Page 33 of Red Boar's Baby

“What?”

“No need this time,” Caine said. “Your house is pretty easy to target. I’ve been there enough.”

“Wha—” Diana began again, but her voice died to nothing as darkness enveloped them.

It was the first time that Costa had realized it was impossible to hear anything in the void through which Caine traveled—nothing, that is, except a sort of faint rustling that was felt more than heard, as of the spreading of vast, unseen wings. There was a sharp chill that stung like a cold winter day.

Then he struck his hip on some hard object, probably his own sink. There was a rattle and a sudden clatter as of items being knocked over.

“What!” Diana half-screamed, and in a slightly more moderate tone, “Where are we?”

“My bathroom, probably.” Costa felt around in the dark, feeling unseen bodies moving against him, and opened the door. The light of the living room spilled in, and Diana plunged out past him as if she needed air.

Caine followed more slowly, one hand pressed to his forehead. Costa planted him on the couch, and idly reached for the TV remote, as it was still playing silently (now on a commercial break). “You okay? Need a drink of water or something?”

“Just too many trips in close succession. Gimme a minute.” Caine bent over, pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead.

Diana was standing a few steps into the living room, staring around, with her hands clutched on the strap of the grocery bag. “I see why you thought Caine could take care of himself in the desert,” she said faintly. “What—wasthat?”

“Top secret,” Costa said. “Extremely confidential. Do not talk about it with anyone. Come here, let me put those away for you.”

He guided Diana into the kitchen, pausing along the way to glance in on Emmeline, who still seemed to be fast asleep on the floor of the bedroom.

“So you didn’t leave her alone for hours,” Diana said slowly as he found room for her groceries (a half gallon of milk, some yogurts, a carton of strawberries, a small bag of French roast) in his fridge. “You were only gone for a few minutes.”

“Right. I saw the news and called Caine and we were over there thirty seconds later.”

He had to watch, then, the slow crumpling of her face as recent events really hit her.

“My house,” Diana said, and she started to sit down on the kitchen floor, not a faint so much as apparently going for a chair that wasn’t there.

Costa hastily caught her and steered her to a stool at the kitchen island.

“My house,” Diana repeated blankly. “My house. My things. My birth certificate. My mom’s ashes.” She turned a dazed look on the fridge, which Costa had left open when he caught her; he moved to shut it. “All I have in the world is the clothes I’m wearing and thirty bucks’ worth of groceries,” she added, and gave a high-pitched, slightly hysterical laugh.

Costa had rarely felt so helpless. He wanted to take her in his arms again. He still had the visceral sense-memory of her body against his, the way she felt when he held her.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked.

“No! I want my house!” And with that, Diana burst into tears.

CHAPTER11

Diana had always found cryinghumiliating. It was so uncontrollable and involuntary. Also, she had never been a beautiful cryer, releasing a series of perfectly aesthetic tears. She was more of a loud, honking, red-nosed abject sobber.

But for the second time that night, she found herself unselfconsciously wrapped in Costa’s warm, firm embrace. She made one feeble attempt to hold back and then collapsed against his shoulder and wept helplessly.

Her house! It had never really been home the way the ranch had been, but after her parents sold the ranch during her mother’s final illness, everything she had kept with her from that time had come with her to Bisbee. The lumpy, misshapen vase she’d made for her mom in fourth-grade art class. The antique dresser that had belonged to her grandmother. The horseback riding trophy she had won in high school. Her mother’s wedding dress, that she had hoped to wear herself someday.

Diana had never thought of herself as a person who cared all that much about material things, and she had never tended to collectstuff, in general. But she was unprepared for the blow of losing all her possessions in one instant.

She had seen the glow and the smoke in the distance, but she thought it was someone else’s tragedy. It was only as she turned onto her street that shock and panic truly set in.

And it would have been much more of a tragedy if I’d been home.

Normally her car was parked in a carport behind the house. She wondered if someone might not have realized it was gone.

Was it a warning? An attempt on her life?

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