“They pay for your meals?” Audrey asked.
“Well, I can write them off.”
Nicola stood up and turned to look out the window. The previous owners had left the blinds, thank God, so she didn’t have to worry about that. The house was about ten blocks from the ocean, and from here the waves looked like a line of snow on the shore. Half a dozen sailboats stood huddled to the north, waiting for the start of a race.
“The fog is still holding back. There’s going to be a nice sunset tonight.”
Lou looked up. “It’s great to be able to see the weather.”
“This house is wonderful,” Nicola agreed. She watched the sailboats disperse like tiny flags on the water; the race had begun. “Who knew Chorizo would be wanted in New York and California?”
“Reward money. I love it. You could say your home was federally funded,” Audrey said.
“No more landlords.” Nicola smiled. “And I’ll have my Lester Pearl with me again.” Lester moved closer to Nicola, who began scratching her chin. After a moment Lester turned her head slightly to get just the right scratch angle.
“Will you miss the baby girl?” Nicola asked Audrey.
“I’m afraid to answer that,” Audrey said.
“Well, you have Declan. And of course Scooter now.”
“Always your cast-offs.”
The doorbell rang. When Nicola answered it she found Davette on the doorstep with the minitool in one hand and a mobile phone in the other. Her hair was dyed a very yellowy blonde.
“Now where am I?” Davette said into the phone. She listened for a second, then stepped into the house.
“What are you doing?” Nicola asked her.
Davette put the phone to her chest, covering the mouthpiece. “I’m messing with Dave,” she whispered. She asked about the bathroom.
Nicola showed her where it was, then went back into the living room saying, “A constant source of fun.”
“What’s that?” Audrey asked.
“The minitool companion.” She rolled her eyes.
“You know, you should be grateful for the minitool companion,” Lou reminded her. “Since it saved your life.”
“Oh, I am. I am. Believe me,” Nicola said. She sat down next to Audrey again and pulled Lester onto her lap. “I’m also still amazed that Davette actually had hers on that night.”
Lou was still standing by the window. “We were in the motel office with four police officers and a medic team,” he told Audrey, “and Davette kept going, What’s that beeping noise? Then she realized it was coming from her purse.”
“Yeah, I heard that part,” Audrey said.
Nicola began scratching Lester’s short puggy nose. Her memory of that night was like something underwater; everything was further away than it looked. “Apparently by the time they got to Robert’s house I was passed out in the garage,” she said, “and Chorizo was trying to unscrew the door hinges with a pen cap.”
“I heard that part, too.”
“Dave couldn’t work the garage door. He said the Narcon gave him a vicious headache.”
Audrey began doing stretching exercises on the floor. She said, “You know, you’ve pretty much told me the story every day since it happened.”
“It’s a cool device, that mapping system thing,” Lou said. “What do you call it again?”
“GPS.”
“Maybe even twice a day,” said Audrey.
“GPS,” Lou repeated. “Amazing. We knew right where to go.”
“Dave has certainly made some interesting purchases in his young life,” Audrey commented, bending over her leg. “My favorite so far is the camouflage pants with hidden food-storage units.”
Nicola stopped scratching Lester for a moment. “Yeah, but look where it got him! All that survival preparation made him overconfident. I mean, I can’t believe he actually called Chorizo. Called him. On the telephone. Then agreed to meet him. Jesus.”
“The good news is we never learn from our mistakes,” Lou told her. He knelt down and began stroking Lester’s back. “You know what the Buddhists say.”
“What do the Buddhists say?”
“The past is merely preparation.”
“The Buddhists don’t say that,” Nicola said.
“Really? Then maybe it’s the NBA.”
Nicola laughed.
“But you know, Dave is even more insane now,” she said, teasing Lester’s fur up a little with a hairdressing motion. “He’s making Davette wear a beeper around her wrist. He’s like some frantic mother.”
Audrey said, “Listen, you should be glad Dave is insane.”
“I am glad Dave is insane. It’s just, he gave me my own gas mask for saving his life. This is his idea of a present. It has a left side filter mount and adjustable cinch straps.”
“What’s a filter mount?” Audrey asked.
“A mount for a filter?” Nicola suggested.
“Ha ha.”
Davette came out of the bathroom and handed Nicola the phone.
“Dave wants to tell you something. Whoa, nice view,” she said.
“Hi, Dave,” Nicola said.
“The GPS so does work inside a building,” Dave told her.
“Really?”
“We’ve been testing it out,” he said.
“So where am I now?”
“Like I told Davette, you’re all at Audrey’s house. And I am inside my mom’s garage as we speak.”
Nicola shook her head at Davette. “Are you now.”
“Totally and completely inside a building.”
“Well, why don’t you come over to Audrey’s house and we’ll feed you some dinner?”
“What’re you having?”
“What are we having for dinner?” Nicola asked Lou.
“Fettuccine with pancetta.”
“Fettuccine with pancetta,” she told Dave.
“Cool,” said Dave.
Nicola gave Davette back the phone and began rolling down the window blinds. “We’ll meet you at your house,” she told Audrey.
“Okay. By the way: great house,” Audrey said. “Aside from the better view I completely approve.”
“Yeah, TFO,” Davette agreed.
Nicola looked at her. “TFO?”
“Totally far out.”
When the other two were gone, Lou helped Nicola lock up. “Well, you have your house now,” he said. “Bigger, better, and almost twenty percent your own.”
Nicola smiled.
“So what’s next? Retirement perhaps?”
“I didn’t get that much money,” Nicola said. “But I do see a future where I fire Guy and take over the company.”
“Or we could live on my reviews.”
“Those won’t keep me in lingerie, I’m afraid.”
“We’d have to eat out a lot,” Lou said. “We’d have to go to a new restaurant every night.”
“Can we make that sacrifice?”
“I think we can.”
They stood by the front door in the semidarkness. Lester was sniffing something on the floorboards. Again Nicola felt the emptiness of the house. In two weeks she would begin to fill it with her chairs, her stereo components, her choice of rugs and photos and kitchen equipment. A new life. Her new life. She needed more pictures for the walls; the toilet had a rusty flusher; some tile was cracked in the kitchen. There was so much to do. But she had begun to make lists, and that always made her happy.
“You would have to move here, you know,” she said to Lou. “You can’t commute from New Jersey just for dinner.”
He took her in his arms. “Well, it looks like we’re working in that direction anyway,” he said.
“Yes, it does.”
“I’m here a lot.”
“Every weekend at least.”
“And your new place will be big enough now.”
“Two people and a dog,” Nicola said. “We can definitely do that.”
“Besides, I like California.”
“You d
o?”
Lou kissed her forehead. “The food is very, very good,” he said.
12 BLISS STREET. Copyright © 2003 by Martha Conway. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conway, Martha.
12 Bliss Street / Martha Conway.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-31543-0
1. San Francisco (Calif.)—Fiction. 2. Kidnapping victims—Fiction. I. Title: Twelve Bliss Street. II. Title.
PS3603.O67A613 2003
813'.6—dc21
2002191954
First Edition: June 2003
eISBN 9781466835481
First eBook edition: December 2012
12 Bliss Street Page 23