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“Too morbid?” he asked. “Too soon?” We smiled at the gallows humor of it all, mostly out of courtesy, and then he was gone.
Betsy stretched out her legs before her. “I’m sorry, Sis.”
There were lots of things for which she might have been apologizing. But I thought I knew. The first I’d heard about the photos of her and John Aldred in the Fort Knocks hotel room had been when she was talking to the FBI.
“The pictures of you and the senator?”
“Oh, those, yes. But I just meant everything. Every fucking thing I’ve done.”
“I doubt those photos will ever see the light of day. And if they do? For all we know, Schweiker will have been indicted by then. I’m sure there’s a lot on the audio Marisa recorded.”
“Still…”
“May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“You shot one of them in the shoulder and one in the stomach. Were you being merciful?”
“God, no. When I took that hunting safety course, there was a cop’s kid in the class. He said if you ever have to shoot a person, aim for the middle: think belly button to sternum.”
“That’s where you were aiming?”
“Yup, both times. I’m a terrible shot.”
“You saved our lives.”
“I got lucky.”
“So…would you like a suite at the BP?” I asked. “You can’t possibly want to go back to the place Frankie was paying for.”
“God. I really will be homeless.”
“You won’t,” I reassured her. “You’re not.”
“Besides,” Marisa reminded her, “you still have your crypto.”
“I do, don’t I?” she said, and she sounded incredulous.
“Of course you do,” said my niece. “I wasn’t stealing it. I was just hiding it.”
Betsy seemed to perk up at this realization.
“But I can get you a two-room suite at the BP for a while—if you want,” I told her. “I’ll take care of it. I suppose the BP is in the same school district that Marisa is in now.”
“You’d do that?”
“I have no idea what’s gotten into me, but, yes.”
She picked up a pebble and stared at it as if it were a rare seashell she’d found at low tide. “Frankie Limback,” she murmured. “What was I thinking?”
“We’ve all shagged punters and reprobates,” I reassured her. I pointed at the fluorescent blue waves in the distant sky. “That’s my home, you know. Stay here. There are hordes of homeless teens living in the storm drains that could use you.”
“You have storms?”
“When it rains—and though it does rarely—it pours. I’ve seen floods here that were positively biblical.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “But that part of my life is probably behind me, even if it is one of the only parts without regrets.”
