Orchids and Stone Read Online Free PDF

man, or the big silver car on Eastpark Avenue, when she couldn’t recall the name the old lady gave, Daphne felt the urge to point out how much like any other cop he appeared.
    “Nothing distinctive?” he asked.
    The one distinctive thing about this cop in their living room was he wore black leather gloves while holding his pen and notebook. Who wrote while wearing gloves?
    “The guy was wearing a black leather jacket,” she blurted.
    The police officer promised to be on the lookout and to do extra patrol around the park.
    “Nothing will happen,” Daphne said, her voice glum. “I haven’t helped anybody.”
    “Look, miss,” he said, tucking his notebook into a hip pocket, “I understand you saw something upsetting, but it probably wasn’t a crime. And you’ve done more than most people would have.”
    His tone offered encouragement, forgiveness. Daphne wanted none. She knew her size deceived. Strangers couldn’t see her muscles. The large shirt tucked into her small jeans fit. Were she decisive, a fighter, she could have bested the woman in black and maybe the man. But she hadn’t even been the one to call for the police officer who now thanked her and left.
    She wasn’t a fighter. She teared up at sappy commercials. At Grazie’s agedness and the mean-spirited barbs of Vic’s ex. The Hawai‘ian version of “ Somewhere Over the Rainbow” choked her up. She wanted to cry now over the coming ten-year anniversary of her dad’s death. Over her dead sister’s nonbirthday this Sunday. And Christmas was the worst, a season of sorrow ever since she was an eleven-year-old kid.
    The act of calling the police and reporting the suspicious incident evaporated into a feeling of having done nothing. Daphne pulled a scrunchie ponytail holder out of her pocket, toying with the red elastic fabric. In another mood, she’d have unbuckled Vic’s belt, lowered his zipper, and slid her scrunchie onto him. He’d have laughed and played back. But tonight they sat at opposite ends of the green leather sofa, feet stretched toward each other, her hand on Vic’s knee, him rubbing her feet. When he clicked the TV on, a number of movie advertisements flashed by: thrillers, dramas, and comedies. Daphne jumped to her feet and headed for the kitchen. Vic clicked the TV off and followed her, looking baffled when he saw Daphne grab a coat and the dog’s leash.
    “Vic, you know how in movies, bad guys kidnap an ordinary person and make the family withdraw all their money?”
    “Like that old Michael Douglas movie we saw part of last year?”
    “That wasn’t Michael Douglas; it was Kurt Russell. You always confuse them. I don’t know how you do it.”
    He shrugged.
    “They don’t even look alike,” she said, wishing she’d persisted today when it might have mattered. “There was another movie like that. With that British guy.”
    “Hopkins?” Vic gave a mild smile. “He became American. But I think I did see the movie you’re talking about now. I remember a gratuitous butt shot of inconsequential characters. Young women. Nice butts.”
    “You’re a good man in many ways, but I’m finding you lacking tonight.”
    “Again?”
    “Yes. What if people did that to old ladies?”
    “What people?”
    “The people who do it to ordinary families.”
    “Do what to them, Daph?”
    She bounced on her toes, agitation growing with her theory. “Like that couple on the road trip in the movie. They had car trouble and she gets kidnapped. The bad guys make the husband liquidate all the assets he can in one day in order to get her back.”
    Vic shook his head, blank-eyed.
    She pressed on. “Why wouldn’t bad people do that to old people? Just . . . overbear them, make them sign everything over super fast?”
    “Bad people who kidnap an average Joe and tell the Joe’s family to hand over everything they can right away?”
    “Yes,” she said, pleased he’d come around.
    “I suppose they could, but you know, those are just