called yesterday, but no one got the message for hours because bureaucracy. Message reads, ‘I’m not dead, keep her safe until I get there, you drones.’” Oz looked up. “So Sally’s dad wasn’t a fan of IPA. Or isn’t a fan of IPA. Dammit! Why does everything about this case get progressively weirder? Did he get a message to Sally, too? I think he must have. Isn’t that why she ran again?”
“Are you thinking out loud or is this an actual conversation where you want our input?” From Dev, who’d finished his sandwich and was on his third glass of apple cider.
“Both. Maybe. I dunno.” Oz rubbed his eyes. “It’s 6:00 p.m. on a Tuesday. Why do I feel like it’s 2:00 a.m. on a Friday?”
“You need some rest. Stay the night. Or at least long enough for a nice nap.”
“Sure,” he sighed. “A nap will fix everything.”
“Never said it would, boy.” This while stabbing a finger in the general direction of Oz’s eyeballs. “But you get snappish when you’re tired. Eat something and go lie down,” she ordered.
“I will, but because I want to.” He could hear himself whining and sighed. Mama had a point. Everything and everyone around him was pissing him off, and for no good reason. It was just as well Annette and David weren’t here; all they could do right now was get on each other’s nerves. Besides, maybe Lila would stop by. He’d torpedoed any chance at a relationship with the decoy lunch, but his libido was inconveniently ignoring that. “Thanks, Mama.” A true measure of his fatigue: her lumpy sectional sounded more appealing than his own digs, which weren’t lumpy at all.
He wasn’t lonely, exactly. He had a fine life, and he knew it. But sometimes he wanted to come back home and stay home, even if only for an evening. He pondered the dichotomy while brushing his teeth and stripping to his skivvies. Mama always had spare toothbrushes on hand, and Oz kept a couple of changes of clothes at her place, too, for reasons he decided not to examine.
I guess that settles the Kama-Rupa question. Well, it doesn’t, but there’s no point in speculating any longer; Lila wants nothing to do with any of us with the possible exception of Sally and maybe Dev. Which is sensible for many, many reasons.
He assumed the sleeping position—facedown starfish—and yawned into the upholstery. I’ve had that condo for four years, but this crowded chaotic purple house is my home. It felt like that even before I met Lila. There’s probably some sort of parable or lesson there, but I’m too wiped to give a shhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
Chapter 17
Lila smelled it before she heard it, like last time. And froze, like last time. An icy hand snaked down her throat and seized her stomach while every hair on her arms came to attention and she thought everything, it’ll take everything.
She shot out of her office chair and darted to the closet to grab what she needed, went to her bedroom closet and did the same, then walked quickly
(easy…you’re no good to anyone if you brain yourself falling down the stairs)
and carefully to her kitchen, snatched the bucket of clean rags beneath the sink, soaked them, grabbed keys, left her home.
She saw it at once—Mama Mac’s silly purple house, belching smoke like it was getting paid. She managed to hit 911 and put them on speaker with one hand. “I’ve got a 10–70. There’s a house fire at 1218 Elinor Avenue in Lilydale, Saint Paul. I can see smoke and flames and there’s at least one child
(child? is he?)
and one elderly woman in the house. Please roll fire and rescue ASAP.”
“Can I g—”
Sorry, dispatch. Lila was flat-out running because her worst fear had become glaring, ugly reality: she could see someone—the kid with the bear?—silhouetted in one of the upstairs windows. She ran right up on the lawn until she was standing below the window, which he now opened
(argh, don’t give the fire more oxygen)
(but don’t die of smoke inhalation either)
to lean out and call down to her. Instead of the panicked shriek for help, she heard, “Hi! Can you step back, please?”
She cupped her hands and shouted through them. “Listen! I’m tossing up a ladder. You just hook it to the sill and let it unfold and you can scoot right down.”
“Um, thanks, but maybe you could just move back a little?”
“Pay attention!”
“You don’t have to move back much,” he called down. “Like, just a foot or