One Door From Heaven

invisible.
        Aunt Gen and Micky, however, had seen Leilani. They had looked at her. They had listened. She was real to them, and she loved them for seeing her.
        If they had been hurt because of her…
        Lying awake until the TV timer went off, and then closing her eyes to block out the faintly luminous sun god's sleepy smile, she worried up numerous possible deaths for them. If Preston had killed Gen and Micky, then Leilani would kill him somehow, and it wouldn't matter if she had to sacrifice herself to get him, because life would not be worth living anymore, anyway.

Chapter 60
        
        "YOUR WORK is so exciting. If I could live my life again, I'd be a private investigator, too. You call yourselves dicks, don't you?"
        "Maybe some do, ma'am," Noah Farrel said, "but I call myself a PI. Or used to."
        Even in the morning, two hours before noon, the August heat prowled the kitchen, as though it were a living presence, a great cat with sun-warmed fur, slinking among the table legs and chairs. Noah felt a prickle of sweat forming on his brow.
        "In my twenties," said Geneva Davis, "I fell passionately in love with a PI. Though I must admit I wasn't worthy of him."
        "I find that hard to believe. You would've been quite a catch."
        "You're sweet, dear. But the truth is, I was something of a bad girl in those days, and like all his kind, he had a code of ethics that wouldn't bend for me. But you know about PI ethics."
        "Mine are tied in knots."
        "I sincerely doubt that. How do you like my cookies?"
        "They're delicious. But these aren't almonds, ma'am."
        "Exactly. They're pecans. How's your vanilla Coke?"
        "I think it's a cherry Coke."
        "Yes, I used cherry syrup instead of vanilla. I've had vanilla Cokes with vanilla two days in a row. This seemed a nice change."
        "I haven't had a cherry Coke since I was a kid. I'd forgotten how good they taste."
        Smiling, indicating his glass with a nod of her head, she said, "And what about your vanilla Coke?"
        Having sat at Geneva Davis's kitchen table for fifteen minutes, Noah had adapted to the spirit of her conversation. He raised his glass as if in a toast. "Delicious. You said your niece phoned you?"
        "Seven this morning, yes, from Sacramento. I worried about her staying there overnight. A pretty girl isn't safe in a town where there's so many politicians. But she's on the road now, hoping to make Seattle by tonight."
        "Why didn't she fly to Idaho?"
        "She might not be able to grab Leilani right away. Might have to follow them somewhere else, maybe for days. She preferred her own car for that. Plus her budget's too tight for planes and rental cars."
        "Do you have her cell-phone number?"
        "We aren't people who have cell phones, dear. We're church-mouse poor."
        "I don't think what she's doing is advisable, Mrs. Davis."
        "Oh, good Lord, of course it's not advisable, dear. It's just what she had to do."
        "Preston Maddoc is a formidable opponent."
        "He's a vicious, sick sonofabitch, dear, which is exactly why we can't leave Leilani with him."
        "Even if your niece doesn't wind up in physical danger up there, even if she gets the girl and brings her back here, do you realize what trouble she's in?"
        Mrs. Davis nodded, sipped her drink, and said, "As I understand it, the governor will make her suck down a lot of lethal gas. And me, too, no doubt. He's not a very nice man, the governor. You'd think he would let us alone after already tripling our electricity bills."
        Mopping his brow with a paper napkin, Noah said, "Mrs. Davis-"
        "Please call me Geneva. That's a lovely Hawaiian shirt."
        "Geneva, even with the very best of motives, kidnapping is still kidnapping. A federal offense. The FBI will get involved."
        "We're thinking of hiding Leilani with all the parrots," Geneva confided. "They'll never find her."
        "What parrots?"
        "My sister-in-law, Clarissa, is a sweet tub of a woman with a goiter and sixty parrots. She lives out in Hemet. Who goes to Hemet? Nobody. Certainly not the FBI."
        "They'll go to Hemet," he solemnly assured her.
        "One of the parrots has a huge vocabulary of obscenities, but none of the others is foul-mouthed. The garbage-talking bird used to be owned by a policeman. Sad, isn't it? A