do?"
"Tonight, we sleep. You'll stay on my couch. Tomorrow..." She sighed, watching me with dark eyes.
"What?"
"This Davina," she said carefully. "Do you know where she's staying?"
I shook my head. "No."
"But you trust her? Are you sure?"
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. "Yes. I've got no reason not to trust her. Right?"
"If you trust her, that's enough for me." Betty watched me for a moment, her eyes calculating something. "Can you bring her here to me tomorrow night? I'd like to talk to her. Compare notes, find out what she knows."
I hesitated for a moment, not sure how I would find Davina, but somehow certain that she'd show if I needed her. "Yeah. Sure. I think that's a good idea."
Betty reached out and in an atypical show of physical affection, put her palm against my cheek. "You're a good girl, Livvy. Don't you worry. We'll figure this all out."
I smiled. She lowered her hand and started toward the side door that opened into the stairwell to her apartment. I followed, feeling like an obedient dog, grateful to be led.
"So, is this one of those life situations that calls for bad snack cakes?" I asked.
"I'd characterize this as more of a vodka-straight situation," she said, closing the side door behind us, "but you make do with what you've got."
* * *
I went home the next morning, let Gibson out of his shoebox so he could wander around my room - hell, ceramics need exercise, too, right? - and took a shower. It wasn't until I'd dried off and changed that I realized Gibson was missing. I searched the second floor, then panicked at the stairs as I raced down them, trying to comfort myself that there was that strip of carpet down the middle of the hardwood to give him a soft(er) fall, but still.
"Gibson!" I hollered, hitting the first floor running. I heard a clunk coming from the living room and ran in to find him, bumping against the couch. I grabbed him and held him up, running my fingers over him to check for damage. Amazingly enough, he'd managed to tumble down the steps and waddle into the living room with only a little chunk taken out of his handle. Tail. Whatever. It twitched at me as I held him, and I touched the rough spot of bare white ceramic where the paint had chipped off.
"Poor baby," I said, then wondered aloud, "Does it hurt?"
He didn't seem to react at all when I touched the chipped spot, and I realized that what I had on my hands was a blind and likely deaf ceramic mug bunny with no pain sensitivity, and no sense of self-preservation as a result. If I didn't figure out a way to keep him safe, I'd have a shattered Gibson on my hands. I searched the basement, found the huge cardboard box that they'd shipped my computer monitor in, and lined it with old towels. I set him in it and he toddled around, bouncing lightly off one side and then righting himself so he could bounce into the other.
I sat back on the couch, watching him wander happily through my handiwork, and my mind drifted to how the hell I was going to find Davina. She wasn't staying with Grace and Addie, we'd figured out that much, but the fact is, if she'd been staying at any of the places in town, talk of her would have filtered into CCB's by now; no one new came to town without everyone knowing about it. Yet both Davina and Cain had been here for over a week, and not a word was making the rounds about either of them. Wherever each of them was staying, it was either somewhere out of town, or in town with someone who didn't talk.
My bet was out of town. Which, considering that Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Erie, Pennsylvania, were all within an easy drive of Nodaway, meant it could be weeks before I'd find either of them, and I didn't have weeks to kill.
There had to be a way to get a message to Davina. I closed my eyes and lay down on the couch, soothed by the muffled sounds of Gibson exploring his new space, and thought.
Then, it came to me.
Peach's crane.
I reached over to the coffee table, grabbed the slightly crumpled orange crane she'd left the day before, inspected it, and decided there were crazier ideas than this one. I found a pencil under the couch