.././.\\.\//.///\.

The inside of the van reeks of "new car smell." Packs and packs of opened air fresheners rest at Zandra's feet. The rough man with a black hat and a skeleton bandana that sat next to her last time is gone. Only the driver and the man in the van are there to greet Zandra when she gets in near the gyro restaurant.

Dare I turn around this time?

"Don't turn around," the man in the van says from behind Zandra's seat in the van.

Well, fuck. That was weird.

"My associate has taken leave," the man in the van says in a grim tone.

Zandra kicks at the air fresheners with her good foot. "Does he sell cars now?"

"New cars don't need new-car-smell air fresheners."

Was that supposed to be witty? Who cares.

"I've got news," Zandra says as the van clears a corner.

The man in the van clears his throat. "What's his name?"

"Take a breath. You're getting ahead of yourself," Zandra says.

The van shakes. Two fresh tires absorb abuse from a pothole.

"You didn't come in here because you needed a place to do that, did you?" the man says.

To do what?

Oh.

That.

I'm all out.

"You must be thinking of someone else," Zandra says.

"Good."

Zandra kicks at the air fresheners again. Every time she does, a fresh puff of artificial "clean" floats into her nose.

"New car smell" isn't cleaner or soap or anything close to that. It's the release of volatile organic compounds from all the shit that goes into making a car. There's even a term for it: off-gassing.

In the United States, off-gassing is like a rite of passage, a status symbol that says, "look at my shiny, new thing." Only in this country could you get away with morphing off-gassing into a positive connotation. New-car-smell air fresheners reinforce the desirability for these noxious fumes. You can, quite literally, breathe in the bullshit.

In other countries, like China, "new car smell" is seen for what it is: air pollution. Negative connotation.

What's the difference? It's the same volatile organic compounds. It's the same lungs breathing them in. It's the same car companies trying to air their shit out on consumers.

The difference is perception. The truth—whether breathing this shit in is bad for your health to a point that offsets any perceived benefit of status satisfaction—barely matters. Just ask the wizards in the marketing department.

"Are you going to tell me why there are so many air fresheners on the floor?" Zandra says.

"I buy in bulk," the man in the van says.

Zandra smirks and repeats herself. "Why are there so many air fresheners on the floor?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because this is an old-fuck van," Zandra says. She coughs into her sleeve and cracks her neck. She can feel and hear the crunches.

"I thought you had news," the man says.

"I do."

"Then what does it matter if there are air fresheners on the floor?"

Zandra looks about the dark van, but she doesn't turn around. She says, "Because I don't see any air fresheners hanging in here."

"It's dark in here."

"It is, but I can still see by my feet," Zandra says. "There are two, 10-packs of air fresheners, and they stink even though the individually wrapped units inside aren't open. Just the two big packs are open. I count 20 individual air fresheners all spilled out from the big packs."

"And?"

Who buys that many air fresheners and just leaves them on the floor? There's a reason you bought so many.

"He's dead," the man says, referring to the rough man with the skeleton bandana.

Ah, so there's our reason.

"My condolences," Zandra says.

"No need. He overdosed and died. Quite fashionable in Stevens Point," the man says without a morsal of remorse.

"What's that have to do with air fresheners?" Zandra says.

"He died where you're sitting," the man says.

Zandra crosses her arms and fakes a flattered smile. "Did you get these air fresheners just for me?"

"I thought you'd appreciate it, but perhaps fresh pine scent is more to your liking."

"Quite," Zandra says and kicks a few fresheners beneath the seat in front of her. "Then you'll have to pardon me for being so drawn to these air fresheners. It's only natural for someone like me to pick up on death energy."

The van stops at what Zandra assumes is a red light. The driver stretches and cracks his knuckles against the steering wheel. Zandra coughs into her sleeve, and the van rolls forward.

"The news. Tell me," the man behind Zandra says.

"You're going to want to hear it. It's big. Really big. But I need a favor first," Zandra says.

"News first."

"Favor first."

"How could I possibly agree to any of this? I thought you were smarter than to bargain in this way. You're sitting in a dead man's seat," the man says.

I thought he overdosed. You didn't kill him, did you? I'll pretend to be shocked.

"Shut the fuck up," Zandra says.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Zandra says, sounding as far away from the soothing woo-woo charm of Sneak Peek as Stevens Point is from the moon. "You gave me a phony street address, no real background information about Pixie, and a death threat just now. I can't set my expectations from you any lower. I don't have the patience to pretend like I'm negotiating in good faith. You and I don't operate like that. Now shut the fuck up and listen."

The man behind Zandra is quiet for moment. Then he says, "What's the favor?"

That's better.

"I need a boat, a winch, and dive gear. You're going to get them for me," Zandra says, reciting the list of items Glenn said she needs.

"I didn't agree to that," the man says.

Zandra points to the sliding van door. "Then you can let me out here."

The driver checks the rearview mirror. Only Zandra's reflection prints on the glass. The van doesn't slow down.

"Listen, you spooky fucker," Zandra says. "I'm the one getting a gun in their face. I'm the one getting blindfolded and handcuffed by some freak in the woods. I'm the one playing therapist to the girlfriend you treat like a spare hole in the wall. The least you could do is put up some sort of commitment in all this. Maybe that's why Pixie cheated on you in the first place, you flaky shit."

Another long pause.

"When do you need these items by?" the man behind Zandra says.

I should only need tonight to wrap this up.

"Tomorrow morning. I want the boat in the river and ready to go with the gear inside. The car my associates are driving doesn't have a trailer hitch, so we can't use a boat launch," Zandra says.

"I'll figure something out."

"Good."

"So you'll be finished with my infidelity problem tonight? Or are you finished already?" the man says.

Bad news, fuck boy: this might only be the start of your "infidelity problem."

"Depends," Zandra says.

The man unloads an exhausted sigh. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I had fun with him. Time to let it out.

"Pixie is pregnant," Zandra says.

It takes a full 10 seconds for the man to say, "What? She told you she's pregnant?"

"She didn't have to. That's why you hired a psychic," Zandra says.

""Fuck. Fuck. I don't need this. We were so careful," the man says, distressed.

Sounds like only one of you was careful.

"There's more," Zandra says. She instinctively raises two horizontal fingers to her lips for a dramatic drag on a cigarette and then remembers she's not smoking.

"More?"

"It's not yours," Zandra says.

"It's...it's..."

"Yes. It's this other person she's seeing's," Zandra says like she's broken this news a million times before, mostly because she has broken this news a million times before.

The man's shock turns to anger. Zandra can almost hear his teeth grind. He growls, "You need to tell me who he is."

That I can't do. Not yet.

Zandra coughs into her sleeve and recalls how she arrived at this conclusion about Pixie.

None of the pieces really fit together until I got a nose full of Pixie's pee, as gross as that is to think about. Especially a mug full of pee with smoldering matchsticks inside. Fucking disgusting. It had to be done, though. I had a hunch that this needed to be checked out, and if it was a waste of time, at least I got the dramatic effect of working woo-woo with some wee-wee.

Pregnant pee in the early stages smells different from normal pee, not that I have any sort of baseline aroma of Pixie's urine to work from. The presence of a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin can make pregnant pee smell a bit like popcorn. I'd rather not revisit why I know this. Not today.

Some pregnant people will report their urine smells more urine-y, but that's not what this is. That's a result of their sense of smell getting better with the pregnancy, which is probably a survival trait.

Pixie's popcorn pee on its own isn't enough to declare a pregnancy, though. This needs to be weighed against other observations. That she grabbed a set of tongs before going into the bathroom to collect the sample suggests she's done this before, maybe with a legitimate pregnancy test.

It'd be easy to explain that away as an artifact of routine health care—doctors ask patients to pee in cups for lots of reasons—but she remembered to do this in a high-stress situation. Those little details go out the window when the brain is in survival mode. Pregnancy tests were top of mind enough that she grabbed the tongs, as well as a smaller mug for easier positioning. Very telling.

Almost as telling as Pixie's glowing skin, courtesy of progesterone, which produces oil on the skin. It's a little early for that hormone to make an appearance, since Pixie isn't showing, but it's not out of the question. Besides, I've seen this a thousand times before at Sneak Peek.

But what about the father? How do I know it's not the man in the van?

Simple: the pizza box Chad dug out of Pixie's garbage was empty. Not empty as in the pizza was inside the box and now it's not. Empty as in there never was a pizza in the box in the first place.

Why would that be? And why would Pixie bring an empty pizza box with her to the patio outside her house, as I saw her do from the woods? Perhaps there's something inside the pizza box she was interested in?

All the discretion demanded by the man in the van meant Pixie couldn't be too paranoid. She brought the pizza box outside and opened it on a lounger. To do what? Not to eat. To read. This is how this other man sends messages to Pixie: fake deliveries of fake pizzas. It's perfect cover. I almost admire the genius.

Does that mean the pizza delivery driver is the father? No. I've another theory about that, but it needs time to gestate.

Now, maybe fake pizza deliveries are how Pixie's paramour communicates given the circumstances. That could be, but getting pizza deliveries over and over again could raise suspicions. Her vegan diet is at odds with pizza deliveries, too. Stevens Point may offer vegetarian pizza options, but unless something changed, this is still Wisconsin. Cheese is a religion. Vegan "cheese" isn't going on pizzas outside of Madison. Therefore, pizza deliveries to the cul-de-sac house are rare, so the messages inside the boxes must also be rare. And if they're rare, they must be important.

Put all of this together, and it's still a little shaky. The man in the van could still be the father. That's why I broke the news to him in pieces. I wanted to hear his reaction to the pregnancy first. That was the final piece I needed.

Zandra wipes her mouth with her sleeve, and then coughs again. The air fresheners irritate her throat. The van is irritated by something, too. It shakes and drifts. The driver struggles with the steering wheel.

"You will bring him to me. Then you will get your boat," the man behind Zandra says.

"I'm working on it," Zandra says. "There's a lot of energy to sort through with Pixie."

"No bastard. No boat," the man says.

"I'm running out of time to get that haul up from the Curd Queen."

"And I'm running out of patience."

Zandra digs a cigarette between her lips and pulls out a lighter. "I think it's time for you to drop me off."

The driver stops the van next to the gyro restaurant. Zandra lets herself out. She sparks a cigarette once the van is out of sight.

Well, fuck. This just got a whole lot more complicated.