Finding Susan (15 page)

“Come on, I’ll get us a drink.”

“Sure.”

Kate set down her supplies and stood up. The pain in her knees was like something attacking them from the inside, poking at the nerves and pulling on the tendons. She had been working since the morning, and now that the unpleasantness between them had been taken out of the way, she could enjoy his company. She smiled at him.
 

“It’ll be good to take a few moments to...”
 
Kate stopped. From behind the closed kitchen door, she heard something fall over. “What’s that?” Metal was striking the linoleum floor - maybe a pot or some silverware. She started for the door, but Blake grabbed her shoulder.

“Hold on, let me check it out,” he whispered. Something else dropped on the floor with a heavy thud, and then footsteps tip-tapped against the linoleum. Blake’s hands reached down to his belt, but he wasn’t carrying a gun. He placed one hand against the door and looked back at Kate.

“Step back,” he said.
 

Kate did as she was told, but she didn’t like it. This was her house, and she didn’t think she needed some cop to tell her how to investigate prowlers. Of course, last time she did it on her own she ended up tasering the most innocent man in town. So she swallowed her pride and waited for Blake to act.

He pushed in with a sudden violence and shouted, “Police, do not move!” The door swung open and he vaulted into the room. The door slammed against the wall inside the kitchen, and then swung back shut. Kate heard Blake shout something she couldn’t understand, and then he went quiet.
 

She swallowed hard, and stepped towards the door. She heard Blake yell “Ouch!” from in there and heard him fall heavily on the ground.
 

She grabbed the door and pushed it open, cringing as she did so. The moment the door opened, she heard her intruder speak.

“Quack,” he said, and he looked up at her from the ground with his big red eyes and his chest all puffed out. “Quack,” he said again, and then he walked right past Kate and into the living room.
 

Blake was face down on the ground, one foot in an overturned pot. He was swearing in a very low voice.
 

“Ahem. And you were complaining about my language.”

Blake rolled over on his back and groaned. “Why the hell did you open up the entire house to the local wild life?” he demanded. “We’ll have alpacas strolling through here next.”

“Maybe I should prepare some snacks,” she said thoughtfully. “If we’re going to have visitors…”

Blake started to try to pull himself up. “I’m going to kill that damned duck. Tonight, you’re cooking. We’re having duck soup. Damn duck.” He sat up, and groaned again. “Damn duck.”

“The duck probably doesn’t have anything nice to say about you, either, Mr. Potty Mouth. Come on,” Kate said. She held out her hand and Blake grabbed it, pulling hard. It did not have the desired effect - instead of helping him get up, Kate was yanked right off her feet and down on top of him.
 

“Oof!” Blake said, and he cringed. Kate had caught herself with her hands, and right now they were on either side of Blake’s head, She did happen to land with all of her weight down on his chest, and he looked like he was turning red.
 

For just an instant, Kate had a desire to take advantage of his prone and pinned position. She leaned down a little, and despite the pained look on Blake’s face, she found herself mesmerized by his features, taken one at a time or all at once in their delightful package. He was a great deal of fun to look at. She could lean in closer, and steal a kiss, and it would only last a moment and they could say it didn’t count, just like that last one.
 

“God, you’re heavy,” Blake said, breaking the spell entirely. Kate jumped up, using Blake’s chest as a springboard. It made him groan again, but Kate didn’t care, and she sure didn’t offer to help.

“I’m going into the living room with the duck. At least there’s one gentleman in this house.”

Blake knew he shouldn’t have said it, and it was a dumb thing to say. But, My God, she was bringing down all of her weight on his chest. All told, she could not have weighed more than 110 pounds. She had a small frame, and it carried the weight it did have well, and her body seemed especially good at apportionment.
 

Blake shook his head, getting the thought out of there. He’d spent a great deal of the last two days thinking, absently, about the proportions of Kate’s female frame and it hadn’t done him a lick of good. They had already decided that they were at most friends. And maybe his little crack about her weight would even make that questionable. Blake sat up and rubbed his chest, cringing. It sure did hurt to have that much pressure on it, though. He started to pull himself to his feet when he heard Kate scream from the next room.

“What is it?” he called out to her, vaulting into action.

“Stop, thief!” Kate yelled. The door pushed open, just a little, and the duck was rushing through, pedal to the metal. Something glinted in its mouth - a chain was dangling down, almost reaching the ground. The scene struck Blake as entirely absurd, and then he realized what it was. The duck was taking Susan’s locket.
 

“Ah, man,” Blake said, and he leaped to the other side of the table to cut the duck off at the pass. It was airborne by then, its feet just grazed by the tips of Blake’s fingers. “He’s cheating! He’s got wings!”
 

The door slammed open again and Kate was rushing through. She tried to pull the same trick as the duck by leaping over Blake, but met with limited success. She kicked him in the gut and smashed against his chest once again and it was like hitting a brick wall, knocking her flat on the ground.
 

“Ow!” the two humans said in unison as the duck burglar quacked his valediction and made for the open window. The two of them sprawled across the linoleum looked like the end of a particularly successful party. For his part, Blake had been knocked around enough to feel a little drunk.
 

“Come on, we’ve got to hurry,” Blake said, making his way to his feet. They were wobbly beneath him, but if he moved with deliberation he wasn’t going to fall. He reached down to help Kate, but she was already up and heading towards the door.

“We’ve got to get that locket,” she said, hitting the door jam.
 

“Okay,” Blake said. He leaned against the wall to catch up his strength. “Just give me a minute.”

“I can’t even see him anymore. He’s gone out into those woods. How many ducks are there around here anyway?”

“Counting him? One, that I’ve seen. They’ve probably got a headquarters out there somewhere, though.”

Kate gave Blake a funny look. “I think they’d call it a nest.”
 

“Whatever. How did he get the locket?”

“He knocked it onto the floor when he ran into a side table where it was sitting. I reached down to pick it up and he bashed right into me and ended up with it in his beak.”

“Bill,” he reminded her.
 

“Oh, is that his name? How do you know?”

He glared at her. “Come on. Let’s go after him.” He started for the door, but Kate blocked his way.
 

“Wait - he’s not on the run. He keeps showing up so he must be from around here. Let me grab some things before we head out there. We don’t want to get lost. We’ll find him.”

***
***
***

“I understand the compass. I understand the chicken salad, sort of. But why did you pack us up a blanket?”

Kate just smiled as she strode past Blake into the woods. She had decided that they were going to be out there for more than an hour, and it would be dinner time before they’d be back. They used to have picnics out in the woods all the time. It seemed a better time than any to revive the childhood tradition.
 

She’d also packed up some matches for a fire. They loved making little campfires out there when they were kids. Everything she had planned would be like they did when they were kids. Everything but the duck hunt, of course.
 

“Have you ever hunted a duck before?” Blake asked.
 

Kate shook her head. Didn’t seem to be a lot to it, though.

“Elmer Fudd always shot Daffy Duck, but never Bugs Bunny.”

“That’s very true.” He gave her a look of pure exasperation. “But what the hell does it have to do with anything?”

Kate tilted her head to one side and looked at Blake from the corner of her eyes, giving him an “it’s obvious” look. “Because, silly, if Elmer Fudd could accidentally catch a duck when he was intent on doing something else, then catching a duck on purpose must be that much easier. It’s all scientific.”

“Yeah, right.”
 

They marched right off the path, like they always did as kids. The path had been cut into the woods to reach the river a good mile or two into its run. The byways they’d discovered as kids always got them there faster, and reached parts of the woods that were rarely seen by the average hiker. It gave them the level of autonomy that kids loved to pretend they wanted, but was never far enough away from the road that they could get really lost.
 

“Kate, did you know that some of those cartoons were based on fiction?” Blake said. He was straggling behind, getting his backpack caught on the branch of a dead tree. Kate shook her head and waited for him.
 

“Not the good ones. The good ones are true as anything can be. Blake, have you not walked in the woods ever?” Kate said.

Blake had freed himself from the first entanglement, but in doing that his boot had wedged itself between a root and a rock. He tugged two good times, and fell backwards into Kate, who had rushed up to him to give him a hand. She maintained her balance and did not fall over.

“You’re pretty strong, aren’t you?” Blake said.

“Where do you think all the weight comes from? A big tub like me isn’t just all...”

“Kate, oh God. I’m sorry I said you were heavy.”

Kate had a tentative look on her face, like she wasn’t sure if she’d accept the apology. “Well, that’s all well and good to say that, but I had at least three more defensive jokes lined up and you just went and threw them on the ash-heap.”

Blake stood up straight and readjusted his backpack. He glanced back at her, and his expression looked grim.
 

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to use them. Got a direction for us to go, Fudd?”

“Ducks like water. We go towards water,” Kate said. She started to trudge through the overgrowth, hopping over roots and sidling underneath branches, moving just as fast as when she was a kid.
 

It was invigorating. Gnats and mosquitoes started their assault as soon as they’d made their way towards the marshier parts of the woods, but they were infinitely preferable to the city bugs - there were some roaches Kate had seen in San Francisco that could qualify for boat loans.
 

At least they were doing something. She’d spent most of the day cleaning the old house, but earlier in the morning she’d made a run by Allison’s house to see if she could shake her lose from her usual alibis. No such luck. The woman wouldn’t answer the door. So she’d stopped in at Jason Ruddhammer’s and talked to him for a few minutes, but he hadn’t come up with anything much on the internet.

“So far, everyone who has responded last saw Susan about a month ago. Two of them said they did know she was heading here, but they never heard from her again.”

Kate nodded, biting her lip. That feeling of doom was getting heavier in her heart. “Keep trying, okay? I really appreciate it, Jason.”

But now, tramping through the woods, she didn’t want to think about all the horrible things that might have happened to Susan. It was nice to be hiking with Blake this way.
 
Took her mind off ugly things.
 

Of course, he had a few subjects he wouldn’t let go of either.
 

“You know, you haven’t ever really told me the whole story on why you left San Francisco. Or at least I don’t believe any of things you’ve said,” Blake called out to Kate.
 

He was about a dozen yards behind. She waited for him to catch up.

“Maybe I determined it was none of your business,” she pointed out.

“Come on.” He gave her a penetrating look. “Why would you want to live here? You’re a big city girl, and once you get that house fixed up you’re going to get bored. You’ll be off like a shot.”

“And once again, Blake Spanner demonstrates his amazing power of precognition. You know so much, maybe you could use your powers to locate a wayward duck.”

“Boy, never mind.” Blake stopped when he reached the muddier ground, and kicked at it. He had a look of distaste on his face. “Your pants look ridiculous,” he said, totally out of left field.

“What don’t you like about them?” Kate asked. She did a little model-turn, stopping just short of pirouetting into a tree. They were cargo pants with half a dozen pockets, just what the doctor ordered for a trip like this.
 

“All your pockets are open. It looks goofy.”

“That’s just for easy access. Are you going to spend this whole trip complaining about my wardrobe and prying into my past?”

Blake’s brow furrowed, like he was deep in thought. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

Kate shook her head. Typical - he was just as good at smarting off as she was, though he liked to pretend it was just her trick. Kate walked slower so he could keep up with her. Blake looked ready to complain with every step in the mud. At least he wasn’t acting inward and sullen, like he ended up last night.
 

Making one mistake, even a terrible one like that, shouldn’t be a reason to give in. Kate had gone into court to defend some terrible people herself. It did not fill her with the deep warmth of personal achievement, but it was her job, and she knew she had to do it well.

And that’s why you’ve run away from it
? she thought. Kate sighed and leaned against a tree.