a marketable skill."
"How so? You think there's money in monkey imitation?"
Smiling, Jane shrugged. "In ten years' time, who knows?"
"I'm developing a dislike of annoying glass-half-full types."
Jane cast a look at her. "Something tells me that's your usual type."
Tess sighed. "Give me more to put in my glass, then."
"It's summer. We're sitting beachside. We have a pretty view of the sun setting on the Pacific." Jane crossed her feet at the ankles. "Now you go."
The other woman groaned. "The mosquitoes aren't out. Yet."
"You're not even trying."
"Fine. Russ is too little for Cheetos."
"You are in bad shape."
"Don't fall in love, Jane. That's all I can tell you."
The warning only brought to mind a white grin, a big hand tousling her hair, a pair of reporter's eyes that looked at her and seemed to see something beyond four plain letters. We're both aware there's more to you than that.
"That's a suspicious silence." Tess groaned again. "Don't say it. Don't tell me you and Griffin - "
"I didn't say it," Jane said, breaking in. There was no "she and Griffin." "I mean, before, I meant to tell you that he's actually working on the memoir."
Tess straightened. "Truth?"
"Truth. He's over there right now, productive as you please."
"Well, that's good news."
"Very good," Jane agreed. The only bad had been her silly self, which allowed her brain to head off on useless tangents. It had been a night out of time! "And it was good I came over here too, because now I can go back, refreshed. Thanks for the conversation."
As she headed for No. 9, dusk was falling. Tess's voice came to her from the now-shadowy porch, a quiet warning. "Jane, just remember. That you... That Griffin - "
"It's all good," Jane said firmly, repeating the word. "Everything's under control."
She let herself into the house and set the postcard from Gage on the coffee table. No lamps were lit in the living room or the kitchen, so she turned them on as she went by, then trod down the hall to the office. Nearing the doorway, she noted there wasn't any sign of life in there either - and she had to shake off the sinister feel of it.
Then she heard Private whine, and she knew man and dog were inside the room. Still, her hand trembled as she reached for the light switch.
"Don't," a voice said. It was gritty and dark and almost unrecognizable as Griffin's.
It took a moment to make him out. He was stretched on the floor like a corpse - except in a mirror of the first time they'd met, he balanced a bottle of beer on his midriff. Three empties lay beside him, knocked over like bowling pins. Private was nearby, attentive to his master's needs.
Whatever they might be. Jane didn't have a clue.
"What happened?" she asked, in her library voice.
He was silent so long she worried he might have passed out on her. Just when she thought she should check, he lifted his head to take another draw from his beer. It was so quiet she heard him swallow. Then his skull clunked against the wood floor, and Jane winced. Griffin didn't seem to notice.
"Nothing. I've been working, just like I'm supposed to, honey-pie. I was going through the notes."
Something else had been in that big envelope: several small notebooks Griffin had used during his embedded year. They were dog-eared and dirty, but each was labeled with their dates of use and bound with a rubber band. She'd assumed that at some point he'd sent back a batch of them for safekeeping.
Private whined again. Exactly, Jane thought.
"Maybe we should get you something to eat," she suggested. "Or drink. Coffee. A soda."
"Beer's fine," Griffin said. "Beer's making me drunk."
He didn't sound drunk.
"Beer's helping me mine my emotions, honey-pie."
Now he sounded angry, and just a little bit mean.
Her stomach clenched, and her first instinct was to run back to Tess's. But there he was on the floor, her dark pirate, looking just as alone as he'd been that first afternoon with the raucous Party Central all around him. His sister had said he'd declined invitations to be with family and refused to talk about his experience. Had he reached a place and time where he could finally tell someone about it?
"What about the notes?" she asked, her voice soft. "Why did they bother you?"
"You don't want to know."
That's when she saw it. A slip of paper crumpled on the floor beside him, a tiny ball that she guessed had packed enough punch