The Thief

“Mistress!” He seemed confused as he turned to her, yellow rubber gloves held up at the elbows as if he were a surgeon about to go into a patient’s chest cavity. “You are back?”

“Just to pick up a few things. Don’t mind me.”

Fritz bowed so low, his jowls nearly brushed the tops of his polished black shoes. “I could have packed for you if you two are staying overday—”

“Don’t worry about a thing. The floors and kitchen are much more important.”

His smile was of relief and pleasure, making the lie worth it. The truth was, she didn’t care about the floors or the kitchen. The roof or the chimney—did the Pit even have a chimney? It was no longer her concern.

“I’ll just get my things,” she murmured.

“Mayhap I shall just help you—”

“No.” She recast her tone. “This is private.”

“Oh, but of course, madam.” The butler blushed a little. “I shall carry on then.”

“Thank you, Fritz. As always.”

While he happily resumed his scrubbing, she marched down the hall like Joan of Arc, all loaded for bear. When she got to the doorway of what had been her bedroom, she didn’t even hesitate, she went over to—

Jane slowed. Stopped. Stared at the bed with its messy lineup of pillows and wrinkled duvet. There was a quantum physics textbook on one bed stand, his not hers, and a glass half filled with water, hers not his, on the other.

It was impossible not to think of the day before, when she had filled up that tumbler in the kitchen and come down here as she always did.

You rarely knew when you were doing something for the last time. No, that realization usually came later.

After she’d gotten her H2O, she remembered sitting on her side of the bed and hanging her head because she had been so exhausted. Her shoulders and the back of her neck had been on fire from tension, and her hamstrings had been aching from her having been bent over Tohrment’s lower leg. He’d popped his Achilles tendon again and she’d had to fix it in surgery. Pretty normal course of things—but for the fact that what should have been no more than an hour had taken three because of a bone anomaly and tons of scar tissue.

She had flopped back and tried to hold herself corporeal because she’d been hoping V would unplug from his computers and come and join her. In the end, the tantalizing peace that fading out offered had proven irresistible, and she had let herself go, disappearing so that the only trace of her was a dent in those covers, the place where her weight and her body had once been.

“Yeah, because I was helping his Brotherhood,” she muttered as she went to their closet and grabbed a duffel.

She took stuff out of the chest of drawers without paying much attention to what it was. Then again, her wardrobe mostly consisted of scrubs…and more scrubs. Bras and underwear were the only other things she needed. In the bathroom, she grabbed her toothbrush and her tube of Crest.

He used Colgate.

See? They never should have gotten together in the first place.

On that note, she stalked out of there, proceeding down into the underground tunnel, returning to where she was both needed…and wanted.

EIGHT

The following day at around eight a.m., Sola walked to her neighborhood market with a grocery list her vovó had insisted be filled. It was good to feel like there was something she had to do. Something that was normal and uncomplicated, but necessary nonetheless.

Distraction was key. Otherwise, she was going to start packing and head for Caldwell.

Which would be a really stupid idea.

Entering the store, which had as much in common with a Walmart as a horse and buggy had with rush-hour traffic, she was embraced by her heritage. In the cramped little space, all the aisle markers, the price listings, and the labels were in Spanish. Overhead, Latin music murmured softly, more like a pleasing scent in the air than anything registering in the ear. And the patrons all had dark hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin like her.

Well, she would have had dark hair without the dye job. God, she hated the blond. Next month, she was going as a redhead, damn it.

Checking the list, she read her grandmother’s scribbles as if they were her own, the quirky construction of the vowels and consonants indecipherable to others, easy for her.

She was going to need—

Habaneros…locotos…pequins? And a ghost pepper—which you could get here even though it was of Indian derivation rather than South American?

Was her grandmother trying to kill her through capsaicin?

“I saved you some plantains,” a male voice said in Spanish.

Sola glanced over her shoulder and forced a smile. The guy coming up to her was holding what seemed like—yes, actually, they were a really good-looking lot of plantains, and they were on her list, too.

“Thanks,” she replied.

“I will get you a basket.” He hurried over to a stack of them by the door, popping free the top one. “Here.”

As he held out the yellow plastic holder with its double handles, Sola pulled the bill of her baseball cap down lower. It wasn’t that he was skeevy. He was a nice young Latino guy, who had a gold cross around his neck, friendly eyes with thick lashes, and a good shave and haircut. He had probably lived in this neighborhood his whole life, and either his father or his uncle or maybe a cousin owned this business. Naturally, he was looking to get married and have kids with a nice Latina girl because that was what the women in his family would be pushing him to do. And undoubtedly, he would take over the running of the shop after the generation above him passed.

There was absolutely nothing controversial, scary, or threatening about him. And he was staring at her with respect—and hope.

You have no idea who I am, she thought.

Sola accepted the basket. “Thank you.” What she wanted to say was, Stop it. “But you don’t need to save things for me.”

“You always buy them on Tuesdays.”

Did she? She needed to fix that. Predictable habits were bad news for the likes of her.

“I’ll just find what’s on my list and get going.”

As the screen door creaked and banged with another entry, she measured the man who came in. Forty. Loose jacket. Dark sunglasses. Could have been law enforcement. Or a drug dealer. Or a regular Joe getting his lunch on the way to his work.

“Can I help you with what you need?” The supermarket guy nodded down at her slip of paper. “If you want me to ever bring you things, I can do that, too. We have a delivery service.”

“No, I’m good. Thanks.”

Loose Jacket Man walked by without seeming to notice her or check her ass when he thought she wasn’t looking. But that didn’t mean anything. Maybe this was Benloise’s crew finally catching up with her.

Sola fell into step a little distance behind him and watched the fall of that jacket, looking for signs of a shoulder holster. When he paused by a display, she popped her list up and re-traced her grandmother’s writing with her eyes. Perfect timing—she was in the canned-tomato aisle.

When the man continued on without pulling anything off a shelf, she resumed the trail.

He ended up in the refrigerator section, grabbing two pre-made, microwavable chicken tortillas and a Coke. He left money next the register, calling out to her friend with the baskets and the plantains in Spanish. Then he was gone.

She took no deep breath of relief and there was no easing of her tension.

This was life now. Anywhere she went.

Doubling back, because she had missed a lot of stuff during her skulk, she got everything and then went to check out at the counter. The young guy came over and first processed the man’s lunch purchase; then he started scanning in bar codes, moving the boxes, cans, and cartons, over the reader.

“We have a lot of regulars,” he said. “My pop, he owns this place, can remember their fathers and grandfathers.”

“Loyalty is good.”

“We’re getting more and more new faces, though. People are moving in from other places.” He looked up with a smile as if he were hoping she would fill in her particular blank. “Where are you from originally?”

“Nowhere.” She got out her billfold and tried to estimate how much it would be. “I’m not from anywhere.”