Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island by Sandy Frances Duncan, George Szanto

and listened
to it ring. “Hello, it’s me . . . Oh fine . . . Yeah, the usual place . . . 
Going over tomorrow . . . Haven’t checked on times yet . . . Yes I know, not all ferries go all the way . . . I’ll let you know when I get back here . . . Day after tomorrow . . . If you don’t mind, I prefer to call from Seattle . . . Of course I’m not superstitious, I just prefer it . . . Yep, I know the drill . . . Okay, we’ll talk then.” He broke the connection.
    He’d known the boss all his life; he enjoyed their collaborations. And he knew how to get done what had to be done. Raoul had finished tougher jobs than this. He knew how to keep a guy in line.

THREE
    NOEL LAY IN bed. Sleep wasn’t coming. Okay, try and figure tomorrow. First, meet the student Beck. Locate some of the guy’s friends, get other people’s sense of him. Peter said Beck had a girlfriend. Check out that restaurant where he works. Get some of this done before Kyra arrives. Find out his relationship to Trevor. Were they friends? Should have asked Peter.
    Part of him was looking forward to working with Kyra again, spending time with her. But another part felt unsure: how would the upcoming days be spent? They hadn’t seen each other since after the Quadra mugging. There’d been a spousal dispute on Mudge he had consulted her on, more a conciliation project than a mystery. Her input had been valuable, but she’d not come up to Nanaimo to participate. Then he’d listened to her working through a case in Everett, some forged documents he’d been able to help her on. And he had no part in her insurance company cases.
    So their talks had been about business, with no space for the personal. All further exchanges about her plans or hopes or intentions had stayed out of the conversations. But soon, together, it was bound to come up. The thing itself was simple enough, not so much as skin off the back of his hand. Since she’d developed a morbid fear of growing too old too quickly, she’d decided the time had come. She wanted his sperm. Not given to her as a lover, but donated nonetheless. Was she still as determined to have a child? She’d promised she’d consider other options. But she said she deeply doubted anyone could match her first choice—him.
    So many things wrong with it. First the pragmatic—if Kyra had a child, what would it do to Islands Investigations International? They had an excellent working relationship and a darn good success record. Why take a chance on ruining that with a baby always around? And even before a baby came, she’d be carrying it—a great extra burden on, for example, a stakeout, and a seven-month pregnant woman stalking any situation would be anything but invisible.
    But that wasn’t the worst. Supposing a baby did appear as the result of this crazy idea, then what? Kyra as a stay-at-home mom? Noel couldn’t see it. A live-in nanny? Too expensive. Join some single-mothers cooperative? Drive her crazy, bunch of little kids around her ankles. And Noel would not be taking any part in raising a kid; that was crystalline in its clarity.
    Which would make it even worse, knowing that somewhere he had a son or daughter carrying his genes. He couldn’t handle this as a notion, let alone as a physical being. Leave the genetics to his brother and sister-in-law. Two good kids. Oh, Noel got along with kids. Other people’s kids. The ones you could walk away from when the tears came, when the sleep didn’t, when their innards rebelled. No, he was not about to become a father, not in any way. The very suggestion prickled his forehead with sweat. He swiped it away. Move on quickly. Fall asleep . . . but sleep was far away.
    Think of something else. The plagiarism case, a good diversion.