by Julia London
Myron found the detective’s affinity for museums a little odd. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said, folding his arms across his chest.
“I wonder why they do it,” Darwin said. “It’s not exactly easy to fence this stuff, is it?”
“I guess some people still feel disenfranchised,” Myron opined, positioning himself on the corner of the desk in his cubicle. “They see stately homes from a bygone era, figure that society owes them somehow, and think there’s no harm in taking a trinket here or there.”
“Right,” the detective said thoughtfully. “But it’s really more than trinkets, wouldn’t you say? From what Mr. Richter was telling me here, some of these things might look pretty ordinary, but in actuality, are really very valuable. You know that—you did the insurance work. But I wouldn’t think the average Joe would know how valuable they were.”
Myron shrugged. “I think you underestimate the average Joe, detective. Many art thieves are highly educated people.”
The detective nodded, seemed to ponder that for a moment, his gaze intent on Myron. And then he cocked his head to one side and asked, “Do you think we’re dealing with art thieves, Professor?”
A strange heat filled Myron’s collar, and he laughed and stood up. “Who knows? I’m just theorizing, that’s all. So when do you want to start looking at the catalogs?” he asked.
Detective Keating smiled. “Now, if that’s all right with you.”
“You bet,” Myron said. “Maybe we could go down to the library. There’s a lot of ground to cover and my desk is really small.”
“That would be great,” the detective said, and smiled in a way that made Myron flush hotly.
Chapter Thirteen
Great, it was middle school all over again, like anyone needed to go back there, and especially not Miss Fortune. Yet after that toe-curling kiss, Rachel could hardly hear the autopsies being piped into her head over the Dictaphone for all her thoughts shouting at her. So she typed fast and furious so that she could hurry home to see if he called.
So what if that was a little on the juvenile side? Rachel was certain that sophisticated women like her sisters had, at least once, anyway, lived and breathed each moment wondering if some guy had called back during the day. And even if they hadn’t, that didn’t care, because she could not seem to think of anything but Flynn, the complete antithesis of Myron.
When she’d finished up for the day (having typed an astounding twelve autopsy reports), she drove straight home, did not pass Go, did not collect two hundred dollars, and even waved at Mr. Valicielo as she pulled into the drive. And again, as she stepped out of her car, when Mr. Valicielo instantly appeared beside her, rake in hand, she cheerfully assured him that she’d do something about that tree.
“This is hurting my fence,” he said for the umpteenth time. “I’ll have to pay to have my fence repaired.”
“No you won’t, Mr. Valicielo,” she brightly assured him, “because I have a job. I mean, it’s only a temporary one, but still, I should earn enough to move the tree before long, and if the fence needs to be repaired, I’ll do that, too.”
Mr. Valicielo gripped his rake so tightly that his knuckles went white and he looked back to the fallen tree. Reluctantly, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
Rachel bounced up the porch stairs to her kitchen door.
Once inside, she dropped her bag and went straight to the answering machine, certain there would be a blinking light . . . but there was no blinking light. No blinking light.
Rachel gaped at the answering machine. How could that be? She’d been so certain. They’d really hit it off, hadn’t they? She’d given him her number; he’d said he would call her. And that kiss! Her toes had curled, dammit! A small kernel of fear—not the scary kind of fear, but the kind of fear that comes with realizing that you are an absolutely clueless moron—sprouted in her belly.
Okay. All right. This was ridiculous. She was just being her usual insecure self. Flynn hadn’t called because she was working; she’d told him she’d be working. So he’d call tonight. Crisis averted.
An hour later, when the phone rang, Rachel almost killed herself getting to it. “Hello?” she asked breathlessly, grimacing at how teenaged-anxious she sounded.
“Hey!” Dagne said.
“Hey, Dagne,” Rachel sighed, the teenager gone right out of her. “What’s up?”
“I have to come over,” Dagne said. “We’ve got to do another spell.”
“We do?”
“The mistake I made with Glenn is way out of control. He won’t leave me alone! I’ll be over later, okay?”
“Fine,” Rachel said, but Dagne had already hung up. Rachel went back to her dissertation work at the dining room table.
A couple of hours later, when her eyes were beginning to blur, she searched her pantry for something diety to eat, and finding nothing, gave in and made herself some pancakes. But with each flip of the cake, she glanced at the clock, noted he still hadn’t called. And then, to make herself as miserable as she possibly knew how, she made a game of trying to remember every single word he’d said last night.
This was stupid.
Pancakes and schoolwork were not working, so Rachel stacked the dirty dishes in the sink and went upstairs to take a hot bath.
As usual, she placed candles around her old clawfoot tub, found her current romance novel, and placed it next to the tub. Just as she was dipping her toe in the steaming water, the phone rang.
“Dammit!” she shouted, and fumbled with a bathsheet that she managed to get partially around her as she dashed into the bedroom to pick up the phone on the fourth ring. “Yes, hello?” she said breathlessly.
“Rachel, it’s your father.”
Oh. God. She closed her eyes, drew a long, fortifying breath. “Hi, Dad.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said, instantly suspicious. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? I’m your father and I am calling to see how my baby girl is doing.”
Since when? “I’m doing fine,” she said, tightening her towel around her. “How are you?”
“Good.”
“Feeling better?”
“I don’t know if you can feel better with chemo, to tell you the truth. So listen, kiddo,” he said, before she could comment on the chemo, “your mom and I were talking, and I’ve been thinking . . . I don’t like the way we ended things when you left New York.”
Jesus, this was about her leaving in a huff. Why now? Why why why why now? “I shouldn’t have left like that,” she said, knowing it was better to give in than to argue.
“Well . . . I guess I had it coming,” he admitted, surprising the holy hell out of her. “But I’ve been thinking I’d really like to come to Providence and see you.”
Her blood stopped pumping there for a minute. “W-what?” she stammered, but her mind was screaming No! NO, NO! “Dad!” she said, laughing nervously. “You don’t need to do that! I mean, you’ve got chemo, right?”
“Not for much longer. I could come in a couple of weeks or so.”
That launched Rachel right off the bed and into a full pace around her room. “But . . . but you said you were going back to the ranch to recuperate after it was over. You don’t want to come to Providence. It’s cold and wet—”
“But I do want to come to Providence, baby girl. We need to talk about what you are going to do. I want to help you plan it out. I’m starting to realize that your reluctance to enter the real world has a lot to do with your insecurities and perhaps your inexperience, and I think if we plan this together—”
“I am not reluctant,” she said, feeling desperate now, as she had never heard her dad talk so . . . so therapeutically. “I just need to finish my dissertation.”
“I need to see that bungalow anyway,” he said, talking over her, “because when you do move on, which you’ll have to do if you want a real job, then I’ll need to sell that house.”
“Sell my hous
e?” she repeated weakly.
“Well, sure,” he said. “You’re not going to stay at Brown forever. In fact, you’re going to get your butt out of Brown and get on with your life,” he said, his voice taking on a familiar and overbearing tone.
“I know, but—”
“Speaking of jobs, what have you done?”
“Actually Dad,” she said, feeling her heart start to pump again, “I got a job. Not a big one, but enough to pay the bills.”
“Really?” he asked, sounding extremely skeptical.
“Really!” she lied. “You don’t have to worry about me, Dad. I understood what you said and I took it to heart.”
“That’s great, Rachel. That’s really great. And what about your degree? Did you land on a dissertation topic?”
“I’m working on it,” she said, trying to sound upbeat and optimistic.
Dad didn’t say anything for a moment. “Why didn’t you call to tell me about the job? What sort of job did you get?” he asked, his voice full of suspicion now.
“Ah . . . well, it’s just a temporary one.”
“I hope you don’t mean that weaving gig, because that is not a job, Rachel. And by the way, are you still paying for all the materials out of your own pocket?”
Christ. “Not the weaving class, Dad,” Rachel said, exasperated. “It’s data entry!”
“Data entry.”
“Yes. Data entry. You know . . . entering data. Facts and figures, that sort of thing.”
“I hope you’re not talking about a cash register somewhere,” he said sternly. “I meant for you to get a job, but I didn’t mean for you to take all the money I have spent on your education and go to McDonald’s with it.”
“Dad—how’s Mom?”
He sighed, recognizing her dodge for what it was. “All right. All right for now, Rachel. Now listen, I’ll be through with this chemo in a few weeks. I’ll come out then, and we can discuss your situation like two adults.”
Right. Sure they could. Just like they always had. And while they were having this adult conversation, perhaps aliens would land and take over Washington.
“Rachel?”
“Let’s just wait and see how you are feeling, okay, Dad? Listen, is Mom there?”
Dad muttered something, but called Mom to the phone and said a terse good-bye.
“Hi, honey!” Mom sang brightly.
“Mom, was this your idea?”
“What?”
“To send Dad to Providence, that’s what. Because if it was, I’d like to ask you not to help me. I don’t want Dad to come to Providence. All he’ll do is find fault with the way I’ve done everything.”
“Not this time, honey. Dad is in therapy and he is working to make amends for past wrongs,” Mom said patiently.
“Let him make amends to Robbie and Bec, then.”
“He is. And he’s making some remarkable progress . . .”
A door opened downstairs; Rachel tightened the towel around her and padded out of her room to the top of the stairs, squatted down, saw the tail of Myron’s car through the dining room window as Mom droned on about Dad’s remarkable progress toward being an actual human being.
“That’s great, it really is, and I’m so glad he is attending sessions with you,” Rachel said, waving at Myron as he passed by the stairs on the first floor. “But does he have to come here?”
“He’s your father, Rachel. You and he need to talk about what happened in New York.”
“Nothing happened, Mom! He was his usual, hypercritical self, and I just got fed up. We don’t need to talk about it. Dad was being Dad, and there’s nothing left to say—”
“Rachel,” Mom said in the voice she generally used when she was asserting her maternal authority, “Aaron is making a yeoman’s effort to change the way he behaves toward his daughters. I would think the least you could do is allow him to come to see you, the daughter he sired with his sperm, in the house he bought so that you’d have a place to live while you pursued an education he financed. Is that really asking so much?”
Oh, for heaven’s sake! Rachel groaned; below her, she could hear Myron banging around the kitchen. “Fine, all right. Just give me plenty of notice, okay?”
“We will.”
“In the meantime, Mom, I need a favor,” Rachel said gingerly. “I got a job—a temporary job—”
“Really?” her mother said, obviously and inordinately pleased. “Doing what?”
Rachel swallowed down a groan. “Actually, it’s a temp agency. Right now I am typing autopsy reports. There’s a bit of a backlog.”
“Eewee—”
“I know, I know,” Rachel said, cutting her off. “But I don’t get paid for two weeks, and I have this really humongous utility bill . . .”
Now it was Mom’s turn to sigh. “What about the money Myron owes you?”
“Well,” Rachel said, jumping a little as the sound of something glass shattering on the kitchen floor reached her, “he doesn’t really have it, either.”
“Why not? Doesn’t he have two jobs?”
“Mom, please? I asked him, but Myron said he was in a bind, and he’s really going through some bad stuff at work right now. Could you just loan me the money this time?”
“All right, Rachel. But I really wish you’d get serious about finding a real job, and preferably something that hasn’t anything to do with dead people. Why don’t you start looking in a big metropolitan area, like New York or Boston or Chicago? Maybe you could get a job in a museum. And you could live someplace nice and fashionable where there are good jobs for girls with your background and lots of nice young men who have good professions.”
“Right,” Rachel said as Myron appeared on the bottom step, sandwich in hand, her cell phone in the other, which he waved at her before tossing onto a chair. “I’ll think about it, I really will. But will you help me out?”
“How much?” Mom asked.
“One seventy-five.”
“Oh dear. All right, I’ll put it in the mail. By the way, why don’t you ever answer the cell phone I gave you?” she asked. “I’ve called it a half-dozen times and you never answer.”
“No phones allowed in the morgue,” she said as Myron ascended the stairs, munching determinedly on his sandwich and practically stepping on top of her as he passed.
“Convenient,” her mother said. “I need to go, honey. We’ll talk to you soon.”
Rachel hung up the phone just as Myron disappeared into the guest room. She got up, adjusted her towel, and followed him, watched him open the closet door.
“Myron?”
Myron paused, looked at her in the door, sort of squinting.
“You almost stepped on me coming up the stairs.”
“Sorry. Hey, I brought your phone back. It’s really cool, man”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you stoned?” she demanded.
“Maybe a little,” he said, and looked in the closet.
Was there really such thing as a little stoned? Seemed to her that when Myron was a little stoned, he was wasted. Period. “What are you looking for?” she demanded as he took a huge bite of sandwich.
“Ah dummoh,” he said through the mouthful of bologna and closed the closet door, walked to the opposite end of the room, and looked at the nightstand. “Di ah eve iss ooo-ooo?”
“What?” she snapped irritably. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying!”
That made Myron laugh uproariously. But then he stopped abruptly when he almost choked on his sandwich, and swallowed it in one huge gulp. “Did I give this to you?”
“What?”
“The nightstand,” he said, motioning at the table with the last half of his sandwich.
“No.”
He squinted at the nightstand some more. Rachel sighed irritably and turned away. If he was going to do a lot of staring at furniture, she was going to go take her bath. “See you later, Myron. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
“Wow,” My
ron said, nodding. “That’s harsh.”
Whatever. Rachel left Myron standing in the guest room.
Her bath water was tepid now, so she drained the tub while she messed with her hair—trying new knots, because God knew she hadn’t tried every hair knot known to woman—and finally resorted to winding two big lumps on top of her head, Mickey Mouse style, as per usual.
She started her bath again, and when she was content with the temperature, she plugged it, stood, and started to shut the door—but jumped a good foot in the air because Myron was standing in the door, his hands in his pockets, his eyes bloodshot from the pot.
“Jesus, Myron! Can’t you knock?”
“I did!” he protested. “But you were upstairs on the phone and didn’t hear me.”
“I meant now—never mind. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a bath.”
“Sure,” he said, nodding. But he didn’t move.
“Okay! If you’ll just back up and let me shut the—”
“So listen, Rachel. I’ve been doing some painting again.”
It was all Rachel could do to keep from groaning. Myron went through periods during which he fancied himself a painter.
“Is it okay if I put some of them here? I don’t have room in my apartment.”
“Sure. Just put them in the basement, will you? Nothing on the walls.”
“The basement? You want me to put my paintings in the basement?”
“Yes,” she said, resolutely. The last time she’d let him bring paintings over, he had taken it upon himself to hang a few. She wasn’t a great decorator, but they had been too awful even for her.
“Great,” he groused. “I go to the trouble to paint for you and that is the thanks I get?”
Oh right, like he cared what she thought of his paintings. “No, the thanks you get is a place to store them. Ta-ta, Myron!” she called, and waved him out of the bathroom. “Come back when you’re not stoned,” she added as she started to swing the bathroom door shut.
Muttering under his breath, Myron backed up, banged into the doorjamb, and grabbed it to steady himself on the way out. But then he stopped, looked over his shoulder at her. “What about the other paintings? What did you do with them?” he demanded.