She wasn’t going to answer, then said, “He loved me. In spite of everything.”

“But what was he like?”

“He’s… never realized his potential.”

Dwayne nodded. “That’s what I’m about. Realizing my potential. You’re going to have a much brighter future with me, that you can count on. You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to live on a boat. You’re so totally fucking free. You don’t like where you are, you cast off, you go someplace else. And you get to see a whole lot of the world. What about you? You want to live on a boat?”

“I’ve never really thought about it,” she said, and stopped running her finger on his chest. Now she was looking at the ceiling, too. “I think I might get seasick. One time, when I was a kid, my parents took that ferry across Lake Michigan and I puked over the side.” She paused and became briefly reflective. “I like the idea of an island, though. Someplace with a beach, where you could sit all day and watch the waves roll in. A piña colada in my hand. No one to bother me, pick on me, ask me for anything. Just a place where I could go and live the rest of my life in peace.”

Dwayne hadn’t listened to a word. “I’d like to get a big one. A boat with whaddyacallems, staterooms or something. Little bedrooms. And they’re not like sleeping on some fucking submarine or something. It’d be a nice size bed. And every night, when you’re going to sleep, you hear the water banging up against the boat, it’s real relaxing.”

“Banging?” she said.

“Maybe not banging. Lapping? Should I have said ‘lapping’?”

“Have you ever even been on a boat before?” Kate asked him.

Dwayne Osterhaus screwed up his face momentarily. “I don’t think you have to have done something to know you’d like it. I never been in the sack with Beyoncé, but I got a pretty good idea I’d enjoy it.”

“She’s been waiting for your call,” she said. She threw back the covers. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Walking to the bathroom, she wondered what had happened in the years since she’d last been with Dwayne. Something was different. Sure, he was no rocket scientist when she was with him before, but there’d been compensations. Living on the edge, the almost constant, awesome sex, the thrill of taking chances, not knowing what the next day would bring.

Dwayne seemed to fit the bill back then. He suited her purposes. He helped her get the things she needed. It was no surprise that he’d be different now. A guy gets sent up for a few years, he’s not going to be the same guy when he gets out.

Maybe it wasn’t just him. Maybe someone else had changed.

“I need some breakfast,” he said. “Like a Grand Slam, you know? The whole thing. Eggs, sausage, pancakes. I’m goddamn starving.”

At Denny’s, they got a low-rise booth next to a man who was taking two small children out for breakfast. The man, his back to Dwayne, was telling the boys-they looked to be twins, maybe six years old-to sit still instead of getting up and standing on the seat.

The waitress handed them their menus and Dwayne said, smiling ear to ear, “Kate and me could use some coffee.” While the waitress went for the pot, Dwayne grinned and said, “I thought I’d start getting used to it.”

“You say it like that, she’s going to know there’s something fishy about it,” she said.

The waitress set two mugs on the table, filled them, then reached into the pocket of her apron for creams.

Dwayne said to Kate, “I’m thinking sausage, bacon, and ham. You should get that, too, put some meat on your bones.” He grinned at the waitress. “You keep these coffees topped up, ya hear?”

“You bet,” she said. “You know what you want or you need a few minutes?”

“I want a donut!” one of the boys shouted behind Dwayne.

“We’re not getting donuts,” the father said. “You want some bacon and eggs? Scrambled the way you like them?”

“I want a donut!” the boy whined.

Dwayne was grinding his teeth as he ordered his Grand Slam with extra meat, while Kate ordered as basic an order of pancakes as was possible. “No home fries, no sausage, just pancakes,” she said. “Syrup on the side.”

As the waitress walked away, Dwayne glanced over his shoulder at the kid that was annoying him, then leaned toward Kate and whispered, “I think your wig’s a bit cockeyed.”

She reached up and adjusted it, trying to make it look like she was just patting her own hair, making sure everything was in place.

“You look good like that,” he said. “You should keep it that way. You should dye it.”

“And if the cops somehow figure out they’re looking for a blonde, what am I supposed to do? Dye it again? I’d rather get myself a couple more wigs.”

Dwayne smiled lasciviously. “You could wear a different one every night.”

“That how they do it inside?” she asked. “Guy’s a redhead one night, brunette the next, takes your mind off the fact he’s a man?”

She couldn’t believe she’d said it.

Dwayne’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

“Forget it,” she said.

“There something you want to ask me?” he asked.

“I said forget it.”

The twins, when they weren’t whining because their father wouldn’t let them order french fries for breakfast, were jabbing at each other. The father yelled at them both to stop it, prompting each to accuse the other of starting it.

Dwayne’s eyes were boring into Kate.

“I said forget it,” she said.

“You think I’m a faggot?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“‘Cause a person might do things and still not be a faggot,” he said.

No more wondering now, she thought.

“You want to go places you shouldn’t?” he asked. “I can do that, too, Kate.”

“Dwayne.”

“How’s it feel, putting your friend in the ground?”

“She wasn’t my friend,” she said.

“You worked in the same office together.”

“She wasn’t my friend. And I get it. We’re even. I’m sorry.”

“He did it first!” one of the boys whimpered.

Dwayne closed his eyes. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Fucking kids.”

“It’s not their fault,” she said, relieved to be able to channel Dwayne’s thoughts to the kids, and away from her comment. “They have to be taught how to behave in a restaurant. Their dad should have brought something for them to do, a coloring book, a video game, something. That’s what you do.”

Dwayne took a few deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling through his nose.

The waitress served the father and twins, and a moment later, brought plates for Kate and Dwayne. He was on it like a bear on a bag of trash.

“Eat your breakfast,” the father said behind Dwayne.

“I don’t want to,” said one twin.

The other one suddenly showed up at the end of Kate and Dwayne’s table. He inspected their breakfast until Dwayne said, “Piss off.”

Then the boy began strolling up to the cash register. The father twisted around in his booth and said, “Alton, come here!”

Dwayne looked at Kate and mouthed, “Alton?”

She poured some syrup on her pancakes, cut out a triangle from one and speared it with her fork. There’d been plenty of things to lose her appetite over in the last twenty-four hours, but she was hungry just the same. Had been since the middle of the night, when she’d stood at the window looking at the McDonald’s sign. And she had a feeling that she needed to eat fast, that they might not be staying here much longer.

Dwayne shoveled more food into his mouth, put the mug to his lips, mixed everything together. His mouth still full, he said, “What were the odds, huh?”

She couldn’t guess where his mind was. Was he talking about the odds that they would be here, today, getting ready to do the thing they’d been waiting so long to do?

When she didn’t answer, he said, “That we’d run into her? That she’d see us?”

“Alton, come back here right now!”

“But I gotta say,” Dwayne continued, “I think we turned a bad situation into a positive.”