Page 149 of The Seven Rings
“Yes, very good. And more.”
“Dobbs?”
“Barely a peep. Only when I went up to check the closet for Catherine. Nothing. But I saw the sketch on your desk. Very creepy. Creepy in an ‘am I really seeing that?’ way.”
“It’s coming along. All right. Show and tell.”
“On the deck? Perfect day’s moved to perfect evening.”
They went out, sat. After taking a sip of wine, Sonya set the glass aside. She opened the book, handed it to Cleo.
“This is… Is this that room where Owen dreamed about playing chess with Collin?”
“Yeah.”
“And this is Collin. Our-age Collin. With… Deuce. It’s Deuce Doyle, isn’t it?”
“Again, yeah.”
“Okay, first, I’m going to say this is wonderful. You can see the bond like it’s alive. A winter’s night, two friends together over whiskey and chess, light snow, fire burning. Cozy room, lamplit. Beautiful.”
Now she looked at Sonya.
“You saw this?”
“One more yeah. I saw them playing chess, talking. And like what happened before, it all went still. Collin spoke to me. We spoke to each other. It was sad and sweet and, well, lovely in its way. We would have liked him, Cleo.”
Cleo gave her hand a squeeze. “Tell me.”
Chapter Nineteen
As dinner prep got underway, Owen arrived with a bakery box. After a perfunctory greeting to Yoda, Jones collapsed under the table.
“He had a long day,” Owen said. “I took him to work with me. Tour group, lots of kids. Being admired and fawned over gets tiring.” He set down the box. “Chocolate chunk cookies.”
He hooked an arm around Cleo’s waist, yanked her in for a kiss. “What’s cooking?”
“Grilled pork chops, smashed potatoes, and sesame green beans. We’ll wait to start the grill until Trey gets here.”
“Okay. I’ll feed the horde when the Mooks shows up.”
“I didn’t know you did tours at Poole’s.”
He glanced over at Sonya as he got a beer. “Yeah, a few times a year. It’s good PR. We do a couple days of them during the school year for students. Kids are a little scary.” He downed some beer. “In a good way.”
“What’s good-way scary?”
“They ask a crapload of questions, and man, are the little guys literal. Like why doesn’t the boat sink when people get in it?”
“Why doesn’t a boat sink with people on it?”
“If you were serious about that, I’d go into buoyancy, floatation, displacement. But your average eight-year-old doesn’t want the science.”
“So what do you tell them?” Cleo asked.
“Even with people or cargo on it, it weighs less than the waterit’s on, and we build them to keep the water out, and the air—and people—in. That usually does it.”
“When it doesn’t?”
