Charlaine Harris - Poppy Done to Death

I raised an eyebrow.

“All right, I flirted back.”

I raised the other eyebrow.

“You’re a woman ,” Robin said firmly. “Jane’s a girl. I’m way too old for Janie. I wouldn’t know what to do with her even if I was interested.”

I had nothing left to raise, so I tried a skeptical sneer.

“Okay, I flirted back a lot.” Robin looked down at his big hands. “When I go on tour, my ego inflates, and I was nominated for the Anthony, and I was thinking big thoughts about myself.”

I waited.

“But now I’m regrounded.” He looked up at me directly.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“I’m supposed to make a mission statement?”

“It would help.”

“I’m not planning on seeing anyone else.”

“Bryan Pascoe asked me out,” I said, though actually Bryan had actually just indicated that sometime in the future he wanted to ask me out. However, I couldn’t think of a way to turn that into a concrete statement.

“Are you going to go?” Robin’s face was all shut down. “I don’t know Bryan Pascoe. He might be the guy for you.”

I thought about that. “He’d be more in the category of a fixer-upper,” I said. “I think it might be safer to say that I only want to date you right now.”

Robin seemed bigger suddenly, as if he’d been holding himself in a smaller space than he normally occupied.

“I like your brother,” he said. “He seems like a pretty independent young man.”

“He’s definitely feeling his new manliness,” I said. I lowered my voice and told Robin about the two girls Phillip had hitched a ride with on the last leg of his journey, and the condoms I’d found in his wallet.

“Better he have them and use them than not have them and need them,” Robin said wisely. “Maybe he was just carrying them because he wanted to need them.”

I worked that through. It was an interesting idea. “What I’m hoping is that he didn’t buy them after the fact,” I admitted. “I mean, maybe he had sex and enjoyed it and then thought, Gee, if I’m going to have some more, I better be prepared.”

“I’ll try to find out, in a very manly way,” Robin said. “If you have to work tomorrow, I’ll take Phillip out to eat or over to my apartment or something.”

“Sounds good. I don’t have to work, but I’m supposed to go to a gas station tomorrow with Bryan Pascoe.”

“An original first date,” Robin said.

“Not a date. A clue.” I told Robin about the receipt I’d found on the floor, and then I told him about what had happened to the upstairs of John David and Poppy’s house.

“That’s mysterious,” Robin said. “The house wasn’t broken into?”

“No, and that makes it even stranger. I unlocked the front door for the Scene Clean guy myself. The sliding glass door uses the same key. It was locked, too, or at least I guess it was. Zachary Lee just had to turn the latch inside and open it while he was cleaning. I never thought to check to see if it was locked to begin with. I never asked him, after he showed us the state of the upstairs.”

“So the patio door may have been unlocked all along.”

“Well, it might have been left unlocked by whoever rifled through the upstairs. I’m sure the police wouldn’t have left the back door unlocked. If I were breaking in, I’d pick the back door. You wouldn’t even have to show your face on Swanson Lane. You could creep through the Emblers’ backyard, and Cara is on the phone in her home office half the time. You’d have to check to make sure she wasn’t using the pool. Her husband’s hardly ever home. You’d just have to make sure the dogs were shut up in the house.

“Or, if you didn’t mind a higher risk of being seen, you could cross Poppy’s front yard and enter the back by the patio gate to the side of the house. The point is, once you’re in the backyard, the privacy fence is so high, you’re practically invisible.”

“Didn’t you say Dr. Embler had spent time with Poppy?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“But not recently.”

“You’re saying that passions would have had time to cool?”

“I would think so. I mean, even if Cara had discovered her husband’s little fling with Poppy, she had to know by now that it meant nothing, in terms of consequences in her own life.”

I felt that we’d left my brother by himself long enough, so we moved back to the family room, to find him asleep on the couch, with the game still blaring.

I managed to wake Phillip up enough to send him to his own room. He stumbled off, mumbling that he’d see me in the morning. Robin and I were left looking at each other.

“Would you like to stay the night?” I asked, just as Robin said, “So, can I stay awhile?”

We laughed a little, but then he put his arms around me, and it wasn’t time for laughing anymore.

Robin was sitting on the side of the bed, pulling the sleeves of his shirt back through the right way when I opened my eyes. I reached over and trailed my fingers down his long, bare back, making him shiver.

“Morning,” I said, my voice still hazy with sleep.

He turned and bent to kiss me.

“Morning, Roe.”

His hair looked like a haystack. He hadn’t put on his glasses yet, and his eyes were blue and soft. He looked good enough to eat.

“Are you in a particular hurry?” I asked.

“Just wanted to get out of the way before your company wakes up,” he said.

Oh hell. I’d forgotten all about Phillip’s presence in my house, to say nothing of the Wynns. I gave a big, windy sigh.

“I’ll come get him about eleven-thirty, after I’ve worked a few hours, and take Phillip to lunch.” Robin stroked my hair back from my face. “You know, tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.”

“You’re going to eat here, right?”

“We planned that, didn’t we? Remember, my mother’s flying in this afternoon?”

I pulled a pillow over my head. I didn’t want to think about meeting Robin’s mother for the first time on a national holiday, when food was the main focus of the day. I wasn’t that confident of my cooking.

I’d just have to suck it up and act like a woman.

“She wasn’t planning on flying in and cooking, I hope?” I asked, just to make sure, not wanting to start out beholden to the woman.

“No, I told her I had made plans for us.” Robin looked hopeful. “What can I bring?”

I laughed and pulled the pillow away. “Oh, okay, I guess I’m up to it. Let me think. I picked up a turkey breast at the store the other day, thank God. I thought a whole turkey would be too much for just us. So that leaves sweet potatoes, peas, rolls, and cranberry sauce. And dessert.”

“I can get rolls and the peas,” Robin offered helpfully. “And I can bring some wine.”

“That’s good. Okay, I’ll get the sweet potatoes and fix them, and the cranberries, and I’ll make a pie or two. That’ll work out.”

“What about your mother and her family?”

“I don’t know what on earth they’re going to do. I think Melissa and Avery are going to Melissa’s parents, and I guess they’ll take their kids and the baby with them. John David will probably go to my mother’s, whatever she’s up to doing. They have enough food there to last them through the winter, I think.” When I’d been at the house this afternoon, the refrigerator had been full to overflowing.

“You’d better check. Maybe your folks could come over here for a glass of wine after dinner?”

“You want my mother to meet your mother,” I said, suddenly getting his drift.

“Yes.”

I couldn’t think of a thing to say. “Oh. Okay.” I looked anywhere but at Robin. “Um, how long is your mom staying?”