Out Cold by William G. Tapply Read Free Book Online

“Right. She trusts me. I got the feeling she trusts you, now, too.” He arched his eyebrows at me.
    â€œI won’t let her down,” I said. “I promised her I’d do whatever I can.”

Five
    I was in bed slogging through some whaling lore in my tattered copy of Moby-Dick , my customary bedtime reading, when the phone rang. I glanced at the clock. Eleven-thirty.
    It had to be Evie. No one else would call me at that time of night, and besides, I hadn’t talked to her all day. Evie and I talked every day when one of us was away.
    I picked up the phone and said, “Hi, babe.”
    â€œHi, honey.” Evie had a low, throaty telephone voice that never failed to make me think about sex, no matter what words she happened to say. “All tucked in?”
    â€œMe and Melville, questing for the white whale.”
    â€œBeware of white whales,” she said. “They’ll take you down with them.”
    â€œWhy don’t you junk that conference and come home,” I said.
    â€œIt was eighty-seven degrees at the pool today. Not a cloud to be seen. I got in almost an hour of bikini time. How was it there?”
    â€œCruddy.”
    â€œI rest my case, Counselor,” she said. “So how was your day, aside from the weather?”
    â€œCould have been a lot better, actually.” I told her about finding the girl under the snow, how I carried her inside, and how she was dead. “She couldn’t have been much older than fifteen, sixteen,” I said. “Just a child.”
    Evie was silent for a long minute. Then she said, “I don’t think I ever want to have children.”
    â€œI understand,” I said. “You never stop worrying about them.” I had two grown boys. Billy, the older, lived in Idaho. He guided fly fishermen in the summer and was on the ski patrol in the winter. He was hard to track down, and sometimes weeks passed between the times we talked. Joey, a couple of years younger, was studying to become a lawyer, of all things, at Stanford. He and I talked and e-mailed regularly. That was the difference between the two of them.
    I loved them equally and boundlessly.
    â€œThis girl,” I said. “She had a scrap of paper with our address on it.”
    Evie was silent for a moment. Then she said, “As if she was looking for our house?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œMeaning she was looking for you?”
    â€œI guess so.” I hesitated. “Or you.”
    â€œMe?”
    â€œDo you know any sixteen-year-old girls?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “I suppose so. I see lots of people at the hospital. Maybe if I saw her picture…”
    â€œWhen you get home I’ll show it to you.”
    â€œDid it have one of our names on it? That note she had, I mean?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “Just our address.”
    â€œMaybe she was looking for Walter or Ethan.”
    Walter and Ethan Duffy had lived in our townhouse. Evie and I bought it from Ethan after Walter, his father, died a couple of years earlier. “Good point,” I said. “Maybe the girl’s one of Ethan’s friends. Though she looked quite a bit younger than him.”
    â€œSomething to think about,” she said.
    â€œYes,” I said. “But I’ve got to admit, thinking about this whole thing is unpleasant. There are other things I’d rather think about.”
    â€œLike what?” said Evie softly. “Do you miss me or something?”
    â€œOh, yeah.”
    â€œMe, too,” she said.
    â€œA bikini, huh?”
    â€œThat little lime-green job,” she said. “Wait’ll you see my tan.”
    â€œIt’s your tan lines that I’m thinking about.”
    â€œI’ve got to admit,” she said, “they’re quite dramatic.”
    Â 
    The next morning, Wednesday, when I woke up, sunlight was streaming in through my bedroom window and Henry was sitting in