Read Online A Playdate With Death by Ayelet Waldman - Free Book Online

scoop the foam, but it melted my cookie!”
    I tried to comfort him, but finally just got him another cookie. His face broke into a grin to rival that of the Cheshire Cat. It had been an elaborate ploy to weasel another madeleine out of me.
    “Okay, cookie boy, let’s go.”
    We wandered back down the street toward the mall and our car. As we got closer to the other Starbucks, I kept thinking of the supervisor with the bad skin. I was sure that when I’d first said the name Louise, she’d raised her head inrecognition. I mentally kicked myself in the pants for being so dense. A pseudonym. It was entirely possible that the name Louise was merely an alias. Given the fact that some of the “suggestions” on the web site seemed a bit on the gray side of legality, it was reasonable that “Louise” might not want to be directly associated with it. She would want to avoid liability, not to mention the wrath of parents whose identities she’d given away over their objections.
    Once more I hauled Isaac back across the street. I walked into the store and up to the front of the counter, without waiting in line.
    “Hey! There’s a line here, you know,” a voice snarled at me. I ignored the muscle-bound man in the shiny suit who’d yelled at me and caught the dark-haired woman’s eye.
    “Hi,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you.”
    She flushed and shook her head. “Sorry, we’re busy.”
    “I’ll wait,” I said and leaned against the counter. Isaac started kicking the glass pastry case. Helpful child.
    She glared at me and then, finally, shrugged her shoulders and motioned for another young employee to step into her spot at the register. She ducked out from behind the counter and led me to a table in the far corner of the café.
    I pulled a few board books out of the basket of the stroller and settled Isaac on a bench not too far from where the woman had sat down. Between the books and the sugar packets on the table, he was set for a few minutes at least.
    “Hi, Candace,” I said, reading the name tag pinned to her chest.
    She didn’t answer.
    “I think we have a friend in common.”
    “Yeah? Who?” She sounded like she didn’t think it was very likely.
    “Bobby Katz.”
    Her face flushed again, and she looked down at her fingernails. They were bitten red and raw.
    “You know Bobby?” she murmured, the harshness gone from her voice.
    I realized at that moment that she hadn’t heard. I dreaded being the one to tell her. I reached out my hand and grasped hers.
    “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this,” I began.
    She jerked her hand out of mine. “What?” Her voice was a hollow croak.
    “Bobby died ten days ago. I’m so sorry.”
    Her skin seemed to gray before my eyes. The acne and scars stood out crimson against the ashen pallor. “What? How?”
    I took a breath before launching into the ugly details. I also lowered my voice so that Isaac wouldn’t hear. “It’s not real clear. What we know for now is that he was found dead in his car along the PCH, just south of Santa Monica Canyon. He was holding a gun, and it looks like it was probably a suicide.”
    “No!” The people standing in line for coffee looked our way at the explosive sound of her voice.
    Isaac whined softly, “Mama?”
    “It’s okay, honey,” I said. I walked over and gave him a hug. He was making neat stacks of sugar, Equal and Sweet’NLow, alternating the white, blue, and pink packets. “You keep playing, okay?”
    He nodded, and I went back to Candace. Her face was buried in her hands, and she was worrying the pimples on her forehead with her fingers.
    “I couldn’t figure out why he hasn’t been answering my E-mail. I’ve been writing like ten times a day for over a week,” she said.
    I realized then that I’d been so busy reviewing his archives that I hadn’t thought of checking Bobby’s E-mail account for
new
messages that had come in since his death. I made a mental note to log on from his laptop once I got