Regina, who happened to be holding the baby (Hayden, I reminded myself), looked up with something approaching alarm. “You two go on like you had planned. I’ll be fine here. Just point me at the microwave and I’ll be glad to fix my own supper. After all, I just appeared on your doorstep.”

It seemed to me-almost-that Regina was anxious to get us out of the house. I could feel my eyebrows draw together in a frown.

“Excuse me a minute,” I said. Regina, her attention focused on the baby, gave me an absent nod.

I went across the hall into the room we’d decorated as a study and a television room. Plucking the cordless phone from its stand, I plumped down on the red leather couch in front of the windows. Madeleine, the cat that lived with us, emerged from her favorite private place, the basket where we put newspapers after we’d read them. While I was punching in numbers with one hand, I was tickling Madeleine’s head with the other. One part of my mind noted that I’d have to get Madeleine out of the study before Martin got home. He and the cat enjoyed a hate-hate relationship. It had started with Madeleine deciding Martin’s Mercedes was her basking site of choice, especially when the ground was muddy and she could leave some nice footprints on the hood and windshield. Martin had retaliated by parking the Mercedes in the garage and closing the door every night. Since it was then her move in their little game, Madeleine (who ordinarily couldn’t be bothered) caught a mouse, decapitated the rodent, and put the corpse in Martin’s shoe. Then Martin… well, you get the idea.

“Martin Bartell’s office,” Mamie Sands said. Her raspy voice was all business.

“Mrs. Sands, this is Aurora. I need to speak to Martin.” It had taken me weeks to stop apologizing for disturbing him.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Sands said, her voice several degrees warmer than it had been when I first married Martin, “but Mr. Bartell’s out in the plant. Want me to page him?”