Out at Night

She glanced back at Mac just in time to see his jaw tighten. After a beat, he followed.

“What’s going on?”

Mac followed her into the bedroom and closed the door partway. From the bathtub came the sounds of quiet splashing, Katie singing an off-key version of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Grace could feel his eyes on her as she moved to the closet and pulled down her suitcase from the shelf.

“I have to go to Palm Springs and help Uncle Pete with something. Today’s Friday. Katie’s got Monday off—it’s a teacher planning day—she has to be back in San Diego for school Tuesday.”

“Katie stays here. You’re not taking her.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A bold squaring off.

Her intestines felt spongy. “No. I know you need time with her.”

He crossed his arms loosely. He’d scuffed up his right hand somehow and the knuckles looked chapped. “I still want her Thanksgiving.”

“Can we talk about this later?”

“Now.”

The splashing stopped. “What?” Katie called.

Anger surged and spread through her body. Love was better, but this still had a warm glow to it. She shot Mac a look as she moved past him to the door.

“Everything’s fine, honey,” she called through the open door.

“I heard my name.”

“Daddy and I were just talking.”

“About what?” There was alarm in her voice and Grace went into the bathroom. A flotilla of rubber duckies bobbed in the water. A soap bubble bloomed on Katie’s shoulder, like a glittering corsage.

Grace sat on the edge of the tub and reached for the shampoo.

“About what a cool daughter we have.”

“You sounded mad.” Her eyes were dark and wide.

Grace massaged the shampoo into her scalp. “We’re fine.” She heard Mac come in behind her. “Aren’t we?”

“Absolutely.” His voice was a little too hearty.

“Lean back, honey, I’m going to rinse this off.”

Katie took a breath and held on to her nose and sank back into Grace’s hand. Katie’s hair floated in the water like a sea nymph’s, her lashes dark against her cheeks. Her head felt fragile in Grace’s hand, easily injured.

“You want me to—”

“Everything’s fine.”

He tried again. “But I could—”

“I’ll be right in, Mac, okay?” She lifted Katie up and squeezed out the water. She felt him moving away from the door, felt the absence of him.

“I held my breath.”

“I saw. When you’re done playing, I’ll rinse your hair again.”

Katie nodded, peering up at her uncertainly as if there was something that needed asking. That needed clearing up. That threatened world peace as she knew it.

“Okay,” she said finally.

Mac was leaning up against the door jamb, waiting for Grace when she got into the bedroom.

“She hears everything,” Grace said pleasantly, her voice low.

“I got that.” He smiled back pleasantly. “But let’s talk about you. What I especially liked was the bit about how hot to make the water. I think I can figure stuff like that out.”

Grace picked up a straw hat and a pair of espadrilles and carried them to the suitcase. She and Mac hadn’t danced this one before, but she remembered it from the times her parents did the steps.

“Go on, say the rest. The even-though-I’ve-never-had-the-chance-to part.”

He smiled. “Even-though-I’ve-never-had-the-chance-to.”

“Thanks to me,” she prompted. She lifted a clump of underpants and dumped them into the suitcase.

“Thanks to you. Here. Let me help you.”

“Gladly.” She was keeping her voice down, but it rang with hurt and her need to be right.

His eyes were bright with calculated interest. As if he’d waited a long time to play this game. As if he’d spent years studying the rule book. As if all bets were off.

He went to the set of drawers, yanked open the top one, and carried it over to the suitcase, upending the bras and tank tops into the suitcase, shaking the drawer hard.

“There. All set.” He tucked the drawer under his arm and carried it back to the dresser, shoving it back into the slot. “Anything else?”

“I’m good.” She unhooked a row of hangers and flung the shirts and pants in a clattering heap into the suitcase. “Ready to leave.”

“Works for me.”

The air left her body. A bullet of pain lodged in her belly. Not exactly a direct hit. He just needed more practice.

She was certain he’d been aiming for the heart.

She straightened. “I’ll be back in San Diego Monday night. Tuesday morning at the latest.” It sounded like a warning.

“Take your time.”

“You’re not keeping her.” It slipped out and the ferocity of it took her by surprise and made real the possibility of Katie leaving for good.

He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time and not quite liking it.

“Why are you doing this?” His voice was even. “She’s my daughter, too. Mine. And frankly, that’s all I’ve been thinking about. What you did. What it cost.”

She slipped the shirts and pants out of their hangers, one by one, not looking at him. The hangers were wooden, well made. She carried them back to the closet and hung them up. They clicked together. The only clothes that hung now were the dresses that belonged to Katie, a small bright row of pink and lime green, splashes of yellow and orange.

“Grace?”

“Don’t think I won’t be checking with the school, to make sure she gets there safely.”

“Nice.” He shoved past her into the hall.

“Okay, so it’s going to be really fun.” Grace cradled Katie in her lap as she dried her hair with a towel.

“Why are you going?” Katie sounded worried.

Grace kissed her. “Oh, honey, I have a couple of days of work to do, that’s all.”

“But I want you to stay.”

“I do, too, sweetie.”

“But Daddy’s going to be here, right?”

“Right here.”

“With me.”

“Every second.” Grace lifted Katie down from her lap. The towel had left a damp splotch on her shorts. “Okay, what do you want to wear? A sundress, shorts?”

“Do you like Daddy?”

The question caught her by surprise. She turned away from the closet. “Very much. Why?”

“I think shorts. Those pink ones.” Katie dropped the towel and scampered to the set of drawers. “And the pink underpants. Everything pink.”

From the back, she was golden except for the pale band where her bathing suit had been. “Does Daddy like you?” Her voice was muffled as she dug through her underpants and pulled out a pair.

“I hope so. Sure. Maybe. Probably. The main thing is, Daddy likes you. Lots. I’m going to get the lotion we use on your hair, so we see the curls.”

Grace went into the bathroom she shared with her daughter and stared at herself in the mirror. A woman she barely recognized stared back. Her eyes were dark, intense, her face looked hunted. She slicked on gloss, smacked her lips together, recurled her eyelashes and fringed on mascara, her mind blank, back on Katie’s question.

Does Daddy like you?

She found the hair conditioner and went back into the bedroom.

Katie lay sprawled on her stomach, next to the open suitcase, shorts and a ruffled top a pale pink against her glowing skin. “How am I getting home?”

Grace sat next to her and worked a dollop of conditioner into her hair. “I’m glad you got dressed. That’s good. You’ll fly with Daddy and then stay in his house.”

Katie yanked up her head in surprise and Grace gently tipped it forward again. “He has a house?”

“Daddy bought a place almost right next to ours, so you’ll spend Monday night there, and then I’ll pick you up after school Tuesday.”

“He lives in San Diego in Point Loma?” Her voice was astonished.

“Not too far away. He bought it when he found out about you. He wants very much to get to know you and be a real daddy.”

Katie sucked in a breath, her head still bent. Her curls were damp ringlets against her scalp. “He is a real daddy,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “He’s mine.”

Grace nodded. “Yes, honey. He is.” The bullet now was burrowing, worming its way up toward her heart. It was one of those time-release ones, guaranteed to keep chewing up her insides for some time to come. She wondered what it would take to get rid of it.

“All done.” She carried the conditioner into the bathroom, found what she was looking for and returned.

Katie sat with her knees up, her face down, protecting herself.

“Sunscreen.” Grace put it on the dresser. “Even if Daddy forgets. Don’t you forget.” The bottle was bright orange and had a cartoon of a fish on it.

“Mommy.” Katie’s voice was muffled, forced. “Did you just forget?”

“Forget.” Grace looked around the room, her eyes settling on the open suitcase, mentally reviewing the contents. It was a jumbled mess.

“I think I packed everything.” She closed the lid and zipped it. “If I forgot something, bring it back with you, okay?”

“No, silly, that I had a daddy.”

Katie raised her eyes and looked at her. Her eyes were wide, dark brown, fathomless.

Katie’s aim was much surer than Mac’s. It was a direct hit.

Grace felt the aftershock first, the trembling as her body braced for a blow that had already come, and then she felt the pain coursing through her. It was hot, electric, a wire that stung with recriminations and truth.

Grace had tried to leave Mac behind for good. What she hadn’t factored in was how much that decision would cost Katie.

“Am I interrupting something?” Mac stood in the doorway, a hopeful look on his face, the parent at the fence, the one on the outside.

There was a split second when Grace could have said something, fixed whatever it was between her and Katie, a single word and everything would have been okay, but in that blinding moment of time, Katie turned toward the sound of his voice. Grace had always reached out to Katie, instinctively, joyously, but now she stalled, free-falling, unable to move. She stared at Katie and for the first time felt the awkwardness of not reaching out, embracing her, and in that instant she lost her standing as a mother. Not with Katie, perhaps, but with herself.

“He’s here. That’s what I came to tell you.”

Katie turned to take a look out the window. Officer Epsten sat in an idling golf cart. Katie trotted for the door.

Grace made a small sound.

“Wait,” Mac said. “Give your mom a hug.”

Katie came limply into her arms, her body angled away. Grace felt an elbow. Katie squirmed free, leaving behind the familiar scents of new-mown grass and lemon.

Grace swallowed. She felt faint and afraid. “My cell doesn’t have an international connection. I’ll call you from a landline when I get in.”

“Sure,” Mac said, his hand touching Katie’s curls.

Grace walked the two of them out the wide door and to the golf cart. Mac stowed the suitcase in the back.

Epsten eased the cart forward along the bumpy path and Grace grabbed hold of the frame to steady herself, and by the time she angled her body around to take a look behind her, they were gone.

FIVE Saturday

Grace drove past the shop, circled the block, and found a place to park on Newport Avenue. It was two blocks from the boardwalk in Ocean Beach in San Diego, not far from the YMCA youth hostel. She walked past a row of antique shops.

The sky was a paler blue than the one she’d left behind in the Bahamas. Mixed in with the sharp smell of the sea was the odor of dirt and sweat and grimy cement.

A group of glossy-haired teens stood panhandling in front of the grilled door. They looked at her and scattered, starting a game of bocci ball farther down the street as she opened the door and went inside.

Helix yipped and clattered over on his fake leg, tail wagging joyously, and Jeanne looked up from her work. A fan shot a current of cold air across Grace’s body.

The shop was empty except for a fragile-looking woman in the chair wearing shorts, a tank top, and headphones the size of Egg McMuffins. Her eyes were closed and her mouth had dropped slightly open. She was sleeping.

“You’re back early. I wasn’t expecting you until Monday. Where’s your sidekick?” Jeanne put down her needle and reached for a new color. The beginning of a unicorn glistened on the client’s left calf.

“Hey, buddy.” Grace bent to Helix and scratched him behind his ears and he licked her face and woofed. “You sent Mac down there. To find us.”

Jeanne sorted colors, held up one to the light, put it down. “The light in here is for shit. Turn on the lamp, okay?”

Grace clicked on a standing lamp and positioned the light. Jeanne’s hair was a startling shade of red. Age had wrinkled the rose tattoo on her arm so that it looked wilted, the petals convoluted.

“You gave me directions to the beach you said you went to.”

“As a precautionary measure, Jeanne. Not so Mac could fly down there.”

Jeanne looked at her sharply. “You are talking about Mac McGuire, the hero in this deal, right?” She picked up a bottle of eggshell blue ink and squirted it into a cup.

“Is Jeanne feeding you?” Grace rubbed Helix’s belly.

He groaned and wriggled. He was a mongrel mix, black and white, with a fake leg that spasmed in the air like a Rockette executing a tricky high kick.

Jeanne rolled the calf gently and held it steady as she positioned the needle, delicately stippling the skin. The woman flinched slightly and Jeanne swabbed the calf with an antiseptic pad. “What’s going on?”

Grace swallowed, suddenly close to tears. “Why does something have to be going on?”

Jeanne stared at her over her glasses and went back to work.

“Can she hear us?”

“She’s listening to the Dead full blast. I’d be surprised if she could hear anything after this.” She shrugged in the direction of a chair. “Sit.”

Grace pulled a chair over from another workstation and positioned it so that she was facing Jeanne over the legs of the client. They were skinny legs—a kid’s—and Grace wondered if Jeanne had carded her before starting. The girl didn’t look old enough to be making a choice that lasted a lifetime, but then again, Grace knew age hadn’t protected her from doing things that cost. Were still costing.

She clasped her hands between her knees. “Can you keep Helix until Tuesday?”

Jeanne shot her a measured look, bent over the calf and inked in a shadow along the unicorn’s legs, so that the animal looked as if it were springing off the skin in a three-dimensional leap.

“Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

Jeanne put down the needle and swabbed the skin. It was pink around the fresh needle marks. She tossed the pad into the trash.

Grace blinked. “I’ll put him in a kennel.” She started to get up.

“Sit. Sit.”

Helix wagged his tail and sat.

“Not you, you.”

Grace sat.

“Of course I’ll take him. What’s this about?”

Grace felt tears leak onto her hands. Jeanne yanked a Kleenex from a box and Grace reached for it blindly and dabbed her eyes.

“He wants to take her for Thanksgiving.”

“He’s her father, Grace.”

“Without me.”

Jeanne looked at her steadily. “How close are you?”

Grace licked a lip. Her mouth felt dry. She reached into her purse and took out a miniature bottle of bourbon and put it down on the worktable next to the bottles of ink and a glass container of doggie treats.

“Honestly, on the plane? When the stewardess made the announcement that she’d appreciate correct change, I told myself I was helping her out, buying this.”

Jeanne smiled briefly and reached for a new bottle of ink. “You didn’t drink it.”

Grace inhaled, blew the breath out.

“Take a meeting.”

“Can’t.” She felt rubbed raw. She stole a glance at the small bottle of bourbon and wondered if she could get it back in her purse.

Jeanne shot her a look and went back to work. Grace stared at the far wall. A crumbled set of terra-cotta pots lined a high shelf. Somehow Jeanne had managed to get tulips to bloom, and the bright yellow and orange and pink waxy petals bobbed on some invisible current as if they were watching a tennis match from the bleachers. Leaning against the wall under them was Jeanne’s cane, its thready topknot wearing a pink Barbie-sized baseball cap.

“I need to drive to Riverside County. Examine a body in a morgue.”

Jeanne looked at her a long moment. “It’s not Guatemala, Grace.”

“I don’t know if I can remember that, when I see it.”

“I could say it’s time you got over it, and you don’t want the bad guys to win by giving up a piece of who you are, but the truth is, we all give up pieces, every day, just to get by.”

Jeanne reached for a new color, a soft red the shade of old blood.

“I thought you couldn’t go back to work until they health-checked you.”

“It’s not the crime lab. I have an uncle who works in Palm Springs for the FBI.”

“Your uncle’s dead?”

Grace made a small sound. “You’re busy. I shouldn’t even be talking to you. You’ll ink in an extra leg.”

“I did that once. Told the client it was an Asian fertility symbol. I didn’t know you had an uncle in the FBI.”

Grace lined up bottles of ink. The bottle of black was bigger than the rest and she lined the cap up neatly so that the caps were straight across. A tear splashed onto a bottle called pink ochre and she wiped it off.

“He did something to my family that was pretty unforgivable.”

“That changed the course of family history?”

Grace dropped her hands. “I’m not joking, Jeanne. It was when my dad died, and things were bad. I haven’t talked to him in years, and the idea that I’m getting dragged into something that’s his, having to fix something that belongs to him—”

“Honey, if you want me to give you hell, you’re going to have to give me more to go on.”

Grace fished a treat out of the jar and fed it to Helix. “You’re lucky, you know that. I get you home, we’re working on that belly. Doggy aerobics.”

Helix smacked the treat down, snuffled the floor, picked up crumbs, and looked up at Grace expectantly.

“Don’t even think about it.” He thumped his tail and Grace scratched his white chin. He had a narrow jaw, little teeth. He slopped out his tongue and kissed her. Grace bent down and scratched the place right in front of his tail and he raised his rump and wagged his tail.

“I get called into this by some guy. Asks for me by name when he’s dying. So in the airport in Florida, between flights, I go to a business center and Google him. Turns out he stormed a lecture I was giving last month to forensic biologists on DNA and profiling. Storming a roomful of police nonsworns, can you believe it? Probably set some record for speedy arrest. Thaddeus Bartholomew.”

A clatter of bottles. Grace looked up.

“You okay?”

Jeanne had knocked over the bottle of red ink and it spilled across her fingers. Grace caught a swift smell of vomit and wood sap, a sharp image of bloody hands bent over a prone body, chest open.

Grace closed her eyes and waited it out.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in the tattoo shop. Jeanne groped for a Kleenex to mop it up. She missed the box and tried again.

“He’s a bad actor, Grace. Ted Bartholomew.”

“I wondered if Frank knew him.”

“We ran right into him, the day he died. Palm Springs isn’t that big.”

The skin around Jeanne’s eyes was getting crepey, and the eye shadow she used clumped in tiny balls of violet that made her eyes look very blue.

The teen in the chair stirred and Jeanne patted her calf heavily and stared out the front window. Grace had helped Jeanne paint the words rose tattoo in ornate red letters on that window years ago. Last year, Jeanne had added the words and removal, and Grace wondered how long it would take for the girl in the chair to come back for that part.

“Frank’s been putting this ag convention together now for over a year. That creep Bartholomew—sorry to be disrespectful of the dead—has been on his ass for most of it. Calling him a killer for GM-ing crops. Frank,” Jeanne said wonderingly.

Grace remembered Jeanne’s boyfriend as tall, with long, expressive fingers, smelling faintly of mulch, wearing brown boots and a laminated California state ag tag on a plaid shirt. Two geeks in a pod, Jeanne called herself with Frank.

Jeanne had met him at a conference for genetically modified crops, an interest that had morphed naturally out of her retirement as a scientist, and dovetailed with her lavish gardening efforts. A recent blue rose crossbreed had earned her a blue ribbon at the Del Mar Fair.

“I heard Bartholomew was killed in some field.”

Jeanne’s mouth tightened. “Well, he was alive when we saw him in Gerry Maloof’s. Frank hasn’t bought a single new thing for himself in years, and I made him go with me to get some pants. He has to introduce the secretary of interior, for crying out loud. He’s so hard to fit, with his long inseam.”

Grace didn’t want to hear about Frank’s long inseam, or any other part of Frank’s body, either. The small, homely beats of a relationship reminded her too much of Mac and what she might never have.

“And that’s where you ran into Bartholomew.”

Jeanne stippled in the red and the unicorn glowed. “It’s a fine, fine store. They were having a sale on these lovely linen pants.”

“What was Bartholomew like?”

“I’m not exactly an impartial witness here, Grace.”

“Your impression.”

Jeanne moved the needle, drew another line on the pale skin. “Fiery. Passionate. Threatening to sue.”

“On what grounds?”

“You need grounds?” The needle made a small metallic whirring sound. “No government oversight. Accidental gene transfer to new crops. Disastrous, life-threatening killer bad stuff we don’t even know about yet, and somewhere, a monarch butterfly is keeling over dead in the food chain. The usual. And if that doesn’t work, he vows to shut down the conference by force, if necessary.”

“By force. He used those words.”

Jeanne nodded. She swabbed the skin with a fresh pad and the sharp odor of astringent cut the air. She dropped the pad into the trash.

“What was Frank’s reaction?”

“Subdued. He’s maxed out, Grace. Has meetings from early in the morning until late at night. Probably knows your uncle better than you do.”

“Then he needs to be careful.”

Jeanne tightened her arms against her body, as if trying to warm herself. “Frank can only tell me a fraction of what’s going on, but everything he says, Grace, scares the hell out of me. You have no idea how many times a day bad guys threaten to maim or blow up or poison somebody.”

“Uh. Yeah, actually, Jeanne, I do.”

“I’m talking about Palm Springs, Grace. Crumbly, aging, jauntyfaced Palm Springs. Every time they slap a face-lift on that old girl, the plaster crumbles. She’s still got the moves, but it’s motor memory. She’s harmless. And an ag convention dealing with world hunger. That sounds safe, doesn’t it? Except lots of countries ban GM crops. Frank says he thinks the protests have tapped some big nerve.”

“Mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

“Exactly. I loved that movie, too. Liked it less when I saw it in the middle of men’s sportswear waving its fist at my Frank. Oh, and get this. Then Bartholomew whips out this throwaway camera and takes a picture of me.”

Grace shifted in her chair. The fan feathered cold air along her arms.

“He did the same thing the day he crashed my lecture. Got right up in my face and snapped a shot.”

Jeanne looked at her. The cracks along her mouth seemed to have deepened in the weeks since Katie’s kidnapping. “Why?”

“I have no idea.”

“What are you supposed to do there?”