her. She never paid attention to things like that before, like who called who last or who called the most, keeping track.
She picked up her cellphone and pressed his code. The phone rang a couple times and then a breathless Curt answered it. “Hey, Meggly.”
“Hey, Curtly.”
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know, I was just wondering what you were doing on this blastedly cold day.”
“Man, it’s like below below out there. I’ve never seen the red go so low before. I think it was almost thirty below, seriously.”
“No way.”
“Really way.”
Meg smiled. She loved the way they talked to each other. She loved his various names for her. “Are you brave enough to venture out into this weather?”
“What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I’m just going stark raving trapped in my room. I thought maybe a flick.”
“Could be good. I might should check in with Danger Man.”
Meg hated that Curt had a special name for Andy and she especially hated what it was. So stupid, Danger Man. Like he was one of the Fantastic Four or something. And Andy called Curt, Mr. Frantic. Unfortunately, Meg was afraid Andy wanted her to be called Invisible Woman. She wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Sure,” she said, making her voice calm and light. “Yeah, maybe he’d like to go with us.”
Curt gave a laugh-growl. “Doubt it, but we had talked about getting together. Why don’t I call you later?”
Meg’s heart sank. Then she’d just be waiting by the phone again. “Oh, maybe we should forget it.”
“No, no. He’s not even home yet. Who knows if Andy’s even going to be around today He hinted at some hot date. Let’s say we’re going and if he calls, I’ll just tell him, later. I’ll be there.”
“Okay.” Meg felt relieved and yet uneasy. It still felt like Andy came first, that Andy had first dibs on her boyfriend. “Let’s try to get in to Red Wing for the early evening show. It’s a school night.”
Maybe she should become Invisible Woman and fight the Danger Man on his own territory. Maybe she needed to pull out the secret weapon that only women have. The one that she knew Curt had wanted her to use for a long time.
2:30 pm
Amy opened the door to the Walkers’ house with the key Sherri had given her.
She took off her wet boots and set them on the mat by the door and then walked into the living room, pulling on neoprene gloves. She didn’t have any blue booties, her socks would have to do. First, she’d just do a walk-through, see if anything jumped out at her.
Before she started her search, she stood in the middle of the main floor and looked around. What struck her about the interior of the house was how coordinated the color was—everything was red, white or blue—the couch was blue, the pillows were red, the large rug in the living room was all three colors. How very patriotic, she thought. Maybe that’s what you did ifyou had money and a summer home—you made it look like it was always the Fourth of July. All Amy’s furniture had been hand-me-downs so she had given no thought to what color anything was. If it was free, not too beat up, and it didn’t stink, she would take it.
Amy went up the curving stairs, which led to the master bedroom, the only room at the top of the house. The space was as big as her whole apartment, with a Jacuzzi-style bathtub set right in front of the windows.
The view was to die for. Amy walked up to the window and felt like she was going to fall the 400 feet down to the snow-covered lake. She wasn’t sure she could fall asleep in a room like this, although it would be fun to try.
The bed was dressed with only plain white sheets. She had come up here and pulled the down comforter off the bed to wrap Mr. Walker in. But even the sheets looked expensive, crisp and tightly woven.
Amy couldn’t help feeling like she shouldn’t be there, even though it was her job. She remembered when she had broken into a house when she was just a kid, not
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