Which is the part that's still got her weak-kneed. Andrew knocking her down in a moment of panic is no big deal -- that's something Mouse could see doing herself, something she's already done to herself. But Andrew nearly bringing a house down on her is something else again. Not that he was trying to hurt her -- he, whoever he was at that moment, wasn't thinking of her at all probably, but still. . . if she'd landed a little differently, hit her head a little harder, she could have been lying in the attic unconscious until the cottage fell over. She could be dead now. For that matter so could Andrew: when Mouse came running downstairs to stop him demolishing the place, he hadn't seemed too concerned about his own safety.

"I think," Mouse says, "that I'm ready to go back to Seattle now. I know you have things to figure out, and I still want to be helpful, but. . . I don't want to go to the cottage again, or anywhere else that's going to make you react that way." She looks at him. "Can we be done here? Please?"

Before Andrew can answer, the bell above the diner's front door jingles, and a voice calls out breathlessly: "Sam!"

Oh G.o.d. Mouse, who has been sitting with her back to the door, turns to see Officer Cahill striding towards them. The officer is red-faced from exertion, and Mouse guesses it's no coincidence that he's come in here; he must have seen the Centurion parked a block and a half away and come running down the street, looking in every window until he found them.

Mouse braces herself for another round of Mistaken Ident.i.ties, but when she turns back to Andrew his posture has changed, gone poised and feminine. Either Aunt Sam has successfully pet.i.tioned for some time out, or -- more likely, Mouse thinks -- she's taken advantage of Andrew's disrupted mental state and seized the moment.

"Sam. . ." As Officer Cahill arrives at the booth he visibly gathers himself, preparing to launch into a speech. But Sam heads him off, smiling sweetly and saying: "h.e.l.lo, Jimmy. How are you?"

Officer Cahill bunks, stunned by the welcome. Then he smiles, too. "Sam," he says warmly. "Can I. . . is it all right if I join you?" Not waiting for an answer, he starts to slide into the booth on Mouse's side; Mouse realizes she's about to get sat on, scoots over hastily, and loses control to Malefica, who s.n.a.t.c.hes up a teaspoon and prepares to jam it into Officer Cahill's b.u.t.tocks.

"Wait, Jimmy," Sam says, and Officer Cahill halts obediently, half-in and half-out of the booth.

"Before you sit down, could you get me a slice of pie?"

"Pie?" For a moment he's at a loss, like he's never heard the word before. Then he smiles again.

"Sure. What kind?"

"Cherry, please." Sam returns his smile, her eyes shining. "With whipped cream. Extra whipped cream."

"Cherry with extra whipped cream. You got it." He hurries off to the counter.

"Sam?" Maledicta says.

"Dear." Still smiling, but sadly now. "Do you have a cigarette?" Her hands are trembling.

"No. Sorry." Maledicta drops the spoon back on the table. "What the f.u.c.k was that, Sam?

You're not going to give this c.o.c.ksucker the time of day, are you?"

Sam doesn't answer, just stares at her hands. By the time Officer Cahill returns with the cherry pie, she's got them to stop shaking.

"Here you go, Sam. . ." He lays a fork and a fresh napkin on the table in front of her and starts to set the pie plate down too, but she catches his wrist. "Sam?"

"Jimmy. . ." She tilts her head like she wants to whisper something to him, so he leans forward, and Sam slips her other hand up underneath the pie plate and shoves it, extra whipped cream and all, into his face. Officer Cahill lets out a m.u.f.fled squawk -- "Urk!" -- and steps back sputtering. Sam gets up and runs out of the diner, in her rush very nearly making the day's knockdown score two for two.

"Yeah, Sam!" hoots Maledicta, pounding the table hard enough to upset both coffee cups. She slides out of the booth and makes her own exit, pausing at the door to holler to a startled waitress: "Don't worry about the nicking check -- lover boy there's got it!"

She catches up to Sam on the block where they parked the Centurion. Sam's standing in front of a Laundromat, staring blankly in the window. Maledicta comes up and gives her a good hearty clap on the back.

"That was f.u.c.king excellent, Sam." She gestures to a nearby cross street, where she remembers seeing a bar. "Come on, let's go get a drink I'm f.u.c.king buying."

"No thanks. A drink is the last thing I need right now."

Andrew. Maledicta's expression of glee turns to a scowl. "f.u.c.k!"

"Sorry to disappoint you," Andrew says.

"Disappoint my f.u.c.king a.s.s, you f.u.c.ker. Get Sam back out here."

"Sam's gone to her room. She won't be coming out again today." He glances down the street towards the diner. "That was really. . . unfortunate, what just happened back there."

'"Unfortunate,"' Maledicta mocks him. "It was f.u.c.king great!"

"Well I'm glad you enjoyed it, Maledicta. But I think we'd better leave town now. Could you get Penny for me, please?"

"No, I could not get f.u.c.king Mouse for you. And I'm not leaving town until I get a f.u.c.king drink."

"Maledicta. . . in case you didn't notice, I just attacked a policeman."

"Oh, bulls.h.i.t! That was no f.u.c.king policeman, that was an a.s.shole ex-boyfriend who got what he f.u.c.king had coming."

"Well even so, I think we should go. I'm done here, at least for --"

"Well I'm not f.u.c.king done here. I want a f.u.c.king drink." Glaring: "I need to calm my f.u.c.king nerves after someone nearly collapsed a house on me."

"Maledicta, I'm really, really sorry about that, but --"

Enough of this bulls.h.i.t. "You f.u.c.king coming?" she says, and starts walking.

"Maledicta. . ."

She doesn't even look back, just gives him the finger over her shoulder and keeps going.

"Maledicta!"

"Maledicta!" I called, but she just made a rude gesture and kept walking away. I stood there indecisively for a moment and then, hoping it might startle her into switching, yelled out: "Penny!"

No good. Maledicta continued on to the corner, then started to cross the street, cursing out a driver who had a.s.sumed that a green light gave him the right of way. Frustrated, not knowing what else to do but follow her, I stepped sideways into the street myself, my back to the flow of traffic.

The blare of a horn sent me leaping back to the curb. I turned as a patrol car pulled up alongside me. I thought it was Officer Cahill again, but the face that leaned over from the driver's seat was Gordon Bradley's.

"Good way to get yourself killed there, Andrea," he admonished me.

"Chief Bradley. I'm sorry, I --" I started to point to Maledicta, then lowered my arm. "I was distracted."

"Yeah, that's generally how it happens. Did Jimmy find you?"

"Officer Cahill? Um. . ."

"I sent him to look for you. We just got a call from that woman you were asking about."

"What woman?"

"Your landlady. Mrs. Winslow, is it?"

"Mrs. Winslow called? How is she? Did you tell her I'm OK?"

"I did," Chief Bradley said, "but she was determined to come see for herself. She's on her way to the airport right now."

"Oh my G.o.d." I didn't know whether to be excited or embarra.s.sed. "She's flying all the way out from Seattle?"

"Rapid City, actually. I believe."

"Rapid City? Why would she be. . . oh no."

"She said she was calling from a motel in the South Dakota Badlands. Apparently she'd gotten word from some doctor that you'd been there -- I didn't really follow that part too clearly. Anyway, she knows you're here now, and she asked me to make sure you stayed put until she arrived. Now I'm not going to detain you officially, but --"

"It's OK," I told him. "I'm not going anywhere."

"All right then. . ." The chief looked over his shoulder at a couple of cars that had come up behind him. "Listen, I can't keep blocking traffic here, but would you want to come back to my house and get some lunch? We could talk some more about me buying that property off you."

"Um, actually. . ." I looked up the street the way Maledicta had gone; she was out of sight now.

Then I looked back the other way, and saw Officer Cahill coming out of the diner. He had a fistful of napkins and was still wiping whipped cream off his face.

". . . actually, yes," I said.

The patrol car's front pa.s.senger seat was already taken by a big box of fishing tackle, so I climbed in back, sliding down as low as I could in the seat. Chief Bradley observed me curiously but didn't say anything; he drove on, taking a left at the next corner. This took us right past the bar where Maledicta had gone to have her drink, and I thought about asking the chief to stop so I could try and talk her into coming with us. But I doubted I could convince her, and didn't think it would be a good idea to bring her to Chief Bradley's house anyway. Penny, yes; but not Maledicta.

We turned left at the next corner, too, and then left again, and finally right, coming back onto Main Street on the same block as Winch.e.l.l's Diner. I crossed my fingers that Chief Bradley wouldn't stop to tell Officer Cahill he'd found me. He didn't, and when I finally sat up to take a look around, we were already past the firehouse and headed out of town.

"Uh, Chief Bradley," I said, "where exactly is your house? Don't you live in Seven Lakes?"

"Just outside the town limits, actually. I have a couple acres next to Sportsman's Lake." That would, I guessed, be the kidney bean-shaped pond where he'd been fishing this morning.

I thought of Maledicta again, and realized I should at least have stopped to let her know where I was going. "Listen, it just occurred to me, my friend's still back in town, uh, doing some shopping, and if she finishes and can't find me, she might get worried."

"We won't be gone long," Chief Bradley said. "And I can always radio Jimmy and have him let your friend know where you are."

"Well, to be honest, Chief Bradley, I'd rather Officer Cahill didn't know where I was."

He looked at me in the rearview mirror. "You and Jimmy having a problem of some kind?"

"Of some kind," I agreed.

"He's still sweet on you, isn't he?" Chief Bradley shook his head, then said "Men," as if he wasn't one himself. "Men are fools for love, Andrea. . ."

Chief Bradley's house had a raised deck that faced Sportsman's Lake, although it was set back a very long way from the water. The chief pointed this out himself as we were coming up the drive. "I wanted to build right up on the bank, but the problem with that d.a.m.n pond is that it has a habit of changing size. Those same rains that undercut the foundation at your mother's place? They nearly flooded me out. It's one of the reasons I'm in the market for a new property."

"Well, but that's not very practical," I observed. "If the same rain nearly destroyed my mother's cottage, wouldn't you just be trading one property for another with the same problems?"

He chuckled, as if I'd caught him out at something. "You have a point there, Andrea. I guess I'm not a very practical person."

He parked, got out, and came back to open my door for me. I took the hand he offered, but instead of stepping back and helping me to my feet he just stood there, staring at my hand like he was going to kiss it.

"Chief Bradley?"

"My Lord, Andrea," he said, "what did you do to yourself?"

Oh. He was looking at my knuckles. In the washroom at Winch.e.l.l's Diner I'd gotten out most of the splinters and run cold water over my hands until they stopped bleeding, but I hadn't got around to bandaging them yet -- the gauze was still in the Centurion.

"It's nothing," I said. I wasn't going to explain to him how I'd tried to knock down the house he wanted to buy from me. "It's all right, really -- it looks much worse than it is."

"You should get some disinfectant on this, Andrea. You don't want --"

"It's all right," I repeated. "Could I, could you let me get out now, please?"

"Of course." He moved back, and I got out. "Well," Chief Bradley said, gently shutting the car door as I stepped away, "are you hungry?"

I wasn't, and all at once I very much didn't want to be here. I wanted to run back into town, get Penny, and get as far away from Seven Lakes as possible. But I couldn't leave yet; Mrs. Winslow was coming.

"All right," I said, and forced myself to smile. "Sure. Let's eat something."

Maledicta is just finishing her second vodka when Officer Cahill comes into the bar. She's expecting Andrew -- with no one to drive him, where the f.u.c.k else is he going to go? -- but then she sees who it really is and breaks into a fresh scowl.

f.u.c.k. Not this c.o.c.ksucker again. Maledicta thinks about hiding, but there's not much chance of that: the bar is small and mostly empty right now, the only occupants besides Maledicta and the bartender being a handful of gray-haired alcoholics, clones of the old geezer from the Pink Mammoth. She could duck into the ladies' room but decides it's not worth the bother.

The bartender and the geezer-clones all raise their hands, greeting the officer the way you do a regular. He starts to high-five them back, then spots Maledicta and does a double-take. This tells Maledicta that the officer hasn't followed her here; he's come into the bar on his own to drown his sorrows. That's one of the problems with a p.i.s.sant town like this: too few places to get drunk. And of course, even though the officer wasn't looking for Maledicta, now that he's found her he's going to have to interrupt her happy hour. He can't help himself.

Sure enough, he walks straight over to her. "Is Sam here?" he asks, demanding and pleading at the same time.

It's dangerous to curse out a policeman -- even Maledicta understands that -- but this guy just pushes all her b.u.t.tons. "Go f.u.c.k yourself," she tells him.

He bristles. "Look here," he says, starting to lean into her, "I don't know who you are, but --"

"That's right," Maledicta cuts him off, "you don't know who the f.u.c.k I am." She rises up on the barstool until she's eye to eye with him, right in his face. "You don't know who I am because all day you've been f.u.c.king ignoring me, acting like I'm f.u.c.king invisible. Fifteen minutes ago you nearly f.u.c.king sat on me. So you don't know who the f.u.c.k I am, but you know who I'm not? I'm not the one who f.u.c.ked things up between you and Sam. You f.u.c.king did that yourself, you stupid c.o.c.ksucker, and you'd better not even f.u.c.king think about giving me a hard time over it!"

Dead silence in the bar following this. The bartender and the geezer-clones pretend to be statues, although real statues' ears don't turn crimson. As for Officer Cahill, his color scheme goes in the opposite direction: his ears, cheeks, and forehead take on a cheesecloth hue as the blood drains out of them.

Satisfied, Maledicta turns back to the bar and raps her shot gla.s.s on the counter to reanimate the bartender. He pours her another vodka, while Officer Cahill struggles to restore circulation to those portions of his brain required for speech. "Listen," he stammers, "I didn't mean to. . . I'm sorry if I. . ." He hits a block, stops, shuts his eyes for a second, sighs, and goes on: "Can you tell me where Sam is, please?"

Maledicta holds her shot gla.s.s up under her nose, letting the fumes curl the hairs of her nostrils.

"Sam's gone home," she says.

"Home? You mean back up to the cottage, or -- "

"Home home," Maledicta says. She grins in sudden inspiration. "Back to New Mexico."

"New Mexico?"

Maledicta tilts her head back, downs the shot. "Ye-a-h," she gasps. "Yeah, New Mexico. Santa Fe. That's where we f.u.c.king live. Sam and I, we've got our own f.u.c.king art gallery there."

"So you're both. . . artists."