Fallout by Sara Paretsky

Author:Sara Paretsky [Paretsky, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

33

Picking Through the Bones

I came fully awake, heart pounding. Someone was in the room, bumping into the furniture. I rolled off the bed onto the floor, fumbled until I found my phone on the nightstand. I crawled to the outside door, stuck up a hand to undo the chain lock, and yanked it open, backing outside before switching on my phone flashlight.

My light discovered Peppy, whose head was stuck underneath the low-hanging drawers of the corner desk. She inched out and looked at me sheepishly.

“Dog, what on earth? It’s two-thirty in the morning.”

I got to my feet, my teeth chattering as my muscles relaxed: I was nearly naked, and it was cold outside. I locked the door again and turned on a lamp before investigating the space where Peppy had been scrabbling. I shone my flash under the space where the drawers ended. One of the chicken bones that I’d dropped earlier had landed there.

“You are a merciless hunter, aren’t you?” I said severely.

Peppy’s eyes were bright; she started licking my face, delighted that I was helping her. I pushed her aside, lying on my back so I could stick my arm all the way underneath.

That was when I saw a tiny metal circle underneath the desktop. It was about the size and shape of those silvery gadgets that come in sewing kits to help you thread a needle, but this one had an orange circle in the middle and a minute piece of wire where the threading arm would be. I started to reach my free hand up for it, then lay back down.

Colonel Baggetto had been sitting at this desk eating his pizza. No wonder he’d been happy to talk to me in my room instead of at a restaurant. Of course, a guy with his skills could have broken in anytime, planted any number of devices in the room, but the homeowner might have come in on him, wondering why a stranger was in her house. So much easier to do it while asking if I was a vegan.

Peppy gave a short, angry bark: Was I going to get that chicken bone or not? I pulled it out and got to my feet but annoyed her no end by taking it outside to the trash—this time with a jacket over my nightshirt.

“You deserve a special reward, my mighty huntress,” I said while we were still outside, out of mike range—I hoped. “Just not that bone.”

Back inside I gave her some peanut butter, then cleaned chicken grease and floor dust from my arms and went back to bed. The mike made me feel vulnerable, overexposed, but I wanted to leave it in place. Better Baggetto not know I’d discovered it.

To my surprise I slept soundly, despite the ear underneath the desk. I should ask Baggetto if I snored. None of my lovers has ever complained, but chivalry might have been trumping annoyance. In the morning I put my iPad on the desktop and tuned in to WFMT radio in Chicago, high volume, while I did a full workout.

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