Free Night Vision by Ellen Hart Page B

eye and saw her looking back at him. “What?”
    â€œWhy’d you take off from Atlanta? Diego was beside himself with worry.”
    â€œIt’s personal. Between Diego and me.”
    â€œDon’t tell me you two are having problems?”
    â€œWould that surprise you?”
    â€œYes! You guys have the best relationship I know. To stay with the retro theme, you’re like Ozzie and Harriet. Lucy and Desi.”
    â€œDesi was a bastard. He and Lucy split because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped.”
    â€œYou mean … is that your problem?” Joanna set her drink down and stared at him full in the face. “Tell me, David. Has Diego been unfaithful?”
    David figured he might as well let her believe what she wanted. It was as good as anything. “Our problems are between us. I can’t talk about it.”
    â€œOh, you poor boy. I can’t imagine, after being together for so many years.”
    He didn’t say anything, just tried to look tragic. “I think I’ll stow my stuff.”

    â€œSure, hon. Whatever you want. There’s food in the fridge. I could fix you something, but—”
    He laughed, probably too loudly. “You’re such a great cook. Remember that chicken tartare you made once?”
    â€œThat’s what you called it.”
    â€œThat’s what it was.”
    â€œSo I undercooked it a little.”
    â€œIt could have put an entire cruise ship in the emergency room.”
    She leaned her head back and smiled. “It’s so great to see you. It’s been too long. Sometimes I think the best part of my life was years ago, when we were kids. When everybody I loved was still alive.”
    â€œYou mean Mom and Dad.”
    â€œI miss them. You and me, we’re all that’s left. No kids to pass on the line. Sometimes that makes me feel incredibly depressed.”
    David had never seen his sister actually high before, but he suspected she was pretty tight at the moment. Not slurring drunk, but not far from it. Maybe staying here wouldn’t be so bad after all. But first things first. Joanna might not be a drunk, but she did like pills. And that’s when he got an idea.
    â€œI gotta pee,” he said, rising from the couch.
    â€œUse the apple bathroom. I’m using the sailboat one.”
    Exactly the information he needed. “Thanks. Be back in a sec.” If he could just find himself a little plastic bottle of speed, he might survive the next few days just fine.

9
    T he IHOP on Reindeer Lake was always pretty dead by eleven P.M. A few customers straggled in, but mostly Brandy Becker spent her time standing behind the counter, refilling salt and pepper shakers. Normally, she worked seven A.M. to three-thirty, but last week she’d asked for a schedule change. She didn’t want to be home in the evenings right now. It was just temporary, she’d told her boss. She’d be back working days in no time.
    Brandy had been a waitress for most of her forty-three years. She was the mother of one son, Todd, who’d just begun his second year of college at UW-Madison. She’d gone straight from her mother and father’s home to a marriage with her high school sweetheart. When her husband died less than a year ago, she was on her own for the first time in her life—on her own and scared to death. She had a little house not far from the restaurant, so she could walk to work. She had an old Dodge sitting in the garage, but she didn’t drive. She’d never learned. There was no need, since her husband could drive her anywhere she wanted to go. She had a couple of good friends, but mostly she worked because, when she was by herself, all she did was cry. But then she met Gordon.
    Last May—she couldn’t remember the exact date—she’d noticed
a man come into the IHOP for the first time. She knew most of the regulars, and he wasn’t one of them. She hadn’t