'"They've been fighting," Sheila reported.
"Tannuh called me a bad name!" Tucker charged, his expression mulish.
Tanner glared at his brother. "You pushed me. Down!" His outrage was evident. Tanner didn't like losing in any situation.
Cate held up her hand like a traffic cop, stopping both of them in the middle of continued explanation. Behind her, Mr. Harris came down the stairs, carrying his toolbox, and the boys began shifting in agitation; their hero was here, and they couldn't swarm him as they usually did.
"Mimi will tell me what happened," Cate said.
"Tanner got the last piece of orange, and Tucker wanted it. Tanner wouldn't give it to him, so Tucker pushed him down. Tanner called Tucker a 'damn idgit.' Then they started rolling around and punching each other." Sheila looked down at both of them, frowning. "They knocked my lemonade over and it soaked my clothes."
Now that she looked, Cate could see the dark, wet patches on Sheila's jeans. She crossed her arms and looked as stern as possible as she did her own frowning. "Tucker - " she began.
"It wasn't my fault!" he burst out, clearly furious at being singled out first.
"You pushed Tanner first, didn't you?"
If anything, he now looked even more mutinous. His little face turned red, and he was all but jumping up and down. "It was - it was Mimi's fault!"
"Mimi!" Cate echoed, thunderstruck. Her mother looked just as stunned by this turn of events.
"She shoulda watched me better!"
"Tucker Nightingale!" Cate roared, galvanized by his blame-shifting. "You get upstairs and sit in the naughty chair right now! How dare you try to blame this on Mimi! I'm ashamed of the way you're acting. A good man never, never blames someone else for something he did himself!"
He shot a pleading look for understanding and backup at Mr. Harris. Cate wheeled and gave the handyman a gimlet stare, just in case he was thinking of saying anything in the least sympathetic. Mr. Harris blinked, then looked at Tucker and slowly shook his head. "She's right," he mumbled.
Tucker's little shoulders slumped and he began dragging himself up the stairs, each step as ponderous as a four-year-old could possibly make it. He began crying on the way up. At the top he paused and sobbed, "How long?"
"Long." Cate said. She wouldn't leave him up there any longer than half an hour, but that would seem like forever to someone with Tucker's energy. Besides, Tanner would have to spend some time in the naughty chair, too, for calling his brother a "damn idgit." Okay, this meant they both knew the word damn, and how to use it. Her children were swearing already.
She tucked her chin and scowled at Tanner. He sighed and sat down on the bottom stair, waiting his turn in the naughty chair. Nothing more had to be said.
Mr. Harris cleared his throat. "I'll pick up a new lock tomorrow while I'm in town," he said, and beat a path to the door.
Cate drew a deep breath and turned to her mother, who now seemed to be sucking really hard on her checks.
"Are you sure you want to take them for a visit?" Cate asked wearily.
Sheila, too, took a deep breath. "I'll get back to you on that," she said.
Chapter 7
Because of the time change, Goss and Toxtel arrived in Boise early in the evening. Goss figured the plane tickets had cost a fortune, purchased at the last minute as they were, but that wasn't his problem. Rather than make the rest of the trip that night, which would have meant they'd have been driving the last leg on unfamiliar mountain roads when they were both tired, they booked into a hotel close to the airport.
In the morning they would procure weapons, then take a prop plane to an airstrip about fifty miles from their destination. The plane was a private hire, so they'd have no problems taking the weapons aboard. Faulkner had arranged for some model of four-wheel-drive vehicle to be waiting for them at the airstrip. They'd drive the rest of the way to Trail Stop, where he'd booked them a reservation at Nightingale's Bed and Breakfast. Staying in the place they'd be searching was only logical, because that gave them a reason to be there.
After they ate dinner in the hotel's restaurant, Toxtel went up to his room, while Goss decided to see something of Boise - specifically, something female. He caught a cab and hit a crowded singles bar, fending off a few women who didn't appeal to him before settling on a pretty, wholesome-looking brunette named Kami. He hated cutesy names like that, but time was short and it wasn't as if she were going to be in his life for any longer than it took for him to scratch his itch, then put on his clothes and leave.
They went to her condo, a cramped two-bedroom. He was always amazed when women he'd just met invited him to their homes. What were they thinking? He might be a rapist, a murderer. Okay, so he was a murderer, but only if he was paid. The ordinary citizen was perfectly safe with him. But Kami didn't know that, and neither had any of those other women.
When they were lying exhausted and sweaty, side by side but no longer connected by even the pretense of emotion, he said, "You should be more careful. You lucked out with me, but what if I'd been some nutcase who collected eyeballs, or something like that?"
She stretched, arching her back and pushing her breasts toward the ceiling. "What if I'm the nutcase who collects eyeballs?"
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Something in her tone made his eyes narrow. They stared at each other in the lamplight, her dark gaze going flat, and he let his own gaze show his cold emptiness. "Then I guess we both lucked out," he finally said.
"Yeah? How do you figure?"