Page 13 of Rest In Pink

I blinked at him. “Why would you want a wife?”

“I don’t. But you’re low maintenance and you’re leaving in September. I’m not marrying anybody else so it wouldn’t be a problem later.”

“You offering to rescue me again?”

He shrugged and ate another one of my fries. “It would stop people asking me when I’m going to make an honest woman of you.”

“I’m an honest woman already.”

Vince nodded. “Much honesty. No tact.”

“This is possibly the most unromantic proposal I’ve ever heard,” Molly said, one of my fries in her hand. “You guys are depressing.”

Cash went by with a bag of take-out, looking at me sorrowfully.

Yeah, like I’d buy that.

I looked back at my depleted basket instead. “I’m going to starve to death unmarried.”

Vince took an onion ring. “You can have some of my fries when my basket gets here. Stop complaining and eat your burger.”

I picked up my burger. “I need somebody to tell me what they’re going to do about Thacker.” I looked at Vince. “That would be you.”

“I am going to do nothing unless he kills somebody. Then I’m going to investigate. Because I am now a detective. The mean streets of Burney now have a man who is not himself mean.”

“It’s mean to eat my vegetables,” I told him.

“What?” Molly said. “Who’s mean?”

“Film noir,” I told her. “Sam Spade. There will be a fedora and a trench coat by Friday.”

“You’re my hero, man,” Mac said to Vince, taking another one of my fries. “I want to be you when I grow up.”

“You’re thirty-three,” Molly said to Mac. “You’re up.”

“Only physically,” Mac said cheerfully. “You want emotional maturity, go elsewhere.”

“Why would I want emotional maturity?” Molly said.

“Good. Come home with me tonight.”

“No,” Molly said.

Mac sighed and ate another one of my fries.

“There is no romance in Burney, Ohio,” I said and ate my burger.

Chapter Six

Two hours later, night had fallen, Liz had finally given up obsessing about what Thacker was up to, and we were down by the river. The storm had passed over and there were very few mosquitos.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Liz said, which I didn’t find particularly good foreplay on her part, but then again, her wrists were cuffed in front of her so all the work was on me. I’d padded the cuffs as best as I could, but they were still steel underneath. She wore a loose sundress like I’d asked, revealing her shoulders in the light of a three-quarter moon since the clouds had dissipated. I found that oddly more exciting than if the dress were down to her waist, but that was coming. The straps had bows that would come undone with one tug. She follows instructions well. Unless I tell her to wait in the car. She is not good at waiting.

“I mean, I’m fully in on this,” Liz went on, “but it’s taking you forever.”

“We spent six hours learning knots at Ranger School in the rope corral,” I replied.

“A rope corral?”