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The garden door opened. Blanche waddled in first, followed by Robin, smiling and looking energized.
“Babe.” She kissed my cheek. “Big Guy.” Ditto.
Blanche’s nose was working overtime. She scooted next to Milo and rooted for crumbs. No immediate success, so she looked up at him with big, soft, imploring eyes. He dropped a noodle, long past trying to conceal their relationship.
Robin laughed. “What some people won’t do for approval.”
“Me or her?”
“Both.” Her eyes drifted to the murder book. “Am I interrupting a work session?”
Milo said, “Unplanned. I dropped by, he fed me, we’re tossing a whole lot of nothing back and forth. Excellent pasta, by the way.”
She smiled and bent closer. “These are their names.”
Milo looked surprised.
She said, “He’s told me the basics, not that. Gio and Meagin. Makes them seem more like people.”
Talking to Robin about patients I treat has never been an issue. I don’t do it. Ever. Crime cases are different and early on that caused tension between us. My wanting to shield her from ugliness, knowing how sensitive she is. She feeling infantilized and sidelined. We’ve worked it out. I tell her as much as she wants to know.
Her eyes drifted back to the name tag. “Meagin. Never seen it spelled like that.”
I said, “She reinvented herself totally, why not be creative.”
“Guess so.” She left without comment.
Milo and I looked at each other.
Seconds later, she returned with a sheet of paper and a pencil. “Do you mind?”
Milo said, “Mind what?”
“Indulging me, I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Sitting down between us, she wrote in her firm artisan’s hand:
M E A G I N
Studied the letters, squinted, wrote:
N I G
M E A
Several additional moments of contemplation were accompanied by rapid pencil twirls and an eraser tap of her lower lip.
Then:
E N I G M A
CHAPTER
37
Milo and I stared at the paper.
He shook his head.
