Free Lost Cargo by Hollister Ann Grant, Gene Thomson

put the kettle on to boil, but she just seemed to be going through the motions.
    Travis took off his coat and sat down, watching her.
    “She killed that guy,” Lexie said again. “And she went in that building on Connecticut Avenue. How many people live in that place?”
    “Hundreds.” He shook his head. “My sister and her husband are buying a condo there. She told me on the phone tonight.”
    Lexie gave him an incredulous stare. “You’re serious?”
    “They’re signing the papers this week.”
    “You’ve got to say something! Tell them the truth. Tell them we saw her kill somebody.”
    “Yeah, but what am I really going to say? I can’t tell them we saw her eat some guy like he was a stack of pancakes on a plate.”
    “I don’t know, but you’ve got to do
something
.” She sat down beside him. “We have to go back for my brother and that thing goes in the woods. Her photo was in that camera you found.”
    “There’s a gun in my mother’s house. It’s an heirloom, but it’s a gun.”
    “You know how to shoot it?”
    “No, but it can’t be that hard. It belonged to Harry, my great-great-great-grandfather, I forget how many greats. He was in World War I, and he finagled something somehow, and he brought his gun home. It’s a Colt 45, the kind they named the beer after. I think the bullets are around, too.”
    Lexie looked relieved. “I want to see if the photos came out,” she said.
    Travis followed her up the long staircase to her bedroom and watched her turn on lamps and draw the curtains. Once he saw her unmade bed with its mountains of plush pillows, he felt consumed with wanting her, but he stood there awkwardly, staring at the cluttered room.
    More antiques. Three oriental carpets at different angles on the wide plank floor. Lamps with low, intimate light. Her brother was neat and orderly, but Lexie couldn’t be bothered. A jumble of silver earrings lay on her dresser, thrown in with lipsticks and nail polish, books, papers, bottled green tea, and framed photos. What was she reading? He was too far away to make out the titles.
    The room opened up beyond her bed into an alcove with a small fireplace, a curved desk, and a baby blue camelback couch. She’d thrown sweaters, jeans, and stockings across the couch and tossed more clothes in an open closet. Dresses. He wondered what she’d look like in a dress.
    Travis piled the clothes at one end of the couch and sat down, feeling too big for the delicate furniture. She sat at her desk and began to download the photos. The lamplight turned her skin golden and cast little shadows under her eyelashes. She wore a beautiful pearl ring on her left hand. He remembered he’d held her hand when they ran through the fog and ended up with his arms around her under the pine tree. Now he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
    “Nice ring,” he said.
    “Thanks. My boyfriend gave it to me.”
    His heart crashed. “You have a boyfriend?”
    She nodded. “He’s out of the country.”
    “What, in the military or something?”
    “No, working on his doctorate. Research in the Brazilian rainforest. He’s an entomologist.”
    “A PhD in bugs,” Travis joked, but to his own ears he just sounded jealous.
    She smiled. “His name’s Tom Feldman. He’s flying here in December. Maybe you’ll meet each other.”
    Travis took another look at the photos around the room. The pictures showed a handsome man with dark hair and a slanted, reckless grin standing with one arm draped around her shoulders. Her boyfriend didn’t look like a scientist. His wide open face was too impatient for such a meticulous profession, and his smile suggested speed and force. Racing cars, maybe, or spending somebody else’s money on the stock market. The couple stood in one photo on a perfect beach, Lexie in a killer black swimsuit, her boyfriend with his hand on her bare waist. Next to the photo sat a glass bowl filled with seashells. They must have collected the shells