* * * * *
Beth brushed at her hair. "I thought if you were sitting out here and I
showed up in the bedroom, you'd think I came in the back way. Or that
I was already in there and just hadn't heard you." She bit her thumb.
"Just another trick I wanted to try."
"What are you talking about?" He bent and scooped up the bead necklace.
"Go away. That's all."
"Well, why?" He twisted the string of beads around his knuckles.
"Somebody else?"
"Yes. Alex." She smiled.
"Alex? That fruiter who runs the Actors' Lab." The string broke and
beads splattered away from him. Three landed in the fire.
"Or maybe my Uncle Russ. Did you know we lived with him for three
years when I was a kid and I was always having odd fevers and things?
He had some kind of quack x-ray business."