Survival Clause, стр. 65
He grabbed her while I buttoned myself back up, put her against his shoulder, and patted her back. Cheek against her small head of curly hair, he closed his eyes. And didn’t open them again, even when our small daughter let loose with a belch that wouldn’t have sounded out of place coming from him. Although his lips did curve.
Eighteen
By the time Grimaldi came and picked me up the next morning, he was long gone. I had no idea what he and Bob were planning to do about Agent Yung—whether they were bringing her to Daffodil Hill Farm with them, or letting her cool her heels at the sheriff’s office without telling her what they were up to—and I had refrained from asking. I did not expect Leslie Yung to be sitting in the passenger seat of Grimaldi’s official SUV when it pulled up in front of the mansion.
I blinked at her. She ignored me in favor of my—Mother’s—house. “Wow.”
I pulled open the back door of the SUV and went to work attaching the base for Carrie car seat. “Yep.”
“This is where you live?”
“This is it.” I made sure the base was secure before I snapped the rest of the seat, with Carrie inside, to it.
“You’re not planning to carry that through the woods,” Grimaldi said. It was more statement than question, but I answered anyway.
“No. I have a sling. I’ll strap her to my chest or my back when I get out of the car.”
She nodded. Agent Yung, meanwhile, was still gaping at the house. “It looks like a museum.”
I crawled into the back seat next to Carrie and answered, “It is, pretty much. Built by one of my ancestors between 1839 and 1841. We have stuff inside from almost as long ago.”
She had the visor down on her side of the car, and I wasn’t sure whether it was to block the sun or so she could look at me in the makeup mirror. Maybe she’d been touching up her face. “Your husband lives here?”
“Of course.” Where else would he live?
“That must be interesting,” Leslie Yung said blandly.
I decided to pretend I didn’t understand what she was getting at, since I found the implication insulting. “He grew up in a trailer on the other side of town, so I don’t imagine he ever thought he’d be living here. But a lot of things have happened since then. To both of us.”
Grimaldi smirked, but didn’t say anything.
“Speaking of that,” Agent Yung said. “I heard what happened yesterday. That must have been scary.”
“Not as scary as certain other events we’ve been involved in. I’m sure, by now, you’ve familiarized yourself with my husband’s file.” I met her eyes in the mirror. “You probably know it better than I do.”
A few of the events that had been among the scariest weren’t part of any file, of course. But she didn’t need to know about those.
“I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” I added, when she didn’t answer immediately. “This little excursion falls outside your purview, doesn’t it?”
“Outside the Classicist case, you mean? Your husband and Sheriff Satterfield informed me that Mr. Mullinax was likely to respond better to the two of them than to me.” She sniffed.
“I feel your pain,” I said politely. “I wanted to come, too. They said no. Was my brother there, by any chance?”
“The lawyer?” She nodded.
“Typical. They took him and not me.”
“If you’ll pardon me for saying so,” Agent Yung said, in a tone like she didn’t give a damn—darn—if I pardoned her or not, “he looked more professional than you do.”
“He probably wasn’t planning to be hiking through the woods. And besides, there’s something to be said for showing up in jeans and sneakers and with a baby in tow, you know. Everybody relaxes and nobody suspects you of being a spy. You should try it sometime.”
She sniffed. I did, too. Grimaldi grinned. “Children,” she intoned, “no arguing.”
Yung gave her a fulminating glare. I smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”
When we got to the rear of Daffodil Hill Farm, though, and Grimaldi pulled off to the side of the road into a little graveled patch, the sensibility of my attire became apparent quickly. I strapped the baby to my chest and set off in my jeans and sneakers. Yung, meanwhile, had to keep her wool from snagging on branches and her heels from sinking into the ground. It must have been annoying enough that after a few minutes, I took pity on her and decided to be nice. “You probably didn’t expect to be doing this today.”
She gave me a glare. “You think?”
“You don’t have to be here, you know. Or so I assume.” She didn’t say anything, and I added, “You could go back to the car and wait. It isn’t so hot yet that you’ll perish without the air conditioning running.”
It was hot enough, though. Or must have been quite uncomfortable for her, anyway, even without the crazy heels. I was fairly content in my jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt—which I had had the foresight to wear because I thought there might be brambles, and because I knew I’d be responsible for keeping whatever it was off Carrie.
She fell asleep in her sling covered with pictures of zoo animals, legs dangling and her cheek against my chest. As time passed, I felt a wet spot spread across the front of my shirt from her drool.
By then, we had been walking—or cutting our way through the woods—for about forty minutes. We had yet to see any sight of civilization—of the buildings at Daffodil Hill—but we were far enough from the road that the sound of passing cars had faded.
“Remind you of anything?” I asked Grimaldi.
She gave me a sardonic look over her shoulder. Like me, she’d dressed for the occasion, in a pair of heavy-duty khakis and what looked like hiking boots. “I assume you mean that trek through the woods in South Nashville when we