and underwear to change into. I stayed in the shower long enough for the hot water to loosen my neck muscles, cranking up the heat every few minutes. When I emerged Kay was at the kitchen counter constructing sandwiches, the two dogs nearby, waiting for any scraps that might fall.
My stomach gave a lurch at the sight of the food. I hurried across the room. “You may have just saved my life,” I breathed, grabbing one and talking through a big bite. I tasted Swiss cheese and toasted walnuts and a little tomato chutney.
“Well, that was easy.” She frowned at me. “Now swallow that, and tell me what is going on.”
I held up one finger as I bit off more. Chewing, I reached into a nearby cabinet for a glass, which I filled with milk. I'd never have a better day for comfort food. I took a swig, then set the glass back down. “Like I said, I went to Bob’s to see if he’d come back. I spent a few minutes checking out the house, and when I was in the kitchen Jack ran in looking scared. I looked out front and a guy was searching my car.”
“Why didn’t you call the cops?” she demanded.
I hate sentences that start out with “why didn’t you.” You’re on the defensive before you even open your mouth. “It looked like he had a gun—”
“A gun! Are you sure?”
“I thought he did. He’d tucked it into his waistband. He started toward the house, and I didn’t have time to do anything but run. We left out the back door and ran into the woods.”
She made an exasperated noise I knew well. “That’s even more reason to call the police!”
“Kay, a guy with a gun was coming to the door. I was afraid. I didn’t think of picking up the phone, I just got the hell out of there.”
“Okay, okay, I can see that. Especially after Bob took off last night. Anybody would have been spooked.”
“Exactly.”
“But even if running into the woods seemed like the right thing to do, you could have called the cops or me for that matter while you were running away. Where the hell was the cell phone I gave you?”
“It’s in the glove box of my car,” I said sheepishly.
She threw up her hands and gave a disgusted snort. “You and your thing about phones. They are useful, modern devices that can save you a great deal of trouble.”
“Okay, okay,” I tried to placate her.
“All right, sit down. I want to hear everything in more detail.” She put the other sandwich on a plate and picked it up.
“Can’t I have another sandwich?” I tried to keep the whine out of my voice. “I didn’t have any breakfast. I figured I'd go to Bob’s for two seconds and eat afterwards.”
“All right, take this one,” she said, thrusting the plate into my hands and turning back to make another for herself. I refilled my glass and took that and the plate to the table. My usual chair, to the right of Kay’s at the head of the table, had yesterday’s High Cross paper in it. I moved the paper to the recycling bin and sat down, taking another big bite. By the time I finished chewing, Kay had joined me with her sandwich, a glass of iced tea, and a crystal water glass filled with carrot sticks. I pulled one out and crunched it.
“What kind of gun was it?” she asked, picking up her tea. She sipped, waiting for my answer.
“I don’t know. A gun. It was tucked into his waistband. I've never understood why a guy would do that. Aren’t they afraid it will go off and, um, injure them?”
“Wait a minute. You said you were in the kitchen, looking toward the front of the house, and you saw him outside by your car?” I nodded and she went on. “And from that distance you could tell he had a gun in his britches?”
“When he turned toward the house I saw the sun glint off of metal. At his waist.” The more I talked the less sure I was that I had ever seen the sun glint off anything in my life. I couldn’t remember if I had said anything about the sheers still being across the windows. Nothing would drag that detail out of me now.
“I thought it was raining.”
“It started after we ran away. Earlier it was sunny.”
“Louisa! It could have been his belt buckle or something! Jeez, I don’t believe this. You must have gotten really spooked last night.” She shook her head and picked up her sandwich.
“Well, I did,” I admitted. “And it's been more than twelve hours and I haven’t heard from Bob.”
“Have you checked your message machine at home this morning?” she said around a bite of sandwich.
I shook my head. “I haven’t been back home, remember? I came straight here.”
“Use my phone and call your machine and have it play your messages.”
“It can do that?”
She stared at me. “What planet have you been living on? Just call it up and when the machine picks up, punch in your code—” She broke off when she saw my expression. “You have no idea what your code is. Of course.”
I ate another carrot stick. Finally I said, “Can you drive me to Bob’s so I can get my car back? Or I guess I should call the police from here and tell them about the guy that chased me.”
“In a few minutes. First I want you to go over again what happened last night. You stopped at the Food Right, and he went in and you stayed in the car?” I nodded. “What time was this?”
“I wasn’t wearing my watch. We went to the four o’clock movie and had dinner out at the winery, so it was probably eight thirty or a little later.”
“How long before he came out?”
“Maybe five minutes. I don’t know. I was playing with the radio.”
“And he came out with a woman?”
I described again how they had been walking close together and gotten in the same side of the car, and that I had followed as soon as I was able to get into the driver’s seat.
“And you’re sure it was that Mercedes you followed all the way to the highway?” She took a bite of sandwich and frowned as she chewed.
“I'm sure,” I told her, “though I didn’t see if they got on the highway or went straight because I was busy with your police chief. Why do you ask?”
She swallowed. “He’s not my police chief. And I'm just grasping at straws. It's no wonder Ed couldn’t do anything, there’s nothing to get hold of. How about when you were at Bob’s house this morning? Did you see any clues?”
I shrugged. “How the heck would I know if something is a clue or not?”
“But you searched the house?” I nodded, and she asked, “What did you see?”
“He doesn’t own much stuff. Or maybe he didn’t move it all here from High Cross. I was sort of looking for his computer, in case he had contacts listed on it, but I didn’t find one.” I thought about Bob’s house. “I didn’t go through everything, but I didn’t see any pictures, no photos I mean, no letters, no bills even. I looked in his dresser—”
“Any interesting undies?” she asked brightly.
“No,” I made a face at her. “Just normal old boxers, although one pair did have pictures of canaries on the fabric. But they looked pretty new so maybe he doesn’t wear them.” I remembered the ostentatiously expensive silk briefs that my husband had preferred. Boxers with canaries on them seemed incredibly wholesome by comparison.
“How about his checkbook? If we got his old address in High Cross from the checks we might be able to find out something about him.”
Her question made me realize something. “You know, I've never seen him pay for anything that wasn’t with cash.” I thought back over the past two weeks. “I mean, I use my debit card all the time, and before that I always wrote checks. And I use my card to get cash at the ATM.”
Kay was nodding. “Hmm, no credit or debit cards used. Could it be a guy thing? How did Roger pay for stuff?”
“He preferred to have someone else pay if he could manage it. Otherwise he used his American Express card.”
“One more way Bob is nothing like Roger,” she said. “When someone is on the run in books and movies they avoid using cards for fear of being traced that way.”
“On the run?” I repeated. “What are you suggesting?”
She shrugged and gave me a quick look. “We don’t know a whole lot about Bob,” she said. “He could be anyone or anything. He seems to have plenty of free time, and he’s a little young to have retired. Maybe he’s a writer, and maybe he’s not. I think you’re wrong about him being a reporter. I couldn’t find anything on the Internet in any paper by someone with that name—”
“Kay! You looked him up on the Internet?” I decided not to mention that I had done the same thing.
“Of course. He has an awfully common name. It could be an alias.”
“If it is, he could actually be a reporter. Or the prince of a small Balkan country for all we know.”
“Right. A prince would be good, you could be Princess Louisa, that has a nice Victorian sound—” She broke off as I made gagging gestures, then went on, “—or maybe he’s independently wealthy like you and wants to keep it quiet—”
“Hardly wealthy,” I countered. “I just have low expenses. Having no house payment makes a big difference.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I like Bob, but being kidnapped out of a grocery store is not normal behavior, at least not for anyone I've ever known.”
This was a telling point; Kay’s circle of acquaintances is wide.
“I still think it's odd that I couldn’t find a computer,” I said. “How can anyone can be a writer these days without one?”
“That is strange. I guess some people still write in longhand but wouldn’t a freelance writer need to be online? Have you seen him with a laptop? How about in his car?” I shook my head, and she continued. “The prince theory is looking better. Could a laptop be what the guy was looking for in your car? Maybe Bob has files on one that he’s blackmailing someone with—”
I sat up straighter in my chair. “Bob is not blackmailing anyone,” I said, scowling at my cousin. “Maybe that man was a panhandler looking for loose change. Maybe—”
“Okay, okay, keep your shirt on,” she said. “I don’t think Bob’s a blackmailer. I'm just speculating. We know next to nothing about him, and only what he himself has told us.”
We ate in silence.
“How about the guy searching your car?” she finally asked.
“What about him?”
“What did he look like? Could he have been Bob?”
“No. Why would Bob search my car? Plus, this guy had a completely different body type, and anyway, Jack was really growling. He’d never growl at Bob. This guy was as tall as Bob but way wider.”
“Wider like fat?”
I shook my head. “No. Broad shoulders and long arms. He had on a sport coat and khakis, but you could put him in a gorilla suit and he’d be completely convincing.”
“And he really followed you?”
“Yes. I'm sure it was him. We found this old barn built into a hillside, and I was on the upper level when I heard someone downstairs. So we hid, and then the door opened upstairs just a few feet from where we were.”
“Good lord,” Kay breathed, patting her chest.
“Jack knew it was the same person. I've never heard him growl before. I was scared,” I admitted.
“Sheesh, I'm getting scared too. You hid behind some hay?”
I nodded, recalling the sheer terror I'd felt crammed behind those bales, waiting to be found by a large man with a gun in his waistband. Or a really shiny belt buckle. Either would have been enough to subdue me.
“How did you hide well enough that he couldn’t find you?”
“If he’d kept looking, he’d have found us.” I stopped and shuddered, remembering. “I was about to sneeze and had to pinch my nose shut.”
“Sneeze? Isn’t that kind of a cliché?”
“Totally,” I said, “but my nose has no shame. When I moved, one of the boards squeaked, and a mouse ran out and he must have thought that was the squeak. Oh, and then a dog barked outside, close by. And he left.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but I would have wet my pants if it had been me,” Kay admitted. “Not that I'd have run off in the first place, but still.”
I suddenly remembered what I'd been doing when I'd discovered the stranger going through my car. “Hey, I did find something at Bob’s house.” I reached into my pants pocket, which was empty. “It’s in my other jeans. Hang on.”
My discarded clothes lay in a damp heap on the bathroom floor. I fished the matchbook out of the pocket where I'd shoved it. It was quite wet.
“Uh oh,” I said aloud.
“What?” Kay demanded. I turned to find she had followed me.
“I found this on Bob’s kitchen table. A name and number are written inside, and now it’s wet.” I held up the matchbook.
She grabbed it and flipped it open. “Too dark here. Come on.” She hurried back to stand by the living room windows. “Still readable, I think,” she said, tilting it toward the light. “Luvie? Frieda?”
“Trixie,” I said, taking the matchbook back. “Do you think that could be the woman in red?”
“If it is, it would certainly put a different spin on things. Let’s call the number. Can you read it?”
“I think so,” I said, and gave her the digits. She went to the phone on the kitchen counter.
“Tell me the number again,” she commanded. She dialed, listened briefly, and made a face as she hung up.
“Busy. Damn. Hey, where’s the matchbook from?”
I handed it to her. She studied it, and shook her head.
“I don’t know this place,” she admitted.
“Isn’t the address out by the highway?”
“Yeah, near the town limits. Maybe their customers are commuters coming home from High Cross. You work all day in the city, drive most of the way back sober, and stop in for a drink when you’re nearly home.”
“Call them up and see if they know this Trixie,” I said.
She picked up the phone again and dialed. She frowned as she listened, then hung up. “Message machine,” she said. “Apparently they open at eleven a.m. and happy hour is from five to six.”
“Couldn’t you leave a message?”
“Yeah, but what am I going to say? Is Trixie there and did she kidnap Bob? Let me try her number again.” She redialed, but the line was still busy. “Pooh. I wish she’d written an address instead of a phone number.”
“Let’s see if we can find the address. Fire up your computer.”
Her expression brightened, and she led the way downstairs to her office. The computer was on, though the monitor had powered down. When she touched the mouse, the machine crackled and came back to life. Soon she had logged onto the Internet and typed in the phone number on a site that did reverse look ups. We both groaned at the message that there were no matches for that number.
“Yes there is,” Kay groaned, “and we’ve got the real matches to prove it. Shoot.”
“Now what?” I asked.
“Time to call the police?” She saw me shake my head. “Louisa, Bob has disappeared and you were followed by a man with a gun.” I looked at her. “Well, maybe with a gun.”
“I thought of something else…” My voice faltered. She gave me a quizzical look. “Well, it occurred to me that, um, maybe Bob wouldn’t want us to call the police.”
“You’re the one who was so sure he isn’t blackmailing anyone,” she reminded me.
“Well, he’s not,” I maintained. I was operating purely on instinct and instinct is hard to defend. But Kay gave a slow, thoughtful nod.
“You know,” she drawled, a crafty gleam beginning to shine in her eye, “if we could find out what’s going on by ourselves, it would really piss off Ed.”
“Do we want to piss off Ed?”
“He called you lady, didn’t he? Of course we want to piss him off. Come on, it's time to ride.” She hit keys to log off the computer.
“What?”
“Let’s go get your car back. At least we can do that much. After that we’ll figure out something else. We’ll go check your phone for messages. Maybe we should do that first. No, let’s get your car. Hell, maybe Bob will be back by then. I still expect him to walk in any minute.”
We climbed the stairs to her apartment. “I do too. Even though I saw him drive off in that Mercedes, it still feels so unlikely.”
“Let me try Trixie one more time,” she said, and went to the phone.
“What about the dogs?” I asked, as she began to dial.
She paused to look at them. Emily Ann was a perfect circle on the sofa. “Bring Jack along. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Bob will be home and we can give him his dog back. I'll call his place again before we leave too.” She finished dialing Trixie’s number, and put the receiver to her ear.
I told Emily Ann to be a good girl and that we’d be back soon.
“Still busy,” Kay growled. “Let’s call Bob’s house. What’s the number?”
I can rarely remember phone numbers, but I was able to rattle off Bob’s without hesitation. As she dialed, I clipped Emily Ann’s leash onto Jack’s collar, since his was still in my car. He started spinning, stopping to wag when I fished a handful of chocolate chip cookies out of the Mickey Mouse cookie jar next to the flour canister. “Sorry, these are people cookies,” I told him. I wrapped them in a paper towel and turned to Kay.
“No answer, just the machine,” she said. “Let’s go.” She whirled around, yanked open the refrigerator door, and took out a bottle of water.
“What about the store?”
“I put the sign on the door saying I'd be back in an hour. No one will know what time I put it up. Rainy Tuesdays in October aren’t our hottest times anyway. And what’s the point of working for myself if I can't close when I want to?”