The Sixth Idea Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.”
    â€œDeal. Is the offer retroactive?”
    â€œNo. You were an accessory to the crime because you were stupid enough to let me talk you into it.” He sagged onto a wooden bench and started stripping off his snow pants, wincing in pain wheneverhe moved his shoulder the wrong way. “God, this hurts. The only thing that’s going to save this day is the lasagna Angela has in the oven. Hey, you wanna come over for dinner?”
    â€œAre you kidding, I always want to come over for dinner, but Grace and I have plans tonight. Thanks for the invite, though.”

SIX

    M id-December, and Magozzi was sitting outside in a light jacket, looking at Grace MacBride’s naked magnolia tree. Minnesotans were notoriously foolhardy when it came to maximizing their time outdoors, and although Grace wasn’t a native, she’d learned to adapt to the weather. This fall she’d put up a partially enclosed patio area at the back of the house, with insulated windows and a radiant heating system beneath the stone floor. The open front of the patio was flanked with big propane heaters that kept the space surprisingly toasty.
    A gentle snow continued to filter down from the sky where a half-moon was rising. It was the first snow of the season, and although the temperatures had been low enough to freeze a broomball rink, there hadn’t been any bone chillers yet. When was the last time that happened in Minnesota?
    Grace had put Christmas lights on the magnolia. Not that shethought of them as Christmas lights, of course; just decorative twinkle lights that had forgotten their original intent.
    Magozzi was born and raised a Catholic, and he’d always been a little disturbed by the pervasive array of downtown trees adorned with twinkle lights all year round. The decorative fad had tried to creep into the Minnesota landscape, and although restaurants and clubs jumped on the bandwagon, the state as a whole had been unable to fully embrace this particular trend. In the Midwest mind-set, Magozzi thought, Christmas lights meant something special, something rare you waited for all year. If you had them all the time, they lost their magic.
    Just like fireworks. Used to be you waited all year for the Fourth of July. Now they blasted them off at concerts, store openings, and amusement parks almost every night so you could watch them from the Ferris wheel. No one noticed anymore. They’d become too common to be special, and Magozzi missed that.
    â€œI’m getting really old.” Magozzi talked at the magnolia tree rather than at his male companion one Adirondack chair over. Males didn’t look at each other when they talked in this part of the country, and that unspoken rule crossed species lines. Tonight Magozzi’s companion was Charlie, Grace’s dog, who woofed politely at Magozzi’s words, but didn’t look at him either. He knew the rules.
    He heard the back door close, then Grace’s footsteps, then smelled something delicious wafting out of the kitchen and into the night air. These were the familiar sounds and smells he associated with most of their time together over the past two years—the back door closing, Grace’s boots on the three wooden steps down to the yard, Charlie’s chewed-off tail thumping against the back of his very ownAdirondack chair as his mistress approached. And, of course, the aroma of spectacular food always simmering on Grace’s stove. They were warm, happy memories, but for some reason they seemed to be receding into what had been, instead of punctuating what was. Even here, in the place that had always felt like home because Grace was in it, things were a little off-kilter.
    For instance, occasionally, like tonight, Grace wore some sort of silky, billowing slacks that moved like water around her legs and drove Magozzi nuts. But tomorrow she might appear in her old signature outfit of black jeans and T-shirts and tall, stiff riding boots.