"I guess. But you skin him raw, Fox. You crack that bastard's nuts like pecans. "
"I'm going to get right on that," he assured her as he led her to the door. "You just stay above it all, that's the way. I'll be in touch. "
After he'd closed the door, leaned back on it, he heaved out a breath. "Holy Mother of God. "
"You should've referred that one," Alice told him.
"You can't refer off the first girl you got to second base with when she's filing for divorce. It's against the laws of God and Man. Hello, Layla, need a lawyer?"
"I hope not. " He was better looking than she remembered, which just went to show the shape she'd been in the night before. Plus he didn't look anything like a lawyer. "No offense. "
"None taken. Layla. . . It's Darnell, right?"
"Yes. "
"Layla Darnell, Alice Hawbaker. Mrs. H, I'm clear for a while?"
"You are. "
"Come on back, Layla. " He gestured. "We don't usually put a show on this early in the day, but my old pal Shelley walked into the back room over at the diner to visit her twin sister, Sami, and found her husband-that would be Shelley's husband, Block-holding Sami's tip money. "
"I'm sorry, she's filing for divorce because her husband was holding her sister's tip money?"
"It was in Sami's Victoria's Secret Miracle Bra at the time. "
"Oh. Well. "
"That's not privileged information as Shelley chased them both out of the back room and straight out onto Main Street-with Sami's miraculous bra in full view-with a rag mop. Want a Coke?"
"No, I really don't. I don't think I need anything to give me an edge. "
Since she looked inclined to pace, he didn't offer her a chair. Instead, he leaned back against his desk. "Rough night?"
"No, the opposite. I just can't figure out what I'm doing here. I don't understand any of this, and I certainly don't understand my place in it. A couple hours ago I told myself I was going to pack and drive back to New York like a sane person. But I didn't. " She turned to him. "I couldn't. And I don't understand that either. "
"You're where you're supposed to be. That's the simplest answer. "
"Are you afraid?"
"A lot of the time. "
"I don't think I've ever been really afraid. I wonder if I'd be so damned edgy if I had something to do. An assignment, a task. "
"Listen, I've got to drive to a client a few miles out of town, take her some papers. "
"Oh, sorry. I'm in the way. "
"No, and when I start thinking beautiful women are in my way, please notify my next of kin so they can gather to say their final good-byes before my death. I was going to suggest you ride out with me, which is something to do. And you can have chamomile tea and stale lemon snaps with Mrs. Oldinger, which is a task. She likes company, which is the real reason she had me draw up the fifteenth codicil to her will. "
He kept talking, knowing that was one way to help calm someone down when she looked ready to bolt. "By the time that's done, I can swing by another client who's not far out of the way and save him a trip into town. By my way of thinking, Cal and Quinn should be just about back home by the time we're done with all that. We'll go by, see what's what. "
"Can you be out of the office all that time?"
"Believe me. " He grabbed his coat, his briefcase. "Mrs. H will holler me back if I'm needed here. But unless you've got something better to do, I'll have her pull out the files I need and we'll take a drive. "
It was better than brooding, Layla decided. Maybe she thought it was odd for a lawyer, even a small-town lawyer to drive an old Dodge pickup with a couple of Ring Ding wrappers littering the floorboards.
"What are yo
u doing for the second client?"
"That's Charlie Deen. Charlie got clipped by a DUI when he was driving home from work. Insurance company's trying to dance around some of the medical bills. Not going to happen. "
"Divorce, wills, personal injury. So you don't specialize?"
"All law, all the time," he said and sent her a smile that was a combination of sweet and cocky. "Well, except for tax law if I can avoid it. I leave that to my sister. She's tax and business law. "
"But you don't have a practice together. "
"That'd be tough. Sage went to Seattle to be a lesbian. "
"I beg your pardon?"
"Sorry. " He boosted the gas as they passed the town limits. "Family joke. What I mean is my sister Sage is gay, and she lives in Seattle. She's an activist, and she and her partner of, hmm, I guess about eight years now run a firm they call Girl on Girl. Seriously," he added when Layla said nothing. "They specialize in tax and business law for gays. "
"Your family doesn't approve?"
"Are you kidding? My parents eat it up like tofu. When Sage and Paula-that's her partner-got married. Or had their life-partner affirmation, whatever-we all went out there and celebrated like mental patients. She's happy and that's what counts. The alternate lifestyle choice is just kind of a bonus for my parents. Speaking of family, that's my little brother's place. "
Layla saw a log house all but buried in the trees, with a sign near the curve of the road reading HAWKINS CREEK POTTERY.
"Your brother's a potter. "
"Yeah, a good one. So's my mother when she's in the mood. Want to stop in?"
"Oh, I. . . "
"Better not," he decided. "Ridge'll get going and Mrs. H has called Mrs. Oldinger by now to tell her to expect us. Another time. "
"Okay. " Conversation, she thought. Small talk. Relative sanity. "So you have a brother and sister. "
"Two sisters. My baby sister owns the little vegetarian restaurant in town. It's pretty good, considering. Of the four of us I veered the farthest off the flower-strewn path my counterculture parents forged. But they love me anyway. That's about it for me. How about you?"
"Well. . . I don't have any relatives nearly as interesting as yours sound, but I'm pretty sure my mother has some old Joan Baez albums. "
"There, that strange and fateful crossroads again. "
She started to laugh, then gasped with pleasure as she spotted the deer. "Look! Oh, look. Aren't they gorgeous, just grazing there along the edge of the trees?"
To accommodate her, Fox pulled over to the narrow shoulder so she could watch. "You're used to seeing deer, I suppose," she said.
"Doesn't mean I don't get a kick out of it. We had to run herds off the farm when I was a kid. "
"You grew up on a farm. "
There was that urban-dweller wistfulness in her voice. The kind that said she saw the pretty deer, the bunnies, the sunflowers, and happy chickens. And not the plowing, the hoeing, weeding, harvesting. "Small, family farm. We grew our own vegetables, kept chickens and goats, bees. Sold some of the surplus, some of my mother's crafts, my father's woodwork. "
"Do they still have it?"
"Yeah. "
"My parents owned a little dress shop when I was a kid. They sold out about fifteen years ago. I always wished-Oh God, oh my God!"
Her hand whipped over to clamp on his arm.
The wolf leaped out of the trees, onto the back of a young deer. It bucked, it screamed-she could hear its high-pitched screams of fear and pain-it bled while the others in the small herd continued to crop at grass.
"It's not real. "
His voice sounded tinny and distant. In front of her horrified eyes the wolf took the deer down, then began to tear and rip.
"It's not real," he repeated. He put his hands on her shoulders, and she felt something click. Something inside her pushed toward him and away from the horror at the edge of the trees. "Look at it, straight on," he told her. "Look at it and know it's not real. "
The blood was so red, so wet. It flew in ugly rain, smearing the winter grass of the narrow field. "It's not real. "
"Don't just say it. Know it. It lies, Layla. It lives in lies. It's not real. "
She breathed in, breathed out. "It's not real. It's a lie. It's an ugly lie. A small, cruel lie. It's not real. "
The field was empty; the winter grass ragged and unstained.
"How do you live with this?" Shoving around in her seat, Layla stared at him. "How do you stand this?"
"By knowing-the way I knew that was a lie-that some day, some way, we're going to kick its ass. "
Her throat burned dry. "You did something to me. When you took my shoulders, when you were talking to me, you did something to me. "
"No. " He denied it without a qualm. He'd done something for her, Fox told himself. "I just helped you remember it wasn't real. We're going on to Mrs. Oldinger. I bet you could use that chamomile tea about now. "
"Does she have any whiskey to go with it?"
"Wouldn't surprise me. "
QUINN COULD SEE CAL'S HOUSE THROUGH THE trees when her phone signaled a waiting text-message. "Crap, why didn't she just call me?"
"Might've tried. There are lots of pockets in the woods where calls drop out. "
"Color me virtually unsurprised. " She brought up the message, smiling a little as she recognized Cybil's shorthand.
Bzy, but intrig'd. Tell u more when. Cn B there in a wk, 2 latest. Tlk whn cn. Q? B-ware. Serious. C.
"All right. " Quinn replaced the phone and made the decision she'd been weighing during the hike back. "I guess we'll call Fox and Layla when I'm having that really big drink by the fire you're going to build. "
"I can live with that. "
"Then, seeing as you're a town honcho, you'd be the one to ask about finding a nice, attractive, convenient, and somewhat roomy house to rent for the next, oh, six months. "
"And the tenant would be?"
"Tenants. They would be me, my delightful friend Cybil, whom I will talk into digging in, and most likely Layla, whom-I believe-will take a bit more convincing. But I'm very persuasive. "
"What happened to staying a week for initial research, then coming back in April for a follow-up?"
"Plans change," she said airily, and smiled at him as they stepped onto the gravel of his driveway. "Don't you just love when that happens?"
"Not really. " But he walked with her onto the deck and opened the door so she could breeze into his quiet home ahead of him.