Lee Child - First Thrills

She said: “Put some makeup on.”

She thought about Susie, and about what Susie would want. But fuck, Susie was five years old, and it didn’t matter what she’d want. Children’s Day was make-believe, and only once a year.

At least she had a father who loved her. That put her ahead. Put her ahead of Miranda.

She called Lois Hampton, calmed her down. Met with her privately, lunching at the Women’s Club, Susie still holding the kewpie doll. Suggested new terms for Susie’s daddy, especially with Geoff away so much. No, no publicity, Mrs. Hampton. No publicity.

Called Rick. Got a liverwurst sandwich at Maxwell House, walked to the Owl for more cigarettes. Finally strolled over to Midget Village, watching Shorty twirl a six gun for some kids and their parents, the late afternoon sun stretching across the bay, the midgets making long shadows in the sawdust of the corral.

A cop ambled by, stood next to her.

“Hear you found the missing girl, Corbie.”

“Yeah.”

“Lost the kidnapper, though?”

Miranda shrugged, opened a new package of Chesterfields. “I don’t know, Gillespie. Sometimes a clown is just a clown.”

He stared at her. “What the hell does that mean?”

She blew a smoke ring, watching it rise high on the bay wind, drifting above the Gayway.

“It means Happy Children’s Day.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and moved on.

KELLI STANLEYis an award-winning author of two crime fiction series. City of Dragons (from Thomas Dunne/Minotaur Books in February 2010) continues the story of Miranda Corbie-private investigator in 1940 San Francisco-e x-escort, and the protagonist of Children’s Day. Kelli’s debut novel, Nox Dormienda, set two thousand years earlier in Roman Britain, won a Macavity Award nomination, and the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery of the year. Kelli lives in foggy San Francisco and earned a master’s degree in Classics. Discover more about Kelli and the worlds she writes about at www.kellistanley.com.

T hingsaren’t always as they seem,” my father liked to say, and when he said it, I would shake my head as if to say, no, they certainly are not.

Really, I was shaking my head because he was wrong.

Dead wrong.

Dead -the irony should make me smile, but I don’t dare, because they’re watching me now. Every twitch of my mouth, every word that comes out of it, makes them wonder.

Let them.

Yes, my father was dead wrong. Most things-and people, too-are, I have learned, exactly as they seem.

Take Abby. Some might assume that beyond the triple chins and homely façade must belie a sparkling wit or a generosity of spirit. Why else would the most eligible bachelor in town-my widowed father-have married her?

Not for her money, though she had enough of it. But then, he does-rather, did -as well.

Not for her well-regarded family name, either. Our own name is equally-if not more-illustrious in this particular corner of the world.

Nor did he marry her to raise his motherless daughters. I was going on five when Abby moved in with us, but my sister was a de cade older; she took better care of me than anyone. I have never needed-or wanted-a stepmother.

I barely remembered my own mother, having lost her when I was just a toddler. Yet I have always missed her. Does that make sense?

Never mind; I don’t care if my feelings make sense to anyone other than myself.

My Uncle John told me once that my mother doted on me to the point where people whispered that I was spoiled. But who could blame her for indulging her third daughter when she’d buried her second just two years earlier?

As for her firstborn-if my sister had minded being overshadowed by my birth thirty-odd years ago, she either got over it or hid it very well, because I’ve never sensed resentment from her.

Not even now.

“Are you all right?” she asks anxiously from across the breakfast table, and I’m touched by the concern in her eyes, brown and somber, like our father’s…

A terrible, wonderful fantasy sweeps through me, and then I realize it isn’t a fantasy anymore. It’s a memory now, a fresh one; I indulge it until my sister utters my name and repeats the question.

Do I look all right? I want to say in response, as I freely stir extra sugar into my morning tea; no one to protest that shred of self-indulgence.

I couldn’t be better, I want to assure my sister-without an ounce of sarcasm, as it’s the truth.

But I just nod at her, and I sip the hot, decadently sweet brew.

She arches a dubious brow, because, like most people, she subscribes to the theory that things aren’t always as they seem-and because she herself couldn’t be farther from “all right” on this hot and sunny August morning.

She will be, though, in time. The worst of our nightmare is over at last. What lies ahead is nothing compared to what we’ve been through.

I contemplate helping myself to another biscuit. There’s no reason not to. I break one open and slather it with butter, then drench it in honey.

Before I can sink my teeth into the gloriously rich, sticky crumble, Maggie sticks her red head into the room to ask in her thick brogue, “Shall I open the drapes in the front room?”

“No!” my sister and I say in unison.

“Don’t open the drapes in any room until we tell you otherwise,” I instruct her. “Do you understand, Maggie?”

Something flickers in the house keeper’s blue eyes-eyes that seem sharper today, as they focus on me, than ever before. She used to look through me, through all of us, as the help should-and vice versa.

But now, as we exchange a glance-mine wary, Maggie’s dangerously shrewd-I wonder whether she understands far more than just my orders to shroud the windows from prying eyes.

She slinks away, and I eat my biscuit in silent contentment. My scalp is soaked beneath my thick auburn hair; it must be ninety-five degrees outside already, and considerably warmer here in the kitchen.

This, however, is nothing compared to yesterday morning, when the red- hot stove threw off additional heat. My sister wasn’t around to ask me why it was blazing away on the steamiest day of the year. Maggie was here, but of course it wasn’t her place to question anything.

In the next room, the clock chimes the half hour.

“It’s almost time.” My sister pushes back her chair. Half past ten.

Nearly twenty-four hours ago, my father unexpectedly came home from the office. He wasn’t feeling well, he said. Sick to his stomach. He was going to take a nap before heading back to work.

He didn’t bother to ask where Abby was.

I didn’t tell him.

“Aren’t you going to come upstairs?” my sister asks from the doorway.

“No need, I’m ready,” I tell her, smoothing my full skirt as I stand up.

My dress is, appropriately, black.

Earlier, I locked my bedroom door before I removed the dress from its designated hook at the back of the wardrobe in my room. Slipped beneath the dark black silk, snug as a lining, was the blue cotton dress I’d had on yesterday morning.

It will obviously have to be dealt with-but not today. So I took a plump goose-down pillow from my bed, remembering how many times I had futilely pulled it over my head to smother ghastly sounds in the dead of night.

Dead .

Again, the irony.

Even now, left alone in the kitchen, I don’t smile. I am thinking about how I carefully slit open a pillow seam to create an opening just a few inches. After wadding the blue dress into a tight little ball, I tucked it through the opening, pushing it deep into the feathers. When I had carefully stitched the seam closed again, there was no sign of tampering, no telltale lump, even when I patted the pillow hard, all over.