The Fire by Katherine Neville Page B

gathered allthe pieces and pawns from the piano strings, and dumped them into the pillow sack along with the board. I left the piano lid propped open as it usually was kept. I zipped up the lumpy pillow and shoved it into the sideboard.
    I’d nearly forgotten the ‘missing’ Black Queen. Plucking her from the triangular rack of balls on the billiard table, I put the eight ball back in its proper place. The pyramid of colored balls reminded me of something, but at the moment I couldn’t think what. And perhaps it was my imagination, but the queen seemed slightly weightier than the other pieces, though the circle of felt on the base seemed solid enough. But just as I thought to scratch it off with my thumbnail, the phone started ringing. Recalling that my aunt Lily was about to descend, with chauffeur and yappy dog in tow, I shoved the queen in my pocket along with the bit of paper containing my mother’s ‘encryption,’ dashed to the desk, and caught the phone on the third ring.
    ‘You’ve been keeping secrets from me’ came the liquid voice of Nokomis Key, my best friend since our youth.
    Relief flooded through me. Though we hadn’t spoken in several years, Key was the only person I could think of who might actually figure out a way to solve the quandary I found myself in at this moment. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle Key’s feathers. She’d always been able to solve problems with that same ingenious and ironic detachment in a crisis that Br’er Rabbit possessed. Right now, I hoped she could pull this particular rabbit out of the hat – or in my case, the briar patch – one more time. That’s why I’d asked her to meet Lily and bring her here to the house.
    ‘Where are you?’ I asked Key. ‘Did you get my message?’
    ‘You never told me you had an auntie,’ Key said in reply. ‘And what a babe! I found her along the roadside, accompanied by a dog of unidentifiable genetic origin, surrounded by stacks of designer luggage, and plowed into a snowdriftin a quarter-million-dollar car that would do James Bond proud. Not to mention the younger “companion” who looks like he could pull down that much cash each week himself, just by sauntering along the Lido clad in a thong bathing suit.’
    ‘You’re referring to Lily’s chauffeur?’ I said, astonished.
    ‘Is that what they call them these days?’ Key laughed.
    ‘A gigolo? That doesn’t sound much like Lily to me,’ I said.
    Nor did it sound like any of a long procession of rigidly formal drivers that my aunt had always employed. Not to mention that the Lily Rad I’d known since my infancy was far too preoccupied with her international image as the Queen of Chess to waste her time, her energy, or her wads of cash on keeping a man. Though I admit, the rest of the Lily scenario – the car, the dog, and the luggage – all rang true.
    ‘Believe me,’ Key was saying with customary assurance. ‘This guy’s so steamy, he has smoke coming out of his nostrils. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.” And your auntie sure looks like she’s been “rode hard and put away wet.”’
    Key’s addiction to slogans and colloquialisms was exceeded only by her favorite topic: heavy metal, the kind you drive.
    ‘But that car in the snowdrift,’ she informed me, practically panting, ‘it’s a Vanquish – Aston Martin’s flagship limited edition.’ She began rattling off numbers, weights, gears, and valves until she caught herself and realized just whom she was talking to. Simplifying it for the mechanically impaired, she added: ‘That monster cruises at a hundred and ninety miles per hour! Enough horses to pull Ophelia from here to China!’
    That would be Ophelia Otter – Key’s favorite bush plane, and the only machine she trusted to get into those remote sites where she did her work. But knowing Key, if unfettered, she could go on talking horsepower for hours. I had to rein her in, and fast.
    ‘So where are they now, the motley crew and their