Page 82 of Truth, Lies, and Second Dates
Must I explain?He was surprised by the thought, one his much younger self would have asked plaintively.Again?
The sharp rap on the door had splintered his concentration, and a few seconds later he heard a delighted yelp
“Food’s here!”
and left the bathroom.
So here they were, eating in companionable silence while he struggled to think of what to say. Ava had wasted no time spreading out the food in the separate dining area; she was a fourth of the way through her steak by the time he pulled his plate of chicken kebobs toward him.
“Thank you. For coming back here.”
“Thankyoufor going all Apollo Creed over those two. It’s nicer here anyway. Better food and more privacy.”
Yes. Privacy. To talk about the killer. And. Perhaps. Something more?
He did not know, and wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. So he avoided it with, “I like this carpet. It’s incongruously blue.”
She looked up from her plate and giggled. “Itisincongruous, isn’t it? Most of these places have tan or brown or gray. Or a pattern. But this is very, very blue.”
“Like a moat.”
“A fuzzy, deep-blue moat.”
A short silence fell, which Ava broke with, “Where’d you learn to fight? Can all medical examiners do that, or just you?”
“I box at Top Team. It’s an excellent full-body workout as it’s a valuable balance of resistance and cardio. Abe got me into it.”
“Please tell me you don’t spar with Abe.”
“Not anymore.”
“Tom! One hit and you’d blast him through the ropes! And possibly the wall behind the ropes.”
“Like I said, not anymore.”
She groaned, then realized he was teasing and smacked him on the elbow. “Well, I’m officially thanking you for preventing my mugging and subsequent need for a new purse.”
“The important thing is that you weren’t hurt,” he said softly.
“No, the important thing is that neither of us were hurt. And speaking of hurt, will you tell me about the Mall of America murders?”
Never had he been so pleased to talk shop. “Murder, singular. It wasn’t murder so much as manslaughter. The restaurant had a new employee who was behaving foolishly with the machine they use to make eggrolls.”
“Am I about to be very glad we didn’t order egg rolls?”
“Perhaps. During the employee’s shenanigans—”
“Oh, man. Gotta give full props to anyone incorporating ‘shenanigans’ into a story about death by egg-roll machine.”
“—one of the blades violently detached and nearly amputated one employee’s arm. And while people were panicking over that, a cylinder somehow rolled loose and crushed the first employee. His chest cavity filled with blood and he suffocated.”
“Wow.”
“Yes.”
“Awful.”
“Yes.”
