Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,25

girls playing on a slide. The one flying down, her long hair trailing behind her, was Eve Osborn. The girl waiting her turn at the top of the slide was Krista O'Shea, looking much happier than I'd seen her. The child climbing the ladder had turned to smile at the camera, and my breath caught in my throat.

The caption read, "These second graders enjoy the new playground equipment donated in March by Bartley Tractor and Tire Company and Choctaw County Welding."

"This was paper-clipped to the article from the paper," Jack said. "It was in a mailing envelope postmarked Bartley. Someone here in town thinks one of these little girls is Summer Dawn Macklesby."

"Oh, no."

His finger brushed the third child's face. "Dill's girl? Anna Kingery?"

I nodded, covered my own face with my hands.

"Sweetheart, I have to do this."

"Why did you come instead of Roy?"

"Because Roy had a heart attack two days ago. He called me from his hospital bed."

Chapter Four

"Is he going to be OK?"

"I don't know," Jack said. He was sad, and angry, too, though I wasn't sure where the anger came in. Maybe his own helplessness. "All those years of eating wrong and not exercising ... but the main thing is, he just has a bad heart."

I sat up, too, and put my arms around Jack. For a moment he accepted the comfort. He rested his head on my shoulder, his arms encircling me. I'd taken the band off his ponytail, and his long black hair fell soft against my skin. But then he raised his head and looked at me, our faces inches apart.

"I have to do this, Lily. For Roy. He took me in and trained me. If it was anyone but him, any case but one involving a child, I'd turn it down since it concerns someone close to you ... but this I have to do." Even if Anna Kingery turned out to be Summer Dawn Macklesby, even if Varena's life was ruined. I looked back at him, the pain in my heart so complicated I could not think how to express it.

"If he did that," Jack said, so intent on me he had read my silent thoughts, "you couldn't let her marry him anyway."

I nodded, still trying to accommodate this sharp pang. For all the years we'd spent apart, for all our estrangement, Varena was my sister, and we were the only people in the world who shared, who would remember, our common family life.

"This has to be resolved before the wedding," I said.

"Two days? Three?"

I actually had to think. "Three."

"Shit," Jack said.

"What do you have?" I pulled away from him, and his head began to lower to my breasts, as if drawn by a magnet. I grabbed his ears. "Jack, we have to finish talking."

"Then you'll have to cover up." He got his bathrobe out of the tiny closet and tossed it to me. It was the one he carried when he traveled, a thin, red, silky one, and I belted it around me.

"That's not much better," he said after a thorough look. "But it'll have to do." He pulled on a T-shirt and some Jockeys. He set his briefcase on the bed, and because it was cold in that bleak motel room, we both crawled back under the covers, sitting with our backs propped against the wall.

Jack put on his reading glasses, little half-lens ones that made him even sexier. I didn't know how long he'd used them, but he'd only recently begun wearing them in front of me. This was the first time I hadn't appreciated the effect.

"First, to find out who the little girls were, Roy hired Aunt Betty."

"Who?"

"You haven't met Aunt Betty yet. She's another PI, lives in Little Rock. She's amazing. In her fifties, hair dyed a medium brown, looks respectable to the core. She looks like everybody's Aunt Betty. Her real name is Elizabeth Fry. People tell her the most amazing things, because she looks like ... well, their aunt! And damn, that woman can listen!"

"Why'd Roy send her instead of you?"

"Well, surprise, but in some situations I don't blend in like Aunt Betty does. I was good for the Shakespeare job since I look just like someone who'd work in a sporting goods store, but I don't look like I could go around a small town asking for the names of little girls and get away with it. Right?"

I tried not to laugh. That was certainly true.

"So that's the kind of job Aunt Betty's perfect