“So Andrew’s mad at you,” Tilda said, gathering the dog up in her arms.

“That good, huh?” Eve broke off another piece of chocolate. “Was he perfect?”

“No.” Tilda thought about his kiss in the closet and shivered. “Not even close.”

“Oooh,” Eve said, grinning at her. “Perfect.”

“See, this is why I should never talk to you about boys,” Tilda said. “You encourage me to be bad, and I get into trouble.”

“You bet,” Eve said.

“Give me the damn chocolate,” Tilda said, letting Steve settle back onto the bed, and Eve tossed it to her.

“So why did he steal the painting for you?”

“I think he felt sorry for me.” Tilda broke off another piece.

“And the Bundle of Lust part?” Eve said. “Come on. Give it up.”

“There’s nothing,” Tilda said primly, but she started to grin in spite of herself.

“Til-da’s got a se-cret” Eve sang, her perfect voice making even that sound good, and Steve pricked up his ears.

“And you’re how old?” Tilda said, trying to sound mature.

“Thirty-five, but I’m not meeting burglars and doing God knows what.”

“Kissing,” Tilda said and then laughed when Eve shrieked in delight and Steve jerked back.

“More,” Eve said.

“There’s not much to tell,” Tilda said, trying to sound offhand. “I opened a closet door, and he jumped me and gave me an asthma attack, so I bit him. Then he criticized my clothes and told me he was no gentleman and kissed me.”

“Ooh, ooh,” Eve said. “How was it?”

“Pretty damn hot,” Tilda said, feeling safe enough in the basement with Eve to tell the truth. “I frenched him.”

“Yes,” Eve said, and Tilda laughed again.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Tilda said, breaking off another piece of chocolate. “I was scared and he was standing between me and disaster.”

“For which you say, ‘Thank you very much,’ not ‘Let me lick your tonsils.’”

“It was the adrenaline. It had to go somewhere and it ended up in my mouth. Plus I knew I was never going to see him again, and we were in a dark closet, so it was like it wasn’t me.” Tilda felt cheered by how reasonable it all sounded.

“That was the last you saw of him?” Eve said, disappointed.

Tilda nodded. “Except for about twenty minutes in the diner when he threatened me, told me I have bug eyes, and stuck me with the check.”

“Edgy,” Eve said. “Iconoclastic. Not your mother’s Oldsmobile.”

“Right,” Tilda said, deciding they’d talked enough about her sins. “So does Gwennie seem a little odd to you lately?”

“Gwennie always seems odd to me,” Eve said, sitting up, “which is one of the many reasons I love her. Did I tell you she went to the Eddie Bauer outlet and came back with five sweaters, one for you, one for her, one for Na-dine, one for me, and one for Louise? I said, ‘Gwennie, that’s two for me,’ and she said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, dear, you’d never wear black.’”

“Which is true,” Tilda said. “Although I never thought of Louise as an Eddie Bauer girl.”

“Which is why you need this guy and not Scott,” Eve said. “You need a burglar in the night, not a lawyer in the day. The Louise in you needs him like the Louise in me needs a black sweater.”

“There is no Louise in me.” Tilda felt a little depressed about that. She stood up, handed Eve the last piece of chocolate, and put Steve on the floor.

“There’s a little Louise in every woman.” Eve leaned down the bed and straightened the painting where it rested against the headboard. “Just because yours is nicknamed Vilma doesn’t mean it isn’t really Louise.”

“And I do not need a burglar in the night.” Tilda thought back to her disgraceful behavior, asking him to rescue her. “That guy brings out the worst in me.”

“That’s your inner Louise,” Eve said, approval in her voice. “Set her free. Really, I don’t know what I’d do without Louise. Just about the time I think I’m going to start screaming, it’s Wednesday night and there she is, blowing off all my steam.”

“Right,” Tilda said. “I don’t teach elementary school, I paint murals. It’s very peaceful. I have no steam to blow.”

“Just remember the three rules,” Eve said as if Tilda hadn’t spoken. “She only comes out four nights a week, she never has sex at home, and she never tells anybody she’s you.”

“It’s not too late to get therapy,” Tilda said. “I’m sure your school insurance covers it.”

“Why?” Eve stood up and straightened her pajamas. “I’m happy. And I got two sweaters.”

“Good for you,” Tilda said. “Look, the guy in the closet was not that hot, I was exaggerating.”

“You know,” Eve said. “You keep talking yourself out of all the good stuff, you’re never going to get any.”

“I got some,” Tilda said, annoyed. “Scott and I had great sex. I came every time.” Steve put his paws on her leg and she picked him up. “They should put that man’s name in lights.”

“He was too calm,” Eve said. “Did you ever feel ravished? Did you ever feel as though if you didn’t have him, you’d die?”

“For the last time, I have no inner Louise.” Tilda looked back at the bed. “I don’t even have an inner Scarlet anymore.” She handed the dog to Eve and flipped the dustcover back over the bed, hiding the headboard, the quilt, and the painting. “I have responsibilities. I have to be smart. I have to steal a painting.” She felt a little sick at the thought, but that might have been the chocolate.

“Which is another reason why you shouldn’t have let the burglar go,” Eve said.

“I didn’t let him go. He let go of me.” She forced a smile. “And thank God for that.”

“Yeah,” Eve said. “Because all that good kissing would have gotten old eventually. I think there’s more chocolate upstairs, Vilma.”

Tilda sighed. “Lead me to it, Louise.”


AT NINE the next morning, Gwen poured herself a cup of coffee, punched up a nice Bacharach medley on the jukebox, pulled a pineapple-orange muffin from the bakery bag Andrew had dropped off on his way to jog, and then went out into the gallery to the marble counter and her latest Double-Crostic. To her right, the sun streamed through the cracked glass pane above the display window, and a loose metal ceiling tile bounced silently in the breeze from the central air. Behind her, Jackie DeShannon sang “Come and Get Me,” and Gwen thought, Fat chance. I’m stuck here forever.

The clue for G was “once a popular make of automobile”; that was always “Nash.” Why they never varied that clue was beyond Gwen. It wasn’t as if there weren’t other formerly popular automobiles. That gave her two of four letters for the word in the quote -R, blank, N, blank- which could be “rang,” or “rank,” or “rant,” or “rend,” or “ring,” or “rung,” or “runs”… Kill me now, Gwen thought.

Okay, H. “Nineteen fifty-four Ray Milland movie.” Fourteen spaces. “Damn.”

“Language, Grandma,” Nadine said from behind her, and Gwen turned. Nadine was sporting a black leather jacket, spiky black hair, mime-white makeup with raccoon eyes, Steve in her arms, and her boyfriend du jour, Burton, looking his usual, sullen Goth self, at her side.

“It’s June,” Gwen said to Nadine, deciding to ignore Burton since her day was already irritating. “Maybe not the leather jacket.”

Burton made one of those all-purpose cut-me-a-break sounds, and Gwen ignored him some more. He’d have been such a good-looking boy if it hadn’t been for the sneer.

Ethan came out of the office, eating a muffin, not looking pretty. “I snagged one, Mrs. Goodnight,” he said, his bony face cheerful under his bright red hair. “What do I owe you?”

Gwen’s mood improved slightly. “I’ll spot you the muffin if you can tell me a 1954 Ray Milland movie, fourteen spaces.”

“The Lost Weekend,” Ethan bit into the muffin.

“You’re a good boy, Ethan,” Gwen said and filled in the space.

“That’s what the ‘damn’ was for?” Nadine put the dog down and took a corner from Ethan’s muffin as the gallery door opened. “A 1954 movie? You know you’d have gotten that eventually.”

“Ray Milland makes it harder.” Gwen turned to face whoever was lost enough to come into the gallery and thought, Uh-oh. Six feet, dark hair, horn-rimmed glasses, dusty jacket, and dustier duffel bag, and even with all of that, you paid attention. “Loser,” Burton said under his breath, and Gwen looked into the newcomer’s sharp, dark eyes and thought, No, but trouble just the same.

“Ray Milland, 1954?” he said.

“Yes,” Gwen said, as Steve barked once, a low tremolo that slid up the scale at the end.

“Steve,” Nadine said, delighted. “You’re musical!”

“Dial M for Murder” The newcomer stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Davy Dempsey.”

Gwen frowned at him and shook his hand and thought, He’s charming. That can’t be good. She squinted at her book. Dial M for Murder made the word in the fourth line “never” instead of “nevew.”

“That’s a help.”

“Sorry,” Ethan said. “Should I give the muffin back?”

“No,” Gwen said. “You’re sixteen and you came up with a Ray Milland movie. You get muffins for life.”

“So, you want to buy a painting?” Nadine said to Davy, openly appraising him.

He studied the closest Finster, a pale oil of three depressed and evil fishermen closing in on a dyspeptic tuna. “ ‘A foul and depraved-looking lot, Bailiff.’”

“ ‘Those are just the spectators, Your Honor,’” Ethan said, and the two of them grinned at each other.

“What?” Gwen said, not reassured. That smile, that confidence, that glint in his eye. Who does this guy remind me of?