Free Bad Move by Linwood Barclay Page B

punishment, that I'd like it too much."
    And there was the tiniest twinkle in Trixie's eye.
    o o o
    There was one small part of the story I didn't tell Trixie. After The Backpack Incident, when Sarah got home and showed me her ticket (a fine plus points), we had to go to Mindy's, a grocery store about five minutes from our place, to pick up some things for dinner. She was going to go alone - I think she actually wanted to go alone - but I thought it would be better if I tagged along and attempted to be helpful. Try to smooth things over a little bit. Maybe explain why I did what I did. That my motives were honorable, even if things didn't quite work out the way I'd planned.
    Sarah dropped some bananas in the cart's child seat, next to her purse. "You do this kind of thing all the time," she said. "You're always telling us what to do. Don't leave the stove on, check the batteries on the smoke alarm, don't drink the milk after the expiration date, don't leave the front door unlocked, make sure the car's locked, make sure you put the steak knives in the dishwasher with the points down so no one slits their wrists when they reach in -"
    "That's a good rule," I pointed out. "Remember that time you got cut?"
    "Don't overload the circuits, make sure -"
    "Okay, okay, but that's all good advice. It's just commonsense safety stuff. I mean, I could have fallen down the stairs, and I could have broken my neck. The fact that I didn't, that's a good thing. It's really the happy ending to this whole mess, if you want to know the truth. Remember how mad you got one day, throwing their backpacks down the stairs? I think the kids learned a valuable lesson today without there having to be an actual tragedy."
    "I think the kids are thinking the real tragedy is that you survived."
    I didn't know what else to say, so I wandered over to look at the pastries. I felt like a chocolate cake. An entire one, just for me. I looked back over at Sarah, who had moved away from our cart to grab some pizzas in the frozen food aisle.
    And she had left her purse sitting in the cart, unguarded, where anyone could walk off with it. Maybe she was only going to be a second. But then she looked at the frozen juice, and some frozen vegetables, the whole time with her back turned to her purse.
    I returned to the cart and guarded her purse until she was done with the frozen foods.
    "What?" she said. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
    "Your purse," I said. "Anyone could have walked off with it. You shouldn't leave the cart unattended like that. You'd lose your cash, credit cards, everything. Wasn't there something on the radio, some woman had her purse stolen in the grocery store, lost all the pictures she'd just had developed of her sister's wedding?"
    "We carried the story on the Metro page."
    "There you go," I said. "So you already know, and still you leave your purse unguarded."
    Sarah looked at me long and hard. "You need to learn to pick your moments better," she said. "And another thing."
    "Yes?"
    "Go fuck yourself."
    o o o
    I was actually working when Sarah got home. Not building a kit. Not flying a model of the starship Enterprise around my study, humming the theme from Star Trek. Not playing Star Wars computer games. I was working on the last chapter when I heard Sarah unlock the front door and come in.
    I didn't call out. I didn't know whether she was still angry with me about the keys thing. But I started hitting the computer keyboard with more intensity, so she'd know I was home, hear where I was, and possibly think I didn't hear her come in because I was consumed with work. Soon, there was some racket coming from the kitchen, where it sounded as though she was putting away some food, and then it was very quiet, save for the sound of my typing. Although shortly before her arrival I'd actually been writing, I wasn't, at that moment, being overly creative. What I'd typed since I'd heard Sarah's key in the door was "Sarah's home so I better sound busy and