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her.
" and what the heck, your Dad said you could use a lift," Jeff finished. He
motioned Maggie into the front seat and shut the door after her.
Torrie smiled. She was wearing her preferred travel outfit of a loose
sweatshirt over stretch top and leggings, and if Jeff would rather glance at
Maggie's legs than Torrie's on the trip home, that wouldn't hurt anybody.
"You going to run the siren?" Torrie asked, throwing his own bags in the back
seat and climbing in. He leaned forward and rested his arms on the back of the
front seat.
Cop cars in the city had a wire grid on the back of the front seat, presumably
to keep already-handcuffed prisoners from leaping over the partition, kicking
the driver unconscious, then taking the handcuff key off the keyring with
their hands still locked behind them unlocking the handcuffs, and making an
escape.
Cops in the city probably didn't have enough real problems to worry about,
Torrie thought.
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But, then again, making the back seat of a patrol car useless for anything
except transporting a prisoner wasn't a problem for them;
cops in the city didn't use their patrol cars as the family car in their
off-hours.
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"No, no siren," Jeff said, after a few moments. "Unless you think we need it."
"Damned if I know," Torrie said. "I don't really know what's going on."
"Your father didn't tell you on the phone?"
Torrie shook his head. "Nah. Dad ... doesn't like talking on the phone."
"Well, okay, then let's use my nice little cop toys. You sit back and buckle
yourself in," Jeff said. He reached down and gave a momentary
whoop-whoop-whoop on the siren that caused the traffic in front of them to
melt away to the right. "It's gotten a bit weird."
Part of the unofficial but entirely de facto Hardwood Town Council was well
into a rump session around the Thorsens' kitchen when Torrie came downstairs,
running his fingers through his damp hair.
"Feel better, Torrie?" Doc Sherve mumbled around a mouthful of lefse.
Torrie's stomach growled at the sight of it. Norwegian favorite soft potato
flatbread, rolled with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.
Ah, the comforts of home...
"Definitely," Torrie said, stretching. Too many hours in too-small seats had
Torrie's back and legs aching, and while the best cure for that was a shower
and a good workout, and a night's sleep, he had settled for the shower.
"Welcome back, Thorian," Reverend Oppegaard boomed, the voice that had never
needed a sound system pitched to be merely loud, not painful. As usual, he had
taken the chair in the corner, where his snowy white beard and amply cut
sweater made him look like Santa Claus in mufti as he puffed on his pipe next
to where the vacuum panel on the wall quietly sucked most of his smoke away.
He didn't smoke his pipe indoors anywhere except here and his study at the
church, and that was such a hellhole of caked-on smoke that even the
notoriously stingy board of directors had unanimously voted to build him
another study in the church basement so that he wouldn't have to do his
ministerial counseling in the church kitchen.
Here, the pipe left only a pleasant hint of burley and perique in the air. The
Nutone central vacuum system hadn't been designed to be a smoke filter, but
that was before Uncle Hosea had gotten his hands on it.
"Yes, do be welcome to your own home." Minnie Hansen sniffed, whether in
greeting or in feigned irritation with the minister's smoking was anybody's
guess; the two of them had been genially feuding like a pair of fourth-graders
for generations. She didn't look up from the needlepoint or was it
cross-stitch? The difference was important to old Minnie, but Torrie could
never keep the two straight in her lap, but during her decades teaching
school, it had long been said that Minnie could see more out of the corner of
her eye and the back of her head man most people could straight on, something
Torrie could swear to, having been in her class.
Mom was back at the sink, after setting a fresh-brewed cup of coffee at his
place at the table.
Torrie plopped down in the seat and first took a cautious sip, then a
mouthful. Good, warm coffee, brewed in the frugal Norski style that let you
drink it, rather than practically have to cut it with a fork, the way they
made it in the city. And forget that oily, inky, bitter stuff that the French
had the nerve to call coffee.
It was good to be home. He drained half the cup in one swallow, then set it
down.
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"Dad back?" he asked.
Doc Sherve shook his head as he drummed his fingers on the table. "No." He
glanced down at the big gold Rolex on his wrist.
"He's taking an extra shift out at the site. He'll be back sooner or later."
"He shouldn't have to do that," Minnie Hansen said with a deliberate sniff,
never missing a stitch. "We're shorthanded with Arnie missing, and Lars out of
town."
"That's true." Mom sat down next to him. "Maybe you could help out there."
"Could be." Torrie nodded. "But I think it makes more sense to see if I can
catch up with Hosea and the rest." A lot more sense.
Torrie had earned some credibility in the Dominions, while Ian had spent most
of his by literally snatching the Brisingamen ruby out from under the nose of
Branden del Branden and the rest of the House of Flame.
Ivar del Hival was another case but Ian had taken to him too much.
Understandable, really; Ian needed belonging the way only somebody brought up
as isolated as Ian had been could. But Ivar del Hival was a ordinary of the
House of Flame, and had been raised on conflict and conspiracy, like they were
some sort of vitamins.
And Arnie? Old Arnie Selmo? Arnie was a nice old guy, but the emphasis was on
old.
Reverend Oppegaard leaned forward. "There's been some discussion," he said,
interrupting himself with a puff on his pipe, all the while eyeing Torrie from
under heavy brows. "There's been some... effort to get hold of you... for some
time now."
"Yes, Torrie," Mom said. "I think I must have called every hotel in Europe,
looking for you."
His brow wrinkled. Mom knew that he and Maggie had intended to stay mostly in
youth hostels. A lot cheaper and a lot less conspicuous than spending some of
the money Mom was busy turning the Dominion gold into on fancy hotels. And
they had pretty much stuck to that, except for an occasional break, when he
wanted the water hot and plenty, the bed soft and private, and breakfast
delivered to the door.
He deliberately hadn't been staying in touch or, mainly, in hotels. The idea
was to get away, to be on vacation, to walk down an alpine trail or through
the halls of the Prado without a schedule.
No books, no neighbors, no chores, no Brisingamen.
Maggie walked into the kitchen wearing a pair of pleasantly tight jeans topped
by a plaid flannel shirt, tucked in but unbuttoned, revealing a skintight
bodysuit or whatever they called it underneath. The jeans and shirt were the
sort of thing that Mom typically wore, but the peekaboo of the bodysuit was
pure Maggie.
She looked strange, somehow, and it took Torrie a moment to figure out that
she had applied a bit of blush to her cheekbones and put on lipstick and had
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