Night Shift(13)

“No, ma’am,” Manfred said firmly. “One of us will drive you in your car, and one of us will follow to take the driver home.”

“Thanks for taking such good care of me,” Ms. Owens said, genuinely surprised. “Though . . .” She looked hard at Fiji. “I feel like we’ve met before. I mean, recently.”

“I felt just the same way when you came in,” Fiji said. “But for the life of me, I can’t recall where. Have a drink.” She handed the glass of water to Ms. Owens, who took a long gulp and handed it back.

“Thanks. If you wouldn’t mind, I know I’d feel even better at home,” she said.

“All right, we’ll get you up then,” said Manfred, and he signaled for Diederik to take Fiji’s place at Ms. Owens’s side. She was up on her feet before she had time to worry about the procedure.

Fiji asked Diederik to help customers if any came in while she was gone, and then she grabbed her keys and purse so she could follow Manfred to Ms. Owens’s house in Davy.

“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” Kiki demanded.

For a few pleasant moments, Fiji had forgotten all about her sister’s presence. “I won’t be gone long,” she said. “Unpack. Or fix lunch. That would be nice. And helpful.” And then she started out back to her car, only to spin on her heel.

“And leave the kid alone,” she said.

“Oh, for God’s sake. How old is he?” Kiki was partly angry, partly curious.

“Younger than you think.”

“Too young to drive the woman back to her house?”

“No driver’s license,” Fiji hedged.

“Why?”

“He’s foreign.”

“He sure doesn’t look Mexican.”

“He’s Dutch,” Fiji said. “Now, I’ve got to go.” And she made good her very temporary escape.





3





Manfred gave the sister—Kiki?—a nod and a wave as he got into Francine Owens’s car. The sister nodded back, but without enthusiasm. That was okay with Manfred. She wasn’t impressed with him; he surely wasn’t impressed with her, either. And he’d seen the way she looked at Fiji when Fiji’s back was turned.

Manfred couldn’t drum up much conversation with Francine on their short drive to her house. She asked if he’d lived in the area long, seemed relieved that he hadn’t (so presumably he wouldn’t gossip about her fainting in the store), and thanked him several times for helping her, though his appearance clearly made her very uneasy. She had no idea how much he had helped her, but that was okay with Manfred.

Her house was a small ranch in a neighborhood of similar homes. Gardens and basketball goals and barbecue grills and the smell of cut grass, though it was the tail end of mowing season in Texas.

After Francine Owens had thanked them both several more times, and they had reassured her that they’d been glad to help and they hoped she recovered completely, they were all able to part ways with ill-concealed relief.

Manfred climbed into Fiji’s car and leaned back, heaving a sigh. He didn’t feel like talking about Francine Owens again. It was simple to think of another topic of conversation.

“So how come your sister showed up, after all this time?” he asked. “Didn’t you tell me none of your family had come to visit you in Midnight, since you inherited?”

“Truth. Kiki says she’s here now because she’s broken up with her second husband. And also, my dad has Alzheimer’s. So she doesn’t want to stay with Mom and Dad.”

“Two reasons, huh? One wouldn’t do? You don’t have a telephone, she couldn’t call ahead?”

“Yeah, it seems pretty weak to me, too,” Fiji told him. “I can sort of see her not wanting to go to my mom and dad’s if Dad is getting hard to handle. She never has liked to take responsibility for someone else. But the split with her husband—that seems pretty hinky to me.”

“I don’t know what ‘hinky’ means, but the situation does seem kind of suspicious. More explanation called for.”

“Right.”

“Doesn’t she have a job?”

“Good point, Manfred. Yes, last I heard, she was working at a Banana Republic or something. A mall clothing store. And even if she and her husband split up, it seems like she’d need to work. Maybe especially.”

Manfred didn’t know a lot about conventional families, since he’d never known the name of his father and he’d spent a bit of his childhood and almost all his adolescence with his psychic grandmother, Xylda Bernardo, who’d never met a camera she didn’t like. “So are you thinking she’s come here for some other reason entirely? Or that she’s got bad news about your mother, too? Or what?” He glanced over at Fiji, who was clearly mulling over possibilities. “I’ll find out, I’m sure,” Fiji said. “Even if I’d rather not.”