![]() “But I’m hoping to find the Pappy’s before he finds out it’s been stolen because he’s going to-” Perhaps it was waiting to go on safari.Ĭandace Jones closed her eyes as if in her own mild earthquake from a faint orgasm. The Toyota Land Rover, she said, was hers. She showed him where the boxes had been stored, where the Tesla had been parked, where the leaf blower hung. Yesterday’s shake put a crack in the tub of the guest bath. Metro Denver had joined the ranks of Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Pennsylvania’s Lawrence County among the most heavily fracked zones in the United States. In most cases, the quakes resulted in property damage but the doctors and hospitals were flooded with bad cuts and head wounds. Every quake seemed to find an old church steeple. All the stores switched away from open shelving, especially for anything made of glass. For nine months now, the biggest business in Metro Denver involved securing stuff-pictures on walls, china in cabinets, tools in sheds and garages, anything that could rattle loose. Three a week, five a week and then a couple a day or more. “Was that the third one today or only the second?” He hit nine, ten and almost eleven when it stopped. He started a counter in his head when he sensed the first rumble. He stared up into a high overhead canopy of a dense yellow buckeye. It was his biggest nightmare, to be standing in the wrong spot and get conked in the head. He looked up, out of instinct, to see if anything might fall. He reached for the top of the brick wainscoting to steady himself. “Roberto?” Maybe he did have instincts for this new job. “I cleaned up the broken glass,” she said. The garage sat on the back of the property, smack on the alley line. He followed her through the enclosed patio and down a broad set of concrete steps to the expansive back yard, dusted in gold and red leaves. ![]() Clyde stared at his worn black loafers, in sympathy. “Anyway, I was at lunch.”Ĭandace Jones took a moment to steel herself. His large head and dark brow still drew the occasional Ed Asner quip. He’d lost forty-three pounds, went back to his given name, but he was fifty, still round and soft. In the four months since he took the newspaper up on a buyout, it was all protein and vegetables, not a drop of sugar or booze. He’d spent two decades eating his way through town. He knew his tarragon from thyme, branzino from ordinary bass. What she’d never know was that he was once the restaurant critic for the newspaper and, in fact, had tried to take Ladle down a peg, to no avail. Certainly, based on the quality of his tailoring, she must know that a splurge for Private Investigator Wayne Furlong meant a trip to Denny’s. Only the priciest, snobbiest joint in Cherry Creek. “Something special about the blower, Miss Jones?” ![]() Her top was a peach number, the top buttons undone. They stood in her kitchen, three times the size of his apartment. He smelled the opportunity to spend a week upgrading from store crackers and Cheez Whiz. “About the Nikon getting lifted-it was on the front seat of the Tesla, thank God they weren’t after the car.” Nothing special.”Ĭandace Jones gave a naughty-girl grimace.
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