Part 32 (2/2)

He nodded as he found his duffel bag and started emptying it-both his clean and his dirty clothes, onto the shelf next to the VCR. ”Agonizingly so. Why don't you nap-I'll be back as soon as I can.”

”Whatever you're doing, I can help.”

”Yeeeah,” he said, drawing the word out. ”I'm not so sure about that. Ben gave me his key. I'm going to do a little authorized B&E over at Greg and Ivette's, before Greg comes home from his truly big adventure at the police station.”

She knew one of the reasons why. ”You're taking possession of his gun.”

”Handgun,” he corrected her. ”Gun is...Never mind. Yes. That's one of the things I'm doing, including making sure he's only got the one.”

”What else?” she asked, then answered her own question. ”Ben's clothes and money-he's got money hidden in his room.”

”Yeah,” Izzy said. ”He told me where, and...I'm also in charge of finding the name of the home-health-care agency that Ivette works for. We gotta locate her ASAP. We should be able to get the address where she's working from them, so we can go over there and talk to her.”

Eden pushed herself to her feet. ”I can definitely help with that.”

”Sweetheart, thank you, but I don't want you to have to go back there.”

”If no one's there,” she pointed out, ”it's just a...really ugly place. If home has everything to do with people, then h.e.l.l probably does, too. Right?”

”I'm not completely sure about that,” Izzy told her. ”There are places I wouldn't want to go back to, even if the people who made them h.e.l.l were long dead and gone.”

”But if you're going to be there, too,” Eden told him as she unzipped her dress and let it pool at her feet, where she stepped out of it in his own private strip show, ”I can go anywhere. I just want to put on sneakers, in case we have to run.”

”Sneakers,” Izzy repeated, unable not to laugh. ”I a.s.sume you're going to put on more than sneakers. Which is not to say the look wouldn't work for me...”

She was heading into the bedroom, where she kept her clothes, but now she stopped and gazed back at him. Dressed as she was in only those barely-there white panties, she was impossibly beautiful.

Maybe stopping to take a quick nap-fifteen, twenty minutes tops-wasn't such a bad idea.

Eden smiled, because, as always, she knew what he was thinking.

”I honestly don't know how long I've got before Greg gets home,” he told her, hefting the empty bag. ”So really, I should go now, and I should go alone.”

”I'm not afraid of him.”

”I know you're not,” he said. ”But if I'm in there, and he does does come home? I can get out and he won't even know I've been there. If you're with me, it's not going to be as easy.” come home? I can get out and he won't even know I've been there. If you're with me, it's not going to be as easy.”

”I could wait by the front door,” she said. ”Be your lookout.”

”Eden, please get dressed,” he said. ”You're killing me.”

”Is that a yes?” she asked him, crossing first one arm and then the other over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which really didn't help all that much, in the giant cosmic scheme of things. She persisted. ”Is it?”

Izzy sighed again. ”Wouldn't you rather take a nap? I'd rather take a nap.”

But she shook her head, no. ”I just like it better when I'm with you,” she said quietly. ”I like being with you. So, no. Unless you're going to take a nap, too...”

And okay. She had him with that.

”Get dressed,” he said, bending down to pick up her sundress and toss it to her, so she could hang it in her closet. ”But if Greg comes home while we're there? You don't mix it up with him, do you understand? Even if he p.i.s.ses the s.h.i.+t out of you.”

She smiled at that as she nodded, and he felt compelled to add, ”Eden, I'm serious, here. If we're over there, and he comes home, you go out the back door and you get into the car and you lock the doors. And you turn the radio up loud and you stick your fingers in your ears so you can't hear his c.r.a.p. Whatever he says and does, we don't touch him.”

She understood. She nodded again, very seriously. ”Thank you.”

”Please get dressed,” he said again, and she left the room to do just that.

The house was silent and smelled of stale cigarette smoke and garbage.

Greg's dishes were still out on the coffee table, exactly where they'd been the last time Eden was in here, just a few short days ago.

Her stepfather had added to the mess-an empty bottle of liquor was on the table, along with mustard-smeared take-out wrappers from McDonald's.

Izzy had come in first, and now he motioned for her to be quiet and wait by the front door. His eyes were dark with his concern-she wasn't trying to keep the repugnancy she was feeling from her face-and he leaned in close to ask her, ”You want to wait in the car?”

”I'm okay,” she told him. It was hard to hold his gaze. He scared her a little bit when he got like this-all hard intensity, no lurking amus.e.m.e.nt.

”I'm trusting you here, to be honest with me,” he told her.

”It's harder than I thought,” she admitted. ”I want him to come home so I can take another swing at him with that pickax, for sending Ben to that place.”

Izzy smiled then at that-briefly, fiercely-before the intensity was back. ”But you won't, though, right?”

”I won't,” she promised.

”Hold this, I'll be right back.”

Izzy had brought his empty bag inside with them, and he handed it to her now before he swiftly and silently went through the house, checking all of the rooms to make sure that Ivette hadn't returned.

But Eden knew that if her mother was home, the cigarette smell wouldn't be stale. There'd be smoke in the air. Unless, of course, she'd pa.s.sed out on the couch. Or the bed. Or the floor.

”We're clear.” Izzy came back and locked the front door, putting the chain on it. This way, if Greg came home, he wouldn't be able to come right inside. He took his bag back from her. ”Our priority is to get his handgun. Ben said Greg kept it in the closet in the master bedroom. What I need you to do while I'm looking for that-if you're up for it-”

”I am.”

”-is to search the living room, under the sofa and chair cus.h.i.+ons. I want to make sure he doesn't have a second weapon that he keeps hidden. So if he's got a favorite place to sit and watch TV-”

”I'm on it,” Eden said.

He was still standing there, watching her as she started taking apart the couch, clearly loath to leave her, so she told him again, ”I'm really okay. Go get the gun we know about. I'll feel that much safer when it's in your hands.”

He nodded and vanished down the hall.

There was nothing under the sofa cus.h.i.+ons aside from some popcorn and petrified Cheez Doodles. The upholstery was sticky and gross, but Eden searched carefully, sticking her hands down into the recesses of the furniture.

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