Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Five

I stood in my living room, watching the Vanagon rumble out of view down Sycamore. My toes tingled; my heart was tossing itself against the walls of my chest, and I was pretty sure my nose had gone berserk. How else could I be smelling cinnamon?

Quaid Rafferty's last words played over and over in my head: "We need you."

For twenty minutes, after Durwood had taken his dog to investigate ker-klacks, Quaid had given me the hard sell. The money would be big-time. I had the perfect skills for the assignment: guts, grace under fire, that youthful je ne sais quoi. Wasn't I always saying I ought to be putting my Psychology chops to better use? Well, here it was: understanding these young people's outrage would be a large component of the job.

Some people will anticipate your words and mumble along. Quaid did something similar but with feelings, cringing at my credit issues, brightening—genuine, whole-face joy—at Karen's reading progress, which I feared would suffer if I got busy and didn't stay on her.

Have you ever had a friend, or possibly a more-than-friend, who seemed so far outside your normal life that you wondered if they were even real? If you only imagined them?

For me, that was Quaid and Durwood.

My experiences with the guys were like those huge, bright dreams that seem to fix your life. Dreams so exciting, so vital and packed with emotion that you feel a greater connection to Life. That this existence God has blessed you with is special. And so you hang onto the dream after you wake, clutching backwards into sleep for it.

Granny said, "That man is trouble. If you have any sense in that stubborn head of yours, you'll steer clear."

I stepped back from the window, the Vanagon long gone, and allowed my eyes to close. Granny didn't know the half of it. She had huffed off to her crocheting before the guys had even mentioned the Blind Mice.

No, she meant a more conventional trouble.

"You know," I said, "he wasn't guilty. It was a frame job."

"Twice?" Granny urged halfway out of her rocker. "I remember, I was watching—you forget I watch news! Man gets caught with pants around his ankles twice, and it's somebody else's fault?"

"I've told you, he was helping that woman the first time. And the second—"

"Yeah, helping ..."

"And the second," I continued, louder, "was Draktor. Quaid had beaten them, stopped their pipeline. So they set him up. They planted those emails on his computer."

Granny's eyes hardened. "So you'll hitch your wagon to his, eh?"

"Nobody's talking about hitching wagons."

"I may be old, but I see how you talk."

"How we talk?" My cheeks burned. "Granny, please. You're reading too much into this."

"Am I? Excuse me, but I'm the one who watched you worry yourself sick waiting on that louse. I held your hands when they wouldn't quit shaking." Remembering seemed to blunt Granny's vim. She finished softly, "You were a mess."

I sighed. On this point, she was right. After the last time, I had believed. Those hours up in the secret Duomo antechamber, Quaid holding me until the scorpion-venom-induced spasms subsided. The romantic weekend strolling the stradas hand-in-hand after the Carabinieri apprehended the thieves. It had felt different.

Real.

But here's what else had felt real: ten months watching the phone, expecting the guys to enlist McGill Investigators in their next adventure. I had thought P.I. work was my calling, that I could make this wild, unconventional life go after this last escapade with the guys. It had been my third (if you counted as #1 my chance meeting with Durwood in Shenandoah National Park, that harrowing weekend my marriage ended), and I had felt confident. Prepared for whatever jobs trickled in from my website and Yellow Pages ad.

All that trickled, though, was background checks and stakeouts of deadbeat husbands—and not enough of either to stop my savings frittered to nothing.

Oh, it was my fault. Just like that first career detour, abandoning my PhD to concentrate on the baby because my husband "had it covered" with his salary. "Trust the feeling," he had said. "It's what you want." And it was, in that moment, sleep-deprived and with my dissertation dragging, Zach a squirmy, messy bundle of perfection.

Quaid Rafferty's encouragement about McGill Investigators had been depressingly similar in retrospect. "Sure you should, go for it!" These men seemed to believe I was some exotic wildflower that needed to flourish without regard for convention or financial reality. And I'd believed them. I had bought into the fiction.

Now Quaid was saying he'd gotten busy. Something about hurricanes, Guadelupean resort workers.

Sounded like more fiction.

"I've learned," I told Granny. "I wouldn't do it for those reasons."

As she bit her tongue sourly, a peal of laughter sounded upstairs.

Children!

My eyes zoomed to the clock. It was 8:20. Zach would be lucky to make first hour, let alone homeroom. In a single swipe, I scooped up the Prius keys and both jackets. My purse whorled off my shoulder like some Super-Mom prop.

"Leaving now!" I called up the stairwell. "Here we go, kids—laces tied, backpacks zipped."

Zach trudged down, all his weight leaned opposite the rail. Karen followed with sunny-careful steps. I sped through the last items on my list—tossed a towel over the grape juice, sloshed water onto the roast, considered my appearance in the microwave door and just frowned, beyond caring—before hustling out.

Halfway across the porch, Granny's fingers closed around my wrist.

"Promise me," she said, "that you will not associate with Quaid Rafferty. Promise me right now you won't have one single thing to do with that lowlife."

I looked past her to the kitchen, where the cat was kinking herself to retch Eggos onto the linoleum floor.

"I'm sorry, Granny." I patted her hand and freed myself. "But the family needs this. I need this."