THIRTY-FOUR

Ninety minutes later and the stone, if not good as new, looked a lot better. The gouges couldn’t be fixed, but you could read Donald’s name. It no longer looked like a nutjob had gone to town on it, just that time was doing some aggressive damage. That was more than Angela thought two people could get done in under two hours. Especially when one of the two was trying not to stare at the other one’s butt in jeans.

That. Ass. It’s not fair, it’s really not.

They cleaned up and packed everything back in Jason’s trunk. He went around to the back seat and pulled out a light green backpack with tan accents; there was a wine bottle strapped to one side and a rolled-up tan blanket on the other. He slung it over one shoulder, smiled at her, and said, “Shall we?”

Damned right. She was famished. Jack had slept late, but when he didn’t make a big family breakfast, she tended not to bother, and if that occasionally led to her wolfing down a bowl of dry cereal at her desk (or wet cereal over the sink), that was her business. Even if she’d shown up with a full stomach, scrubbing a tombstone for ninety minutes would kindle anyone’s appetite. Probably. Maybe a normal person would lose their appetite after scrubbing the graffiti off their dad’s gravestone. She honestly had no idea; “normal” was beyond any of them.

But now what? Was this a date? Or just a relaxing post–tombstone cleaning ritual between colleagues who weren’t actually colleagues? Maybe he had planned to have an alfresco lunch all along and invited her to be polite. They weren’t holding hands. But it wasn’t uncomfortable, either; they were walking—strolling?—together. Her controlling nature was baffled: It couldn’t qualify what was going on, so she kept getting more and more confused. And the longer they were quiet, the harder it got to say something.

Luckily a small child had been struck by lightning a hundred years ago; it was the perfect icebreaker. She pointed out the statue of poor Inez Clarke, murdered by Mother Nature at age six. Her heartbroken parents had commissioned a statue of her exact likeness and sealed it in a glass box on the grounds. The thing was more than a century old and looked like it had been up less than a year.

“Your standard sad story,” Angela said. “Except.”

Jason smiled. “Always an ‘except.’”

“Except when there isn’t an except. Luckily that’s not the case this time. Except they say that when it’s a stormy night, she leaves.”

“‘Leaves’?” Jason was now standing in front of the glass box encasing the statue, one hand holding the picnic backpack, the other fiddling absently with a belt loop. “What, she takes her show on the road? Runs away? Teleports? Goes on strike?”

“Dunno. At least one guard quit over it. He was doing his walk-around in a rainstorm at midnight—”

“Have you ever noticed these stories never take place in bright sunshine at 10:00 a.m.?

“Quiet, you. Anyway, when he got to her box, it was empty. He quit on the spot. Left the cemetery, never even went back to the security office. Just walked out and never went back.”

“He went home without his car?”

“Jeez, Jason, I didn’t take down the incident report. Anyway, the next day the statue was back like it never left.”

“Possibly because it hadn’t,” Jason said dryly.

“And the legend grew,” Angela finished. “I’ll take a vanishing statue over the friggin’ creepy Eternal Silence ghoul in green. Who wants to see their own upcoming death? Bad enough most of us see the ones we already endured. ‘Oh, great, look at that. I’ve drowned twice, but apparently I’m due to be trampled by elephants this time around.’ Blech!”

He seemed to falter a bit, but perhaps that was because they’d gotten to the footbridge over Lake Willowmere to Burnham Island. Even the most sedate walkers sounded like horses galloping across the small wooden bridge.

He cleared his throat. Angela tried to think of a single instance when someone cleared their throat and it wasn’t to broach a difficult subject. Maybe the last time Jordan had a head cold . . . “Speaking of past lives, and endurance, you should know I’ve been diagnosed with dysthymia. It’s—”

“I know what it is.” She’d looked it up after Leah told her how to spell it. To her credit, Leah hadn’t asked questions. Just said, “D-Y-S-T-H-Y-M-I-A,” from her side of the bathroom door. (Reason #262 to never ever gestate: You had to pee every sixteen seconds.)

“Oh. Well.” He paused and she had the sense he was mentally squaring his shoulders. “You should know I take medication for it, I’m currently on—”

“Sorry to interrupt. Again, I mean. But it’s fine. And—don’t get mad—but I already—don’t be upset, please, but the thing is, I already knew about your depression. Dysthymia.”

He stared at her. “How could y— Leah Nazir.” He frowned as he worked it out. Hopefully it was a frown of concentration as opposed to a “I never want to see you again” scowl. “She shakes my hand every time she sees me. She probably knows my life history.”

“All seven of them. That was a guess, by the way. She didn’t say seven. I don’t know how many lives you’ve had. It’s none of my business.”

“But you’ve got the same ability.”

“No. I have a sense of your past, but not the details. And I didn’t want to pry. I wasn’t prying,” she rushed to assure him. “She just came out with it.”

“When?”

“The day after she met you.”

“You’ve known for over a week?”

“Yes.” He seemed puzzled, and she wasn’t sure why. Better explain. Try to, anyway. “Leah wasn’t—y’know, she didn’t say it like it was a negative. Because it’s not. A negative, I mean. She said it to cheer up my brother, Jack. He said he thought you were sad, and she backed him up. Which is all kinds of weird, now that I think abou— Never mind. It’s none of my business anyway.”

“And if it was?” he asked quietly.

What? How could it ever be my business? He’s making it so easy for me to read more into this. If that’s what he’s doing. I’m confused, and it’s barely noon, I haven’t even had any wine yet. “If it was, I’d be glad you got a diagnosis. And I’d be extra glad you’re getting help. And I—I’d consider myself lucky. That you thought something that personal was my business. That you trusted me with that.”

“Oh.” The frown was gone, replaced by his slow

(dimple!)

sexy smile. “Well. That’s all right, then.”

“Right?”

“Right.”

“Okay.”

They got to the other side of the bridge, and Angela was determined to fill the silence before it got (more) awkward. “Did you know, a guy’s whole family is buried on this island? How do you even broach that subject? ‘Kids, we’re all mortal and death is relentless but we’ll eventually be together on our own private island. We can have Family Game Night for eternity!’ Is that great or disturbing?”

He appeared to give the matter serious thought. “That would depend on whether or not you were a fan of Family Game Night.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” I can’t take it. And I’m not fourteen, for God’s sake. It’s ridiculous to be agonizing over this. Just do it. At least I’ll know. “That’s it,” she announced, then seized his hand and laced her fingers with his. “If you don’t like this—”

“It’s fine.”

“—no problem, just tell me and I’ll drop you like a hot rock. I might drop you like a hot rock either way, I’m freaking out a little, this has been a confusing month.”

“I like this.”

“But the thing is, I’ve been dying to do this all d— You do?” He did? “Great. Okay.”

They walked for a few seconds in silence and then Jason made the oddest noise, and she realized he was giggling. “You’re right,” he managed, “this is much less awkward.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m kind of clueless about the etiquette here.” Among other things.

In next to no time, she was shaking out the blanket beneath a gorgeous willow tree while Jason unpacked a tremendous amount of food. “I’m not much of a cook,” he warned her. “Most of this is store-bought.”

“I’m not, either. My whole family’s going to lose weight when Jack goes to college,” she predicted happily. “It’ll be a disaster.”

He chuckled. “You seem rather cheerful for someone expecting a disaster.”

“Drakes fending for themselves because Jacky’s at school forging a new life will be a good thing, believe it.”

“Does he know where he’d like to go?”

“He thinks he’s staying in Chicago,” she replied, eyes narrowing at the thought of it. The only thing Jack loved more than cooking was chemistry. UMass offered a fine food science program, one of the oldest in the country, and was in close proximity to Pioneer Valley, which was Foodie Central. The University of Minnesota was another example, and offered food science majors the chance to study their craft abroad in France, Thailand, England, etc. Cornell, Purdue . . . plenty of good programs Jack had the grades to get into.

And they were all a minimum of a two-hour flight from the sprawling red ranch where he’d grown up.

“Pardon me,” she said. Jason had pulled out plates, cutlery, a tiny cheese board, a tiny cheese knife, sturdy wineglasses, napkins, a corkscrew, and a tiny black Hefty bag for the scraps/garbage. Then he moved on to food and had just pulled out the fourth—fifth?—plastic container. “Is that a magic backpack? It’s like one of those clown cars. Or a bag of holding.”

“‘Bag of holding’?”

“Paul and I went through a D&D phase . . . Wow! Everything just comes piling out.”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d like.” So I bought the entire store was probably the end of that sentence. Rare roast beef sandwiches with watercress on crusty baguettes. Tiny packets of mustard and mayonnaise. Tiny salt and pepper shakers, no bigger than her thumb joint. A Caprese salad with fresh basil. A Ziploc bag stuffed with peeled eggs she assumed were hard-boiled, with a teeny-tiny packet of seasoned salt. Two layered cobb salads in Mason jars. Four chive biscuits. A small selection of cheese (cheeses?), a waxed roll of crackers, a pint of blackberries. A small container of Kalamata olives. Chocolate chip cookies the size of her hand. Chocolate-dipped strawberries. An egg carton with a macaron nestled inside each little cup. Wine. Sparkling water. Half dozen nectarines.

“This . . . looks . . . ggnnn.” Drooling. She was drooling like a farm animal. “Really good. Is what I meant.” She managed (barely) not to snatch the plastic plate Jason was offering, and had it loaded in no time. She politely declined the booze. “It looks great, but I’d rather not rub the whole ‘the cop you’ve got no use for and I enjoyed a wonderful picnic on my way to visit you in your cage, sorry about my booze breath, how was your horrible day?’ thing in his face. Especially since we need his cooperation.”

“A fair point,” he conceded, and the wine went back into the backpack, to be replaced with the sparkling water. “Perhaps next time.” Pause. “Unless you feel I overst—”

“Pass me another egg and enough of the overstepping fretting. This is wonderful. It’s all wonderful—all the macarons are different colors! Agh, so cute! This is turning into a great, great day.”

He lobbed an egg at her which she snatched out of the air and—miracle of miracles!—it didn’t squirt through her fingers and slither off the blanket to land on the grass (bad) or ricochet off her fist to smack him in the eyeball (worse). He shifted around so he was leaning with his back against the trunk, then stretched out his legs, giving what he probably thought was an unobtrusive twitch that hiked up his pants leg, displaying his socks.

Monet’s Water Lilies.

“Brilliant,” she pronounced.

“I have several,” he murmured in a voice so intimate and confiding, he might have been coaxing her to let him take her to bed and ravish her. “Monet. Van Gogh. Picasso. Munch. Klimpt. Degas. Botticelli.”

“The rampant eroticism of Jason Chambers’s barely contained sock drawer.” She couldn’t say it with a straight face, and by the time she got to “barely” he was laughing so hard he choked on a biscuit.

When neither of them could eat another crumb, he packed everything away. She stretched out on her back, staring up through the feathery willow fronds to the clear blue sky beyond. Even though they were in public, they were nearly invisible to anyone walking by. She liked that. It was like they were on their own private planet. A planet littered with buried corpses, but still.

“Angela.”

“Mmmmm?”

“What does this mean?”

“It means it’s a great, great day. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

“I don’t, either. Though I enjoy seeing you in a social context as opposed to a work context. Not that I mind the latter,” he assured her.

“So you like hanging out with me even if you don’t have any crime-scene photos to show me?”

“Miraculously . . .” His tone was so dry, he could have used it to make beef jerky. “Yes.”

“What if you came over for dinner again?”

He flashed the dimple. “That would be my pleasure.”

“Or you and I went out somewhere. Would you get in trouble?”

“No. Your father’s case was never mine to begin with, and it’s not open.”

“Oh. That’s good.” Argh. “You know what I mean.”

“Yes.” He was wriggling a bit, trying to get comfortable—the blanket was a good idea, but it was thin and scratchy. She finally reached out, gently grabbed his ear, and tugged until he was lying down with the back of his head on one of her thighs. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure—”

“I know. It’s fine.”

“A great, great day.”

“Yeah.”

Later, she’d be grateful. It was the last “great, great” thing to happen for a long time.