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  Jesus Christ. The kitchen door opened, throwing an oblong splash of yellow light across the floor and far wall.

  Gator scurried back to his hiding nook. Now what?

  He listened as he heard Broker move to the back of the garage, go outside, talk to the kid. Then the soft scrape of his slippered feet went back into the house. The door closed. Something. A tinkle. A bell. Hey, kitty. Why not. A souvenir. Moving swiftly, Gator tiptoed from hiding, did a little dance to cut the cat off, and snatched it up, carefully easing it into the deep side pocket of his hunting parka. Zipped it down, leaving a little opening so it could breathe.

  He froze in place for another minute until he heard the shovel stop scraping. Heard the kid tramp across the back deck, go in through the patio door to the kitchen.

  Finally.

  On the way out he grabbed one of the short ski poles from the stack along the wall. He stepped out onto the deck, flattened himself against the outer wall of the garage. Looked up. Wonderful. Stuck out his tongue, let a snowflake melt on it. The snow started driving down. Hell, in minutes it would obliterate his faint tracks on the deck. Like he was never here. He slipped over the deck rail and, keeping the garage between him and the lights of the kitchen, headed for the tree line. Once he got into the woods, he could work his way back to the trail. Get his skis and gear.

  Wow. What a kick.

  Chapter Ten

  After stowing the skis in the garage, Broker told Kit to shovel off the back deck and think about what happened today at school. Then he took off his ski boots and went into the kitchen. He heard a fast hell’s-bells jingle too late—shit—and tripped, almost losing his balance as the demon kitten ran a crazy zigzag between his stocking feet.

  Cursed under his breath. “Goddamn cat.”

  Griffin had brought the kitten as a housewarming present for Kit after they moved in. By the third day it was in the house, with Nina keeping the TV on, Kit had named the cat Ditech. It was everywhere underfoot, like the mortgage commercials.

  Broker put on the slippers that were by the door, leaned down, swept up the handful of black fur, opened the door to the garage. Carrying the cat, he went to the back door, opened it, and spoke to Kit.

  “When you’re finished, come in though the patio door. Keep this door closed. I’m putting the cat in the garage while I cook dinner.”

  “She’s just a kitten—it’s cold out here,” Kit protested.

  Broker lifted the cat by the scruff of her neck. “It’s an insulated garage, and this black stuff she’s made out of is fur. Just till after we eat. Now, you shovel.” He closed the door, put the kitty down, and went back into the kitchen.

  Broker finished thawing the meat in the microwave, then sliced it in long strips, poured some canola oil into his big stewpot, started the burner, and added the venison. As the meat browned, he sliced onions, mushrooms, and green peppers, added them to the pot, and started unscrewing four jars of Paul Newman pasta sauce. He raised one of the jars and eyed the contents for carbs and sugar. Hmmm. The late Dr. Atkins would probably not approve of the high-fructose corn syrup.

  Kit came in, took off her coat, boots, and gloves, and went upstairs.

  Broker cocked his head when he heard the pipes in the wall of the downstairs bath rattle. Good. Nina was in the shower. He’d wait till she was done before he started the dishwasher. As he was wiping down the island, he looked up and saw Kit standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “Mom’s taking a shower,” she said.

  “Yep.”

  “I’ll pick out some clothes for her to wear.”

  “Hey, that’s good, honey.”

  Up on tiptoe, peering at the pot. “Ah, what’s cooking?”

  “Spaga,” Broker said, using her baby word for his venison spaghetti.

  She grinned, turned, and ran up the stairs.

  Kit in motion: this house they rented from Uncle Harry was small, half the size of their home up in Devil’s Rock. But Mom didn’t want Kit going to school in the woods, so they’d moved into the Stillwater apartment. Then Mom got sick, and they were back in the woods again. Because people here didn’t know her up and couldn’t tell that she was different now. Just for a while, Dad said, until Mom’s arm got better. When her arm was better, the rest of her would be better too.

  Kit was used to her mom being real strong, bossing whole platoons and companies in Italy, so sometimes it scared her, seeing the way she wandered around smoking cigarettes in her pajamas and robe all day. Most of the other kids at school had their moms coming in, picking them up, talking to the teachers. Helping out. With her it was always her dad. And he never came in, just waited out in the truck.

  Kit went into the closet next to the room where Mom slept and dug through some boxes. Up on tiptoe, she searched through some clothes on hangers, picked a few, then came back into her room and plopped them on her bed. Then she opened the door to the bathroom. Mom was standing at the sink, drying herself with a towel. She put the towel aside, opened the cabinet over the sink, and took out a jar of skin cream, removed the top, and dabbed some on her face.

  That was a good sign.

  Fresh from the shower, wreathed in steam, Mom had some color to her face. Mom was smoother now. She used to be too thin, laced tight with dents and veins. Could see the muscles sliding back and forth under her skin when she moved. Now she was filled out all around. Still sort of skinny, but not the way she used to be skinny. Kit understood she was not like other moms; but, of course, Kit hadn’t seen other moms naked in the bathroom.

  Nina Pryce peered into the steamy bathroom mirror. At thirty-six she still looked fit, for a civilian.

  Five-nine. One hundred and forty-five pounds. She’d gained ten pounds on the disabled list. She was getting breasts, a suggestion of fullness creeping into her hips and rear end.

  Curves, for Christ’s sake.

  The nagging thought: did Broker like her this way; ripening like a pear…?

  Dependent on him.

  A lot of moms were in shape. Gym-rat skinny, Dad called it. But not like Mom used to be. For instance, other moms didn’t have the kinda purple gouge in their left hip and a bigger glob of purple scar on their butt. Where the E-ra-kee shot her during the war in the desert, the war before the one that was on TV now. The one before Kit was born. Didn’t have a big grinning skull-and-crossbones tattoo on their right shoulder.

  Kit entered the bathroom cautiously, feeling her way into her mother’s mood. In a general way she understood that Mom wouldn’t get on her about the fight at school. She knew Mom didn’t have the strength for that right now.

  “It’s okay, Little Bit,” Nina said, turned her warm green eyes on Kit, smiling in real life.

  Kit brightened and smiled back. Mom only called her “Little Bit” when she was feeling pretty good. Auntie Jane had called her Little Bit. And Mom’s smile was only a little bit sad.

  “So what’s this boy like, you got in the fight with?” Nina asked.

  Kit made a face. “He’s a bully. He swears more than all the other kids put together. He knows the F word.”

  “Hmmmm,” Nina mulled.

  Kit tilted her head. “Can I say…hell?”

  “Okaayy…” Nina drew it out, curious.

  “Hell is a swear word. But no one says, ‘The H word.’ Why is that? And what’s the big deal about the F word?”

  Nina fingered a snag in her hair and studied her daughter. “What do you think it means?”

  “Don’t know. But it’s cool, because the older kids say it a lot.”

  Nina put down the comb, wrapped a towel around her middle, came into the room, and sat on the bed. “Well, it’s complicated,” she said.

  “That don’t sound like an answer. Sounds like another question,” Kit said.

  “I don’t think you’re ready for this. You sure you really want to know?” Nina asked.

  “I want to know,” Kit said, furrowing her forehead, attentive.

  Nina scrunched her lips meditativel
y, “Okay. It’s like this. The F word is initials. Like your name: Karson Pryce Broker. The initials are K.P.B.—”

  “Yeah,” Kit said.

  “The F word is the same way. F.U.C.K. means ‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.’”

  “I don’t get it,” Kit said.

  “It’s about…sex.”

  Kit shook her head.

  “Okay. Sex is a way of talking about making babies. Remember our talk about how Daddy and I made you?”

  Kit’s face contorted, recalling the description of Dad’s testicles being full of swimmy things that swam out his penis into Mom’s vagina, hunting for this egg. She had looked at her father funny for a month after that.

  “Mom, that’s gross.”

  Nina nodded. “And so is the F word for someone your age.”

  “I’m going to change the subject,” Kit said.

  “Fine,” Nina said.

  “Can we play the game?” Kit asks.

  Nina smiled. “Okay.”

  Days when Mom was feeling better, like now, she’d let Kit play dress-up on her, like she was a special doll. Something she would never have done last year in Italy. Kit would parade the clothes she’d selected. But first she’d comb Mom’s hair.

  “I like it you’re letting your hair grow,” Kit said, gently drawing the comb through her mother’s hair, ratting out the snags.

  Broker stood at the foot of the stairs and listened to the muted girl talk drifting down from Kit’s bedroom on a mist of hot water and body lotion. He smiled and sagged a little with relief, hearing the normal chatter. More and more there were these tiny healing moments, cutting back the bleak days.

  He went back into the kitchen, where steam from the boiling kettle of pasta water had fogged the windows. When his girls came down for dinner, he saw that Kit had talked Nina into an artifact of her student days at the University of Michigan, this ancient flowing green jabala with threadbare gold embroidery. She had applied lipstick, dots of rouge, and streaked eyeshadow. Nina’s red hair, for years shorn mob-cap short, had grown to an ambiguous length two inches off her shoulders. Kit had pinned it with barrettes at odd angles. A single crude braid dangled from the left side of her forehead.

  Nina managed a wry smile and rolled her eyes. Kit led her by the hand, pleased with her efforts.

  Broker encouraged, smiled back. “All right, looking good. Kit, go wash your hands.” He placed a salad bowl on the set table, returned to the stove, thrust a ladle into the churning kettle, plucked a strand of pasta, took it in his fingers, and tossed it against the maple cabinet next to the stove, where it stuck in a curlicue.

  Done.

  “Al dente, bravo,” Kit said in approval, emerging from the half bath off the kitchen. Her expression changed, remembering something. She dashed from the room.

  As Broker drained the noodles in the sink, he heard Kit running up the stairs. Nina moved in beside him, began to grate the Parmesan. Their elbows touched.

  “You look like a harlot in that getup,” he said quietly.

  For the first time in a long time, she sideswiped him with her hip.

  “Hey,” he muttered, his voice close to faltering at the warm pressure of Nina’s flank nudging him.

  She lowered her painted eyelids, pursed her painted lips. “Stay on task, Broker. You have to discipline your feral child, remember…punching that kid…”

  “Right.” With a slight lump in his throat, he continued through the efficient stations of his kitchen kata, cleaning as he went, doling out the noodles and then the thick sauce, sprinkling on the cheese, pouring milk for Kit, water for Nina and himself. Placing the bottle of dressing next to the salad bowl.

  Then he faced his wife across the table, over the relentless, perfectly executed meal he had prepared.

  “Dad?” Kit’s voice lanced the moment, needling thin with alarm.

  “What?” Broker turned.

  “I can’t find Bunny.” Kit came into the kitchen, her forehead a washboard of wrinkles. “She’s not in my bed.”

  Broker and Nina exchanged glances. The stuffed animal was a fixture at the dinner table. “Maybe she’s in the truck,” Nina said.

  Broker nodded. Sometimes she took the stuffed animal to and from school, left it in the backseat. “Go check the truck. It should be open. And while you’re out there, bring Ditech back inside.”

  Kit’s mood immediately rebounded. She darted out the door into the garage and called, “Hey, Ditech, where are you, you naughty kitty—”

  Broker turned to Nina and raised his hands in a shrug. In less than a minute Kit was back, face bright with cold, her forehead still creased with concern.

  “No Bunny. And Dad, there’s something wrong with the truck.”

  Now Broker’s forehead was stamped with wrinkles. What?

  “The tire’s flat,” Kit said. “And I can’t find Ditech. She’s gone.” Kit’s accusing tone brought Broker to his feet.

  “Naw, she’s just hiding—”

  “No, she isn’t. I don’t hear her bell. C’mere, look,” Kit demanded.

  Broker followed Kit into the garage. She extended her arm, finger pointing.

  Then he saw what she was pointing at as he felt the blast of cold air. The back door to the garage was open, filled with a sudden frenzy of snow.

  “You left the door open,” Kit said. “There’s critters out there, and she’s just a little kitty.”

  “Get inside, it’s cold out here,” Broker said.

  “Right, Dad.” Arms folded, Kit stalked back into the house and began to cry.

  Broker went through the open door. More alert now, he stood on the cold back deck, letting his eyes adjust to the gathering dark. Then he scanned the edge of the forest that abutted the backyard. His fingers moved to the key on the thong around his neck.

  He was absolutely certain the door had been closed.

  But not locked.

  After confirming the flat, he went back inside and told Nina, “Those tires are practically brand-new.” He reached for his coat, flipped on the yard light. As he went through the garage, searching for the cat, he thought back over the day, trying to fix on a road event. At the school, maybe? Distracted, had he run up on the curb? That could bust the seams on a radial.

  No cat.

  He stood in the drive and stared at the Toyota’s swayback posture. The left rear tire mashed flat. Focusing. If he climbed the curb this morning, it would have been the right front…

  He shivered in a gust of wind. The shiver moved deeper, under his skin; he was merely annoyed, innate suspicion a deeper shift and stir. He looked up at the black rumpled clouds, suffused with early moonlight. Shivered again. He’d need his gloves.

  Back in the kitchen, he took the time to address Kit, who sat glumly picking at her food. “Don’t worry, we’ll find Old Bun.” Then he added one of his mom’s lines from his own childhood. “Nothing gets lost in the house.”

  “What about kitty?” Kit demanded.

  “I’ll put some food in a bowl on the back deck.” To Nina he just threw a workmanlike shrug. “Gotta change a flat. Might as well get it out of the way. You guys go on with dinner. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  Nina raised her hand as if trying to snag an elusive thought from midair. Then she said, “Take out the garbage, pickup in the morning.”

  He nodded. “Good catch.” A positive sign. She was making ordinary connections. But he had his own connections going. As he went out the door, instinct directed his hand toward the heavy-duty flashlight hanging on a lanyard under the shelf where they kept the gloves and hats.

  Because…

  He just didn’t remember hitting anything that could take out a big honking new snow tire. So before he unloaded the jack and wrenches, he walked carefully around the truck, inspecting the tracks in the mashed snow. He recognized the cleat marks of his Eccos, Kit’s Sorels. Nothing out of place there. He removed the full-size spare from the undercarriage.

  As he pried off the hubcap and l
oosened the lugs, it continued working on him. He fiddled in the snowpack, making sure it was secure where he set the jack, levered up the jack handle. As the truck heaved up, the obvious racheted up in his mind. He was staring right at it. Stenciled in white type on the side of the rolling garbage bin next to the garage. Klumpe Sanitation.

  The only thing he’d hit today, in a manner of speaking, was Klumpe.

  Efficiently Broker changed the tire, lowered the truck, stowed his tools, and then minutely inspected the pancaked flat with his flashlight. If there was a puncture, it was out of sight, buried deep between the new tread. He tossed the flat in the truck bed, dusted off his work gloves, turned up his collar. Getting colder, the snow starting to squeak under his boots.

  Slowly he wheeled the tall garbage bin down the long drive and positioned it, handles back. He scanned up and down the muzzy white ribbon of road. The ridge of snow the plow had thrown up was undisturbed, no sign of a vehicle having stopped on the shoulder near his house.

  Okay. Broker fingered the tinfoil pouch of rough-wrapped cigars from his pocket, removed one of the stogies, took out his lighter, and lit up. Slow walk back up the drive.

  The usual cautions. Don’t assume. Probably nothing. Still…Klumpe came across as a rube who might strike out. Nutty wife egging him on.

  So take a look around, walk the perimeter. Broker retrieved the flashlight and walked a circuit of the house, keeping an eye out for the cat. A few minutes later the flashlight beam picked up a wet yellow-green glare, out of place against the snow. Next to the unused doghouse behind the garage.

  Broker stooped and inspected the frozen gob of meat resting in a pool of unfrozen liquid in a brown bowl. He could see the red residue of tomato soup still clinging to the bowl’s rim.

  Same bowl he’d served Kit lunch in today. Before they went out skiing…when Nina was sleeping upstairs…

  Broker immediately switched off the flashlight, a deeper reserve of energy kicking in. He strained his eyes, tracking the tree line, adjusting to the dark.

  Had someone been in the house?