Laura Lippman - By A Spider's Thread

"So Natalie decided to take a vacation?"

"I'm saying she had reasons. They're hers, and they're private, but they make sense to her, so who are you to get involved?"

Lana was now applying polish to Tess's fingers with quick, easy strokes, always the right amount of fluid on the brush, a perfect drop of translucent lacquer. The talents of Baltimore's best manicurist were obviously wasted on this mundane assignment.

"She doesn't have any money, though."

Lana stroked, face impassive.

"And then there are kids, kids who should be in school."

"Only Isaac," Lana said. "The twins would have started kindergarten this year, but no one learns anything in kindergarten. Isaac is smart. He'll catch up-" She caught herself.

"When? When will Isaac catch up? How?"

"When he goes back to school, of course. I mean, I just assume Natalie won't keep him out forever."

"She has a plan, doesn't she, a plan she shared with you? She's going to settle somewhere, raise her children. Has she called you from the road? Do you have any idea where she might be?"

Lana started on the next hand, her movements now a little less precise.

"A woman has no right to keep a loving father from his children. Whatever problems Natalie and her husband have, what she's doing is wrong."

Stroke, stroke, stroke.

"If she tries to get in touch with you, I'll know."

But it was too big a bluff, she couldn't carry it, and Lana was already on her pinkie. "She has no reason to get in touch with me."

Tess glanced back at the photo: Lana and Natalie, on some sunny, long-ago day at the harbor, big, overdone hair blowing in the breeze. They had their arms around each other, and their mutual affection was unmistakable. While Natalie looked straight into the camera, eyes sparkling, Cupid's bow mouth stretched into a huge smile, Lana was looking at Natalie, mesmerized by her pretty friend, basking in her happiness.

"You must miss her," Tess tried.

Lana placed Tess's hands beneath an air dryer. "Wait at least five minutes, or you'll smudge," she said, setting a timer. "Ten is better. When you leave, your check will be up front. Our tip envelopes are up there, too. You'll excuse me, but I have another appointment."

She opened her drawer wide, ostensibly to put something away, but also so Tess could see the fives and tens stacked there. She then all but ran away, and Tess couldn't follow her-not unless she was willing to smear the clear polish on what the slip would claim was a twenty-five-dollar French manicure.

She tipped lavishly despite Lana's rip-off. There was nothing to lose in overtipping. Come to think of it, that was another life lesson from her father, a little Irish karma: Be generous with your tips when you are flush, because they are returned to you in ways you didn't expect when you go bust .

Tess wasn't flush these days, but Mark Rubin was. Besides, she suspected that he could use a little help in the karma department, too.

Lana Wishnia emerged from Adrian's about an hour later, finished for the day. Squinting at the light, she made her way to a bright green Dodge Neon at the far end of the parking lot, then pulled out onto Reisterstown Road, heading north.

Tess was right behind her. Following Lana had been a last-minute impulse, inspired by a quick stop at Sutton Place Gourmet. The sheer novelty of a different grocery store had seduced her into silly purchases-coconut macaroons, a kiwi, a slab of tomato-rosemary focaccia. These spur-of-the-moment choices reminded Tess that all humans were creatures of impulse. If Lana was upset or disturbed by Tess's visit, she might feel compelled to act as quickly as possible. If she had a coconspirator, she could seek his or her counsel.

And if Natalie were actually in the Baltimore area-a long shot, but not entirely implausible-Lana would take Tess straight to her.

Instead Lana left one strip mall only to lead Tess to another, about two miles up the road, a shopping center with a Giant grocery and several smaller shops. Okay, so Tess's hunch was off. The manicurist was just stopping to pick up some food on her way home, and she didn't make Sutton Place Gourmet wages.

But Lana walked into a Mail Boxes Etc. store. She was inside for perhaps two or three minutes, nowhere near enough time to send a package or a fax, and came out empty-handed.

At least she was empty-handed as far as Tess could tell. Lana's purse, a bulging shoulder bag of dirty beige leather, was so big that it could easily conceal a sheaf of letters, or even a box. Tess made a note of the address and continued to follow Lana north.

Lana's next stop was a town-house complex called Camelot Hills. It was fairly new, yet already careworn. Even the banner advertising move-in specials was limp and bedraggled. Lana parked and went into one of the middle units on Lancelot's Way, and Tess decided to wait awhile to see if she would head out again. The flow of people returning home from work was frenetic enough for her to sit in her car without drawing attention to herself, the setting sun bright enough to excuse the sunglasses that covered much of her face.

She had assumed that Lana would choose to live among other single folks, but there were plenty of families scattered throughout the complex, and the children were out in force on this crisp evening, riding bikes, playing the eternal games, such as four-square and hopscotch. Most, however, were caught up in a sport of their own invention. It appeared to be called "jump out," and it was a combination of hide-and-seek and capture the flag.

The two smallest boys, pretending to be police officers, walked up and down until they would suddenly leap at a clutch of children loitering on a corner. The goal was to arrest as many kids as possible, while the others fled to a safe house on the steps of the sliding board. Those who were caught were placed in the jungle gym, clearly the jail. The larger girls and boys ran away over and over again, squealing in delight, while the two little boys demonstrated a heartbreaking familiarity with the gray-area brutality common to such police actions, flailing at their captives with fists and makeshift batons.

Ah, well, Tess had once played Mugger in the shadows of Ten Hills, and she had turned out to be a decent enough citizen. Such games were all about having a reason to run and squeal, night air filling your lungs, adrenaline soaring through your body. She studied the children carefully, but there was no miniature Mark Rubin among them, no fox-faced boy-and-girl twins. When the darkness became so complete that parents started calling children to homework and bed, Tess headed for her own.

THE TWINS SAT ON THE EDGE OF ONE OF THE DOUBLE beds, backs ramrod straight, hands folded in their laps, although Efraim absentmindedly put his left thumb in his mouth from time to time. Television had been rationed in their old life, by their father's insistence, and the twins still treated it with a kind of nervous awe. They didn't laugh, or even smile much, just stared at the cartoon channel with unblinking attention. Perhaps they thought if they showed no sign of enjoying it, no one would think to take it away from them.

Isaac, too, had liked the unlimited cartoons at first, especially Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius . But now he was getting bored. He wished he had a book, a new one. His mother had allowed him to pack only one, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler , and he hadn't argued because he thought they were going away for a long weekend, not forever. He had finished it the first two days on the road, before they met Zeke. He could reread it, but the book made him sad. If you were going to run away from home, you should have an adventure, do something important and thrilling, like the brother and sister in the book. You shouldn't just drive from town to town, sitting in motel rooms that looked alike and watching the same television shows you could have watched back home. That is, if you were allowed to watch all the cartoons you wanted back home.