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

After Zandra hears the man from the van re-enter the house, she expects to hear one of two things.

Either there will be silence—bad because it means Pixie isn't alive anymore—or there will be the remaining stages of a murder in progress, which is only slightly less bad.

Zandra hears the latter.

He's stabbing her, right? Her moans come in spurts, almost like he's thrusting into her with a knife.

After a few seconds, she changes her mind.

Well, he's certainly thrusting into her. Are they really fucking in the kitchen?

The clattering of pans and the slamming of cupboards confirms as much. Zandra slips the lawnmower knife out of its sheath. It's in rough shape, as it always is, but there's a sliver of polish on the flat of the blade. It's just enough that Zandra might be able to use the knife as a mirror. She slowly raises the blade above her head at an angle.

Were there a proper mirror finish on the knife, this trick might've worked. However, there's nothing proper about the lawnmower knife.

I can't see shit. Let's just assume that's them fucking in the kitchen.

Zandra lowers the knife and sheaths it up her sleeve.

Maybe I'll get lucky, too. Maybe Pixie will say the man from the van's name. That'd help. Chad and Bexley might've gotten a look at him, too, when he came out to yell at them.

The noises grow more intense. Although she can't see the sex, she can still draw some conclusions from it.

Both of them are completely engaged with one another. Lots of verbal feedback. "Put your X here." "Move Y like last time." "Use the Z." "Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh fuck." Etcetera.

Zandra swallows a cough.

Why would the man from the van go straight to Pixie's house after our meeting for grenade-grade sex? One last go before everything turns to shit? No. Men—straight men—generally need sex to feel loved. Women in that equation generally need to feel loved to have sex. He knows she cheated, but she doesn't know he knows. Not yet anyway.

A bird chirps in the woods. It startles Zandra, but not enough for the otherwise occupied occupants of the house to notice.

Is he trying to fuck the pregnancy out of her? It wouldn't be the first time some idiot-dicked jackass held a warped idea about how pregnancies work.

The window above Zandra's head shakes as the two lovers apparently switch positions in the kitchen.

No, that's not it. He's too smart for that. That they're having sex—especially in this way—tells me that he didn't tell her that he knows. It also means she didn't tell him. If either of those two things happen, there's no way I'm going to be able to ID this other man Pixie is cheating with. The man from the van can only control one of those scenarios, so rather than talking to each other and risking a slip that would smoke out the other man, the man from the van goes straight for sex. It reinforces to Pixie that all is well, as much as it possibly could be.

And that buys me time. Not much time, but enough time.

Maybe this man in the van isn't so bad. It's a nice change of pace to not work with a complete moron for once.

The sex continues for several more minutes. Zandra tries hard to be repulsed, but she can't quite muster her usual acidity. However brief and two-faced this round of lovemaking is, there's a normalcy to it. Take away everything else, and it's two people in a relationship engaging in what people in relationships do. Typically, these details are related to Zandra second hand—at least in the last 25 or so years. Clients came into Sneak Peek with all manner of romantic issues. Thankfully, they did not reenact these issues in Sneak Peek, so Zandra only heard about them.

This meant the only trips into the territory of love and relationships were a tour of the worst relationships in Stevens Point. Dating was out of the question for Zandra after David died.

Murdered. He was murdered.

Dating was out of the question after David's murder.

Correct. As long as Gene was alive, there was no point in complicating an already complicated situation, although I'm sure I wouldn't be the most fucked up person on those dating services.

Granted she's squatting down below a window, but the hard fuck in the kitchen is the first sexual encounter Zandra's been present for in a long, long time. It should feel alien, but the familiarity comes right back. And with the familiarity comes a spike of excitement that's too soon washed away by melancholy.

I want this.

Not the fuck-in-the-kitchen part. The sharing. The vulnerability. The just plain living. There's still time. I need to take care of a few things first, but there's still time. Almost there.

The crescendo of orgasm in the kitchen rises and falls and ends with the beeping of a microwave. An aroma of grease and chicken sneaks out the window.

I knew it.

Zandra switches her squat up for a sit. It's difficult to maintain any position beneath the window for very long with her bad ankle.

"You didn't, uh...you didn't...," Zandra hears Pixie say.

"No, I didn't feel like wearing one this time," the man from the van says between bites of chicken nugget.

"Oh. It's just that you were always so careful before," Pixie says.

"Yeah, but you're still taking the pills, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then it's not a big deal. Just didn't feel like it this time. That's it."

Pixie says something, but the voices muffle in Zandra's ears.

They must've left the kitchen. I've got what I needed. He's playing her, giving her all the reasons in the world to believe he doesn't know the pregnancy isn't from him. Now she can concentrate on when to break the news instead of how to escape.

Zandra slinks away from the window and hobbles in a hunch toward the woods.

Let's not pretend this means the man from the van is letting Pixie off the hook. He's got her right where he wants her. Now he gets to decide what to do with her knowing that she's not going anywhere. Fucking prick.

Zandra follows the path through the woods, stopping to catch a glimpse of the driveway. The van and the driver are still there, but Ray's car is missing. It doesn't stay missing for long, though. Zandra spots the parked by the dead-end sign.

"That guy was an asshole," Bexley says after Zandra collapses into the backseat.

"Did you get a good look at him?" Zandra says. She recognizes Bexley's description as the driver of the van. "No, I mean the other guy, the one who yelled at you two."

Chad passes a lighter to Zandra. "Nah. He just shouted from inside the house. Couldn't see nothing of him."

Damn.

Zandra wipes her forehead with her sleeve. A few pine needles fall to the car floor.

"You OK, Zandra?" Bexley says as she drives the car away from the direction of the cul-de-sac house.

"I'm fine," Zandra says. "What exactly did the driver say to you?"

Chad groans. "Everything you could call someone. Real nasty dude."

"All we were trying to do is help fix a tire," Bexley says, shaking her head. "And he was all like, 'You come here again, I'll fucking kill you, bitch.' Who says that?"

I know exactly what kind of person says that.

Zandra lights a cigarette.

"Where are we going? Back to the house?" Bexley says.

Zandra looks out the window and blows smoke at the glass.

"Zandra?" Bexley says.

"Yes. Back to the house," Zandra says.

Raindrops hit the windshield by the time the car comes to a stop outside "grandma's house." A panhandler uses a rag to wipe the windshield and asks for spare change.

"For what?" Chad says and digs into his pockets.

"I need new drapes for my windows," the panhandler says from the sidewalk and points at the house.

Chad laughs and stuffs a few bills into the panhandler's palm anyway. Zandra tries to shuffle past them, but the panhandler doesn't let her off that easy.

"Hey, can I...," the panhandler starts.

"Fuck off," Zandra says and pushes on toward the house. Bexley follows, and Chad sticks behind to discuss something with the panhandler.

Inside the house, Zandra smokes in silence on the couch while Bexley heads upstairs to "check for raccoons." Chad shows up a few minutes later.

"Where's Bex?" Chad says to Zandra.

"Try looking. It's not a big house," Zandra says.

Chad frowns. "You feelin' OK, Zandra?"

"I'm fine. I said I was fine. I'm fine, OK?"

I mean that I'll be fine as soon as I get a chance to think. They don't understand the situation we're in now, but I do. There are two ways to go ahead with all this, and both are fucked.

On the one hand, if I reveal the father of Pixie's pregnancy, I get the gear to get the score out of the Wisconsin River. However, there's a virtual guarantee both the father and Pixie are dead.

On the other hand, if I don't reveal the father, I don't get the gear, and that sorry fuck stick Glenn scores the dope.

Of course, I don't even know who the father is yet. Maybe I shouldn't. Then I won't need to decide.

Zandra leans over to rub her ankle.

And I hate the way this fucking ankle hurts.

"You seem stressed. Maybe it's time to take a break," Chad says and digs in the pocket of his leather jacket. He pulls out a baggie. Zandra instantly knows what's inside. She licks her lips. Chad shouts over his shoulder, "Yo, Bex. Where are you? Come over here."

Bexley picks her way back down the stairs to the living room. "Whatcha got there?"

"Just a token of appreciation from our new friend out on the sidewalk," Chad says with a smile. He finds the pocket torch. "Get it? Token? Like toke? Come on, it's funny."

Zandra can't help but stare as Chad prepares the glass pipe. Bexley turns on some music.

"You're so uptight sometimes, Zandra. You gotta relax. It makes everything easier," Bexley says as she dances to the beat. "Come dance with me."

Zandra puffs on her cigarette. "I don't dance."

"It'll be fun."

"No."

Chad holds the pipe and the torch out to Zandra. "Come on, Zandra. Dance."

Bexley turns the music up until none of them can hear themselves think. Bexley mouths "dance" at Zandra. Chad wags the pipe like holding a bone out for a dog.

And so Zandra dances.