“Are you busy this weekend?”
He looked to the wall where a calendar was supposed to hang, then remembered its thumbtack had come loose a few weeks ago and he’d never gotten around to putting it back. “I work Saturday morning, I think. Why?”
“I actually meant Saturday night.”
“Why?” he asked again.
Marnie’s sigh was long-suffering. “A friend of mine—well, a friend of a friend of mine—needs a date for a thing, so she asked if I’d ask if you’d go.”
“Which friend?”
“Sophy.”
The muscles in his neck relaxed. He liked Sophy Marchand—had been out with her a couple of times without Marnie acting as intermediary. “Why didn’t Sophy call herself?”
“No, she’s my friend. Her friend is Kiki Isaacs.”
In the kitchen, Scooter gave a little whine. The dog had excellent hearing—and taste in women. Kiki was a detective with CLPD, pretty, whiny, aggressive and didn’t know the meaning of the word subtle. The few times he’d seen her off the job, she’d still been armed, even though she could probably heave him like a javelin. She was an in-your-face type, and frankly, she scared him.
“Uh, you know, Scooter’s been sick this week.”
On cue, the dog lifted his head and gave a pitiful wail. Switching the phone to the other hand, Stephen fished a cookie from the bowl on the desk and tossed it to him, mouthing, Good boy.
“And you know how I always play catch-up on weekends.” He set goals on Monday and worked as he could during the week, then busted his butt on the weekend to be sure he reached them.
“Would it make any difference if I told you I’d be there, too?”
“Where?”
“It’s a retirement party for the police chief. We all have to go.”
“How about I go as your guest and Kiki can hang out with us?” Or not.
Marnie muttered to herself—he caught the word decomp and didn’t listen for more—then said, “I, uh, have a date.”
Stephen’s eyes widened. He couldn’t remember the last time his sister had had a date. He loved her dearly, but she was...different. Dead people interested her way more than any living soul. Chitchat for her usually involved lab values, blood-splatter evidence, processes of death or similar subjects most people did not want to talk about over dinner.
“Does it matter to you if I take Kiki?”
Again she was silent. Probably weighing the satisfaction she could receive having her own escort at the party while Kiki went dateless against the knowledge that Kiki would have been dateless if not for her. “Yes,” she said at last.
“Okay. Remind me Friday.”
“Thanks.” The line went dead. Never any goodbyes for Marnie. If she was finished talking, she hung up.
Stephen set his phone down, then leaned back, staring at the molten red-and-green world rotating on his computer screen. Slowly the view zoomed in, showing mountains and plains, deserts and seas, trees and buildings and people, then it swept out to a global view before repeating it in a new spot.
Marra’akeen. The world where he spent much of his time. The world where he would much rather be come Saturday night. But if it was important to Marnie, he would go and he would be more pleasant than Kiki deserved. And if she acted the way she usually did, he swore he would make the next villain he created a pushy, curly haired whiner named Ke’Ke.
Opening his last document with a sigh, he read what he’d written the day before. By the time he reached the last page, he was in the story’s rhythm and began typing. Though there were as many ways to write a book as there were people writing them, he liked stopping in the middle of a scene, saving himself the hassle of deciding what should happen next when he came back to it.
He worked steadily for more than an hour before his gaze strayed to the south window. The roof of the Howard house was just visible through the trees. He’d driven past it hundreds of times since he’d moved here, and he’d never seen any sign of life. Of course, the Woodhaven Villains weren’t the type to sit out on their porches, in the few houses that even had porches, or work in the front yards themselves. In his world, they were Lord Gentry who hired Workers to do anything remotely similar to manual labor. They lived in luxurious cocoons, surrounded by tall walls and state-of-the-art alarm systems to keep out the Lessers. It was all way too confining for him.
Macy Howard had looked confined, but there