Page 28 of The Murder Inn
“This’ll calm my nerves.” April sipped the wine and smiled.
“I’m really sorry,” Clay said. “I was just glad to see you.”
“It’s OK.” She reached over and touched his hand in a way that made his stomach clench. “Did you just get home from work?”
“Yes. Two auto break-ins, a couple of drug overdoses, and a barroom brawl. Not a bad shift, all things considered.” Clay looked down at the floor, where Joe was stretched out on his belly with his iPad, playing a game that involved choosingclothes for a series of colorful monsters. “How are you two settling in?”
“We’re OK. At least one of us has been soaking up all the natural scenery,” April said, glancing down at the child, who was putting a blue blazer on a green alien-like creature. “You know. Prancing in the woods. Climbing trees. Talking to squirrels. Collecting beautiful seashells for his loving mother.”
“I did all that stuff this morning before you woke up,” Joe said.
“Yes, but you’ve been on your iPad ever since.”
“I need to play the iPad.”
“Youneedto?”
“Yes, otherwise it gets lonely.”
The adults laughed. Clay could feel the wine warming his cheeks already. He quietly indulged in a momentary fantasy: this same scene repositioned in a home of their own. April urging Joe to go out to play in their garden and make the most of those hours before bedtime. Clay and April falling exhausted onto their couch to debrief on the day, bare feet touching, maybe under a knee blanket, while a TV played, ignored, in the corner. The safety and security of mundane family routines, the fuel that ran Clay’s heart.
With a little more nudging from April, Joe set down the iPad and leaped to his feet, running out to gather more seashells from the beach in the fading light.
“So where are you two headed?” Clay asked after a minute or two of mental rehearsing. “Joe says you’re on vacation.”
“Look, Joe says things,” April said. “He’s a talker. A lot of it is made up. You shouldn’t pay much attention to it.”
“Sounds like every kid I’ve ever met.”
“Yes, it’s just”—April gave an uncomfortable laugh—“you never know what Joe’s going to say next, you know?”
“So you’re not on vacation.”
“We are! Uh. He’s got that bit right, at least.” April took a long draft of wine. “This is day three of our adventure.”
“Where to next?”
“Oh. I don’t know. We’re just sort of winging it,” April said as she smoothed down a lock of her dark silken hair and tucked it behind her perfect ear. “I like to pull into a town, get a feel for it. See what the motels are like. It’s risky business, booking accommodation online. You can’t capture the smell of a place in a photograph.”
“You sure can’t. Can’t tell how noisy it is, either.”
“In my dreams I’d do a vacation like this in an RV,” April sighed. “Take our home with us. See the country one town at a time, just trundling along.”
“Sounds nice,” Clay said and smiled. “The open road. Just going where the winds take you.”
“That’s the plan.” April nodded, smiling, looking just past him at the door to the yard into which Joe had disappeared.
“How long will you be away, all up?”
“Ah, a few weeks. Three? Three weeks?”
“So where’s home?”
“Omaha.”
“You came all the way from Omaha?” Clay frowned. April’s wineglass was almost empty.
“Yeah.”