Chapter Ten

I went to bed antsy and woke up feeling pretty much the same.

Sunday was my usual day off, when I took one. Today, Janet was scheduled to be in and in charge-making it a perfect time to head south to the safe camp. Unfortunately, in the early hours of the morning she’d left a message on voice mail saying she was sick. I alternated Sunday management between her and Cheryl. But Cheryl had her kids every other weekend, and this weekend was special. She’d taken them to the Dells, a city just north of Madison filled with water parks.

I wasn’t ready to ditch my plans, though. After pressing the 3 on my phone to delete Janet’s message, I scribbled out a short note and taped it to Mother’s door. She wouldn’t like being tied to the shop instead of being free to play Amazon warrior, but she’d do it. I just had to be out of the building before she got back upstairs from her morning workout.

One good thing…Harmony was still at her friend’s and probably would be most of the day. I had purposely not given her a “must be home by” time. I figured I wouldn’t see her until dark.

My business and home life were covered for today, but I was going to have to find some regularly scheduled activity to occupy my daughter soon. With the killer free and targeting Amazons-even if she didn’t know she was an Amazon herself-I couldn’t do the normal suburban thing and tell her to hang at the mall. I needed to know someone was watching her, would let me know if anyone approached her. And I couldn’t continually send her to someone else’s house. It broke the unspoken code of playdate etiquette that still applied, even though her playdate days were long behind us both.

I needed my girl watched, safe and away from warring Amazons. Something I’d have to work on when I got back from today’s jaunt.

I walked out the front door at nine fifteen. The black mark the fire had left on my lawn was impossible to miss-as was the over-six-foot-tall male standing beside it.

With a sigh, I walked down the incline, curious as to what brought Peter here so early, but more occupied with rehearsing my feeble cover lie for the burnt disaster that was my front yard.

He was rooting around in the ashes with the toe of his boot when I arrived. I’d made sure to remove all signs of the totem animals last night before deserting the site for my bed.

“Bonfire? Are those allowed in Madison?” he asked.

I brushed hair from my face. “I don’t know, and luckily no one showed up from the city to tell me.” Luck had nothing to do with it. Bubbe had cast a spell, similar to the ones used to keep safe camps secret, over the space. It had been a quick and dirty piece of magic, but I guessed it had done the job. At least no police or neighbors had called to complain. Obviously, it hadn’t been strong enough to keep Peter from noticing the mess, though.

“The new tenants got a little carried away.” I picked up a piece of charred wood and tossed it in the air. Soot rubbed off on my palm. With a frown, I dropped the wood and rubbed my hand on my jeans.

“Weenie roast gone wrong?”

“Something like that.” When he said it, it sounded even more lame than when I’d heard similar words come out of my own mouth.

“Listen, I’ve got some errands to run today. You want to keep an eye on things?” I asked.

His eyes widened. “Me?”

I flushed. I shouldn’t have asked him. I had left the note on Mother’s door, even unwilling she was a better choice than Peter. He’d only worked for me a few days. “Never mind.”

“No, I’d love to.” He wrapped his fingers around my biceps, but softly, then just as quickly he pulled his hand back. His fingers trailed over my skin. A shiver passed over my body.

“Anything I should be watching out for?” he added.

Lost in the sensation of his fingers drifting over my skin, I almost missed the question. “N-no…n-n-othing…special.” The words came out in a stutter.

“What exactly were they doing last night?” He opened his fingers, lying flat on his palm was an iron spearhead.

I reached out to grab it. His fingers closed, cutting off my view of the weapon’s head.

I laughed, tried to cover my stupid move. The spearhead told him nothing. “That’s theirs. Some kind of initiation rite, I take it. I didn’t ask too many questions-just told them not to do it again.”

“Then I don’t need to stand guard with an extinguisher?”

I hoped to hell not. I shook my head, laughed again. “No, Zery and I came to an understanding.”

“Zery?” He angled his head, like a dog trying to pin down the source of some sound.

“The woman in charge; that’s her name.” I held out my hand, silently asking for the spearhead.

He tossed it in the air, let it settle back on his palm, then tucked it into the pocket of his pants. “No worries. I’ll take it to her. You’re in a hurry, right?”

I forced my lips into a smile. “Thanks.” I hadn’t gone over my cover story with Zery, but I couldn’t imagine her opening up to Peter. She’d probably do no more than grunt, no matter what he said to her.

I stood there a second longer than felt comfortable. Peter watched me, waiting.

“Uh-oh, and my daughter, Harmony. She’s at a friend’s. I should be back before she gets home.”

“Good to know.” His face wore a what else? expression.

“Guess I’ll be going.”

He nodded.

I glanced at my watch. He had hours before his shift started. I couldn’t order him to work. I glanced at my watch again. “You’re here early.”

He shrugged and slipped his lips into one of those smiles that made my hormones smile with him and told my brain to agree to whatever he said, whatever he wanted to do. “Still getting settled. I have some paperwork to go through, some new designs to add to the flash. And, honestly, I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

“Oh, sure.” I searched for a reason to order him to the shop, away from the burnt circle of earth. The little gears that ran my brain were clacking so loudly I was surprised he didn’t ask about the noise. “I left a note on Mother’s door that she would be in charge. Maybe, since you’re here, you could go up and let her know she’s off the hook.” If Mother had made her way up from her workout and found my note, she’d probably done no more than wad it into a ball. If she hadn’t stopped working out, she wouldn’t welcome an intrusion from Peter. But really, was that my problem?

“Walk me up?” I nodded toward the hill and tried a smile of my own. The flirtatious move felt about as natural as breathing under water.

His hand drifted to the pocket where he’d stashed the spearhead, but he just shoved the fingers of both hands into his front pockets and started moving with me up the hill.

“Speaking of Harmony…”

I jumped, my mind far from my daughter at that point.

“If you’re looking for something for her to do after school, I might know something.”

“Why would you think-?”

“I noticed since your new tenants moved in that she’s not been around much-had a lot of ‘friend time.’ Then with-” He jerked his head back toward the charred spot we’d left behind. “If I’m wrong…”

“No.” Why deny it? “I rented the space to them and I’m locked in now, but after last night…I’m thinking it might be better if she wasn’t too influenced by them.”

Peter bent at the waist to help propel himself up the hill.

The roar of a lawn mower and the scent of cut grass drifted from one of my neighbor’s yards. A moment of normal in an insane world.

“My client, Makis, the man in the wheelchair?” Peter held out a hand to help me up the incline. I stared at it, not getting for a second what he was doing. Then realizing what he was offering, I shook my head and plowed ahead, moved ahead of him.

You can take the Amazon out of the tribe…

Peter’s long gait closed the small space I’d put between us. “He’s starting an after-school art program. He used to teach high school. I told you I’d known him awhile.”