Easy Prey

behind,” Franklin said. “Gotta keep rolling.”
    She picked up the plate and pushed it into the microwave, said, “One minute,” pressed a series of buttons, and the microwave started to hum. Then she went back to the refrigerator, grabbed a jar of salsa, popped the top, got a spoon and dumped three large spoonfuls into a small glass dessert bowl, glanced at the microwave timer, put the top back on the salsa jar, stuck it in the refrigerator, and wrapped up the top of one of the cheese bags, while watching the timer. Then she reached out. . . .
    “Not too soon, not too soon,” Franklin said. Jael jabbed a button, popped open the microwave door, thrust the salsa bowl inside, slammed the door, and pushed the Resume button.
    “Might be too much time,” Franklin said.
    “No, I think we’re okay,” Jael said. Working quickly, she wrapped up the top of the second cheese bag, put both cheese bags back into the refrigerator, took out two beers, stepped back to the microwave, said, “Three seconds.”
    There was a popping sound, then another. Franklin said, “Shit. I told you. There goes the salsa.”
    The microwave beeped and Jael opened the door and looked inside. The interior was spattered with little gob-bets of salsa. “I’ll get it later,” she said.
    “Classic line,” Franklin said with approval.
    She pulled out the dish full of chips and the bowl of salsa, turned to the cooking island, saw Lucas for the first time, put the chips on the butcher-block top, and said, “Time.”
    Franklin looked at his watch. “One minute, twenty-nine seconds. If you add ten seconds going and coming, you could’ve missed a pass play.”
    “I don’t think I can cut much time,” she said.
    “You just don’t have the moves worked out yet,” Franklin said. “You lost time with the chips, arranging them, you lost time getting the salsa out. And now you gotta go back and clean the microwave.”
    Jael looked at Lucas and asked, “Did you know that if you heat up salsa too fast, the onions pop like popcorn?”
    “Everybody knows that,” he said as Franklin turned around. Franklin seemed mildly embarrassed.
    “I’ve been cooking seriously for half of my life, and I didn’t know that,” she said. “Even the idea of heating it up seemed pretty brutal.”
    “Gotta have it about medium-warm, a little better than room temperature.”
    Hutton chipped in. “You want boiling-hot cheese on the chips, medium-warm salsa, very cold beer. You want that range.”
    “Do all men know this?” she asked.
    All three of them nodded, and said at once, “Of course.”
    THE HOUSE ORIGINALLY had four bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs. Jael had wiped out the bottom floor as a studio; had rebuilt a kitchen upstairs, in what had been the master bedroom; the other three she’d turned into a snug little living room/dining room, a small library/office, and her own bedroom. The space was carefully assembled and connected, and Lucas felt comfortable.
    They’d chatted with Franklin and Hutton for a few minutes, eating the nachos with melted cheese—“I can feel my heart clogging up. This stuff is absolute shit,” Jael said—and then Jael said to Lucas, “Let’s go talk.”
    As she stepped past him, she caught his wrist in her hand and led him out of the room; Hutton raised an eyebrow. In the living room, Lucas sprawled on a couch while Jael settled back in an oversized chair. Lucas said, “Great chair,” and Jael said, “All guys don’t really know about that nacho-cheese thing.”
    “You’re right. There’s probably some raggedy-ass cowboy out on a ranch in North Dakota somewhere who doesn’t have either a TV or a microwave.”
    She said, “It really . . . wasn’t bad.”
    “If you eat that stuff three days in a row, you’ll be as big as Franklin.” Franklin completely filled an average doorway. “In fact, Franklin used to be about your size.”
    She nodded, getting rid of the topic. “I went to see Marcy a couple of hours ago. I just missed you.”
    “She’s hanging on,” Lucas said, his face going grim. “But she’s harder than goddamn nails. If anybody can make it back, she’s the one.”
    “I feel . . . you know. Guilt, I guess.”
    “Don’t,” he said. “This has nothing to do with you, really. It has something to do with a nut, and some asshole who killed Alie’e and Sandy Lansing.”
    “I can’t get Plain’s body,” she said. “But I finally found Dad. He’s on St. Paul Island, which