Smoke and Mirrors

102

Winter sat watching hamp play a video game. To everyone’s great relief, Cyn had just sent a text message saying she would be home by ten P.M.

Seated on the floor with his legs crossed, the controller in his small hands, Hamp worked his fingers expertly, his eyes glued to the screen where muscular figures dressed in tight outfits traded punches and kicked at each other.

“Which one are you?” Winter asked.

“The white one,” Hamp replied. “The good wizard.”

Winter’s cell phone rang and he opened it, stood, and walked out of the room so he wouldn’t disturb Hamp.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah, what?” Sean’s voice said.

“Yeah, hello, my dear.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I was sitting in a room with a child that reminds me of my son.”

“How’s it coming?”

“We’re winding down. We have a meeting in a little while to transfer some land that has already cost three lives.”

“Three?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you later.”

“What about you-know-who?”

“He who must not be named?” Winter said, infusing the joke with a joviality he didn’t feel.

“Yes.”

“Nothing but tracks,” he said truthfully.

“You’re being careful?”

“Of course I am. How’s Trammel doing?”

“Hank’s really proud of Faith Ann’s deer. He is getting the pictures blown up for the wall. Is Alexa with you?”

“Not at the moment. She had to go handle some Bureau politics.”

“The FBI getting involved?”

“No. It’s still a local matter.”

“I wish you were here,” Sean said. “I wish you were here in our bed with me. I could use some of that special Massey attention.”

“I’ll bring you a few pounds of that when I get this done. Word of honor.”

“Should I worry?”

“No, you definitely should not.”

Winter heard Olivia crying in the background.

“I have to go. Sleeping Beauty is awake. Call me in the morning?”

“Of course I will.”

“Massey, you know what?”

“No, what?” he asked, smiling.

“When you get back, I’m going to show you what.”

“I love you, Sean,” he said. “Tell the gang I said I love them.”

“Even Hank?”

“Don’t tell him.”

Winter closed the phone after Sean broke the connection. He formed a picture in his mind of Hank and Millie Trammel and felt his eyes narrow into slits, as he pictured them run down and shattered in that rain-soaked New Orleans street.

Winter looked over his shoulder and what he saw stopped him cold. There through the partly opened kitchen door Winter was treated to a view of Brad and Leigh. They were embracing, her head against his chest. As he watched, Leigh leaned back, looked up, and instead of stepping back, as Winter expected, the two looked into each other’s eyes and put their lips together.

When their kiss finally ended, they tightened their embrace, and when Leigh opened her eyes, they met Winter’s and enlarged in the same sort of embarrassment that one might expect from a teenager caught singing to her reflection in a mirror. He wondered, as he turned away, if she’d seen the same expression on his face.