Treasure Box

Bolt closed the door behind him as he left. Quentin undressed, and as he crawled onto the creaking, sagging fold-out bed with the paper-thin mattress he knew it would be the worst night of his life. He was asleep in three minutes.

In the morning, Quentin pulled on his clothes and staggered into the kitchen, where Leda was making pancakes and slapping them down on the kids' plates. "Don't you want to use the bathroom before you eat?" she asked.

"If the pancakes are ready now," he said, "I'm not going off to the bathroom and letting these guys eat them all."

The kids laughed and Leda introduced them and they ate breakfast together. Not until they had charged off to school did he realize that he hadn't seen Bolt this morning. Why hadn't he noticed? It was incredible that he hadn't noticed.

Roz, what are you doing?

"Where's Mike?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"Oh, he had some errands he had to run. He told me to tell you that's the burden of the working man. Also I'm supposed to give you this." She handed him a small spray can. Nothing was written on it by the manufacturer, but a label saying "MixPolDep" had been affixed to it. "It's Mace. The real thing, not pepper spray. Tear gas. He says don't use it outdoors because it's bound to blow right back in your own face, and if you use it indoors make sure your hand is no more than a foot from your target's face."

"He really thinks I'm a klutz, doesn't he?"

"I don't know about that," said Leda, "but he gives the same instructions to new cops when they start working for him."

"I can live with that," said Quentin. "Thanks for the breakfast. Best meal I've had in a week."

Which was true. What he had thought he was eating in the Laurent mansion was better, but it wasn't, strictly speaking, a meal.

"Should I wait for him to get back?" Quentin asked.

"He says do what you need to. If you aren't waiting for him at the department, he'll drive on out to the house. Don't start without him, he says."

"Fair enough," said Quentin.

Then dread stabbed through him and he thought, I wasn't going to let Bolt out of my sight. I've got to go looking for him. He's already got at least an hour's head start on me. Got to call Sally and warn her that Bolt is on the loose.

But he didn't call her. He went to the bathroom and showered and shaved and got dressed in the last of his clean clothes. Maybe it would be the last time he'd ever need clean clothes anyway.

For a moment, as he left the house, he remembered vaguely that he had some kind of errand to run. Something that had seemed very urgent when he thought of it back in the kitchen, right after breakfast, but what was it? Couldn't remember. Well, if it was that urgent it would come back to him.

He drove to the police department. The receptionist said, "Chief Bolt was here a minute ago. He stepped out for a minute. He says for you to wait."

Only then did he remember his urgent errand, and in that moment relief swept over him. Bolt had just stepped out. Everything was going to be fine.

He opened the door and found Sally Sa

She jumped to her feet. "I can't believe it," she said. "Mrs. Tyler said I'd find you here. I thought she meant that Chief Bolt would tell me how to reach you, but no, here you are!"

"It's fate," said Quentin. "You drove all the way down here? You must have left at five in the morning."

"I left at eight. The roads are clear and it's later than you think."

"Thanks for not holding a grudge," he said.

"No, I was terrible. Bolt just gets under my skin. Maybe he fools you with a nice-guy act, but I swear he's evil."

Quentin shook his head. "When he's himself, he's a good guy. He loves his wife and kids."

"Well, I guess I've only seen him when he wasn't himself," said Sa

"I hope not," said Quentin. "I'm trying to work up the courage to do some really stupid and dangerous stuff today."

"If you know it's stupid..." But she didn't finish the sentence. They both knew that sometimes stupid, dangerous stuff had to be done.

"What brought you down here?" asked Quentin.

"I'm on Mrs. Tyler's errand," she said. "Somehow she knew you'd be here."

"Amazing woman. I guess this means she's talking to you again."

"She's so alert since you visited. Even more than when she first came to the rest home. She assures me that you didn't cure her, but Quentin, I—can I call you Quentin again? Still?"

He had a sudden impulse to say, Only if I can call you Mrs. Fears. But he didn't say it. He knew at once that this sudden desperate desire he felt for Sally Sa

She misunderstood his hesitation. "So you're still angry?"

"No, I'm not angry at all. I don't know what I'm feeling. Please call me Quentin."

She rested her hand on his for a moment, to cement their reconciliation.

Then she took a large manila envelope out of her purse. It had been folded in quarters to fit. She unfolded it, opened it, and pulled out a Ziploc bag filled with gray hair.

"She sent me her hair?" Quentin asked.

"I didn't say she was sane, Quentin, I just said she was alert. I can't explain it to you—she got up, found the scissors, and hacked her hair off before I even got there this morning. She looks dreadful but she said you'd know what it was for. And if you don't, there's a note."

"What does it say?"

"She didn't tell me I could read it."

He thought of the grande dame, complaining when he didn't seal the note he was leaving with her, and he smiled.

"You think I read it anyway?"

"I smiled because I knew you didn't," said Quentin.

She rolled her eyes. "That was mean," she said.

"Mean?"

"Of course I read it. One of my residents cuts off all her hair, gives it to me in a plastic bag, and tells me to take it to a millionaire in a town where he doesn't live so how do I know he's even there, and you think I didn't read the note?"

By now Quentin had it open and was reading it.

Dear Quentin,

If this is with you, then I am with you. Wear it over your heart. It isn't much, but it's all I can do for you now. Don't let it touch your skin. If it touches your skin, it won't be able to resist taking you, even if it wants her more. It's in your hands. God be with you.

Yours sincerely, A

"You read this?" asked Quentin.

"Does it make any sense to you?"

It hadn't at first. Until he realized that when she said not to let it touch his skin, she didn't mean her hair, she meant the beast. Or did she?

"She's crazy, isn't she?" asked Sally. "I love her, but the old lady's gone bananas, hasn't she?"

"Is that a clinical term?" asked Quentin.

"It's a serious question. I knew she was mentally gone as soon as I read it. But I couldn't let it go. I knew I had to come down here and show it to you."

"She's not crazy, and you know it," said Quentin.

Sally hesitated a moment, then nodded. "I know. But I want to know what this is for."

Quentin opened his shirt, then took it off. "Bolt must have some duct tape in here somewhere. He's too macho to have nothing but this wimpy office tape."

Sally joined him in opening drawers and file cabinets. "So you aren't going to explain anything?"

"Sally, all I'll do by explaining is make you think I'm even crazier than Mrs. Tyler."

"Here it is. This file drawer is like a tool cabinet."

"Help me tape this bag over my chest, would you? And don't bother with the cheap joke about putting hair on my chest. I know how stupid this looks."