Angels Fall

impression of earthy tones, straight lines and no nonsense before she was out the door.
    "I've put you to a lot of trouble today." she began.
    "Damn right vou have. Get in."
    She stopped, and gratitude warred with insult, outrage and exhaustion. Gratitude lost. "You're a rude, insensitive, insulting son of a bitch."
    He leaned back on his car. "And your point is?"
    "A woman was murdered today. Strangled to death. Do you get that? She was alive, now she's dead, and no one could help her. I couldn't help her. I just had to stand there and watch. Do nothing, just like before. I watched him kill her, and you were the only one I could tell. Instead of being outraged and upset and sympathetic, you've been short and snippy and dismissive. So go to hell. I'd rather walk back up that trail for six miles than ride two miles with you in your stupid, macho SUV. Give me my goddamn backpack."
    He stayed just as he was, but he no longer looked bored. "About time. I wondered it you had anything approaching a normal temper in there. Feel better?"
    She hated that she did. Was infuriated that his carelessness had revved her up until she d spewed out a great deal of her anxiety and dread. "You can still go to hell."
    "I'm hoping for a reserved seat. But meanwhile, get in. You've had a crappy day." He pulled the door open. "And, just FYI. Guys can't be snippy. We're physiologically incapable of snippiness. Next time use cal -lous . That works."
    "You're an irritating, confusing man." But she climbed into the car.
    "That works, too."
    He slammed the door, then strode around to the driver's side. After tossing her pack in the backseat, he got behind the wheel. "Did you have any friends in Chicago?" she asked him. "Or just people who found you irritating, confusing and callous?"
    "Some of both, I guess."
    "Aren't reporters supposed to be sort of personable, so they can get people to tell them things?"
    "Couldn't say, but then I'm not a reporter anymore."
    "And fiction writers are allowed to be surly and solitary and eccentric."
    "Maybe. Suits me anyway."
    "To the ground," she replied, and made him laugh.
    The sound surprised her enough to have her look over. He was still grinning as they rounded the lake. "There you go, Slim. Already know you've got spine. Nice to know you've got teeth to go with it."
    But when he pulled up in front of Angel Food, and she glanced up at her own window, she felt her spine loosen, and her teeth wanted to chatter. Still, she got out, and would have reached for her backpack if he hadn't pulled it out from his side first.
    So she stood on the sidewalk wavering between pride and panic.
    "Problem?"
    "No. Yes. Goddamn it. Look, you've come this far. Could you just walk up with me, for a minute?"
    " Fo make sure Michael Myers isn't waiting for you?"
    "Close enough. Feel free to take back the compliment—if that's what it was—about me having a spine."
    He only tossed the backpack over his shoulder and started around the building to her steps. Once she'd dug out her key and unlocked the door, he opened it himself to walk in ahead of her.
    She lowered his insensitivity quotient. He hadn't sneered, he hadn't spoken, he'd just gone in first.
    "What the hell do you do in here?"
    "What? Excuse me?"
    "No TV." he pointed out. "no stereo."
    "I just moved in, really. I don't spend a lot of time here."
    He poked around, and she didn't stop him. There wasn't that much to see.
    The neatly made daybed, the couch, the bar stools. But it smelled, female, he noticed. But he didn't see anv sign of the nest building he expected from a woman. No pretty and useless things sitting around, no mementos from home or from her travels.
    "Nice laptop." He tapped a finger on it.
    "You said you were hungry."
    He glanced up from her computer, and it struck him how the nearly empty room made her seem so alone. "Did I?"
    "Before. If you are. I could make you a meal. Payback. We could call it payback for today, and be even."
    She said it lightly, but he was good at reading people and this one wasn't ready to be alone. Anyway, he was hungry, and had firsthand knowledge she could cook.
    "What kind of meal?"
    "Ah." She pushed a hand through her hair, glanced toward the kitchen. He could almost see her doing a mental inventory of her stock. "I could do some chicken and rice quickly. Twenty minutes?"
    "Fine Got beer?"
    "No. Sorry. I have wine." She turned toward the kitchen. "A nice white. It's chilled."
    "Good enough. Are you cold?"
    "Cold?"
    "If