Free Ill Wind by Nevada Barr Page B

psycho or something.”
    Stacy laughed. “Psychic, pine nut. Psycho is crazy.”
    “I’m not old enough to be crazy,” she said confidently. “Do you have children, Mrs. Pigeon?”
    “None to speak of.”
    “Oh.” Bella sounded disappointed.
    “I have a cat.” Anna tried to exonerate herself.
    “Don’t you like children?”
    “Some of my best friends are children.” Anna was thinking of Alison, her Michigan housemate’s daughter.
    The truth must have rung through the words. Bella brightened immediately. “That’s okay then. If the cat has kittens, can I play with them?”
    “Your mom’s allergic, pine nut,” Stacy reminded gently.
    “Not have, Stacy. Play with. I’d wash after.”
    “Piedmont’s a boy cat,” Anna said. “So no kittens. But he might like it if you’d come play with him. Sometimes I suspect he misses the little girl we used to live with.”
    “Does he try to hide it?” Bella asked, and Anna sensed she was already adept at hiding hurt and loneliness.
    “Yes. Sometimes he goes out and kills mice. Then I think he feels better.”
    “I like mice.”
    “So does Piedmont.” Anna was losing ground in this conversation. A smile played on Stacy’s lips. She was willing to bet it was at her expense.
     
     
    THE maintenance yard was loud with heavy equipment. Stacy pulled up in front of the fire cache. “Stay in the car, honey. Too much traffic. I’ll find Drew.”
    “Are you married?” Bella resumed the interrogation as Stacy disappeared into the cache.
    “Used to be,” Anna replied.
    “Did he divorce you?”
    “He died.” Anna wished Stacy would come back. “Maybe I’d better go and see what’s keeping your dad.”
    Her cowardly exit was thwarted. “No. Stay. Stacy’ll be right back. He never forgets. My first dad divorced us because I wasn’t born normal,” Bella stated matter-of-factly. “Momma said.”
    Anna didn’t know what to say to that. She was saved by Stacy’s reappearance, Drew beside him. Drew Kinder was as close to a “mountain of a man” as Anna’d ever met, made of a core of stone-hard muscle covered with a layer of baby fat a couple of inches deep. Unruly eyebrows and a moth-eaten mustache grew like lichen on his round face.
    Next to the helitacker, Stacy’s six-foot-two looked average, short even, and his slenderness was accentuated. Seeing the two men together, an image of a bass fiddle and bow flashed through her mind.
    “Hiya, Drew,” Bella called.
    “Hiya, beautiful.” Drew leaned down, hands on the door frame. His head filled the window. “I gotta fuel the truck, then we hit the road.”
    “Hit the road,” Bella repeated, as if the phrase had struck a harmonious chord within her.
    “I’ll help you with the truck,” Anna volunteered. She didn’t want to be left alone with Bella again. The child’s unrelenting forthrightness was unsettling.
    “Can’t hack it?” Stacy asked over the roof of the patrol car as she climbed out.
    Anna just laughed.
    While Drew filled the fire truck with diesel, she leaned against the fender. In his huge hands the nozzle looked like a child’s water pistol.
    “Bella’s quite a girl,” he said.
    “Seems smart enough. Too bad she’s . . .” Aware she was giving pity where none was asked, Anna left the sentence unfinished.
    Drew straightened up. The sun was behind his head. In silhouette he loomed as solid as the proverbial brick outhouse. “Maybe that’s what makes her so strong, so smart. She sees right through people. Maybe she got that from being the way she is. Ever think of that?”
    “I will now,” Anna promised.
    “Her mom wants her to get all these operations on her legs. Pretty painful stuff. Make her more ‘normal.’ Maybe it’s a good idea, maybe it’s not. All I know is it’s got to hurt. I don’t like seeing kids hurt.”
    “Nobody does,” Anna said mildly.
    Drew shot her a look that startled her with its venom. “Don’t kid yourself,” he said, and went back to