Looking for Laura by Judith Arnold Page B

play.”
    Sighing, she reached around Rosie’s taut little tummy and hauled her onto her own lap. “No playing DragonKeeper. Daddy’s friend needs to look at some more disks.”
    â€œBut that’s a great game,” Rosie insisted. “It really is, Daddy’s Friend.”
    â€œMy name isn’t Daddy’s Friend,” Todd growled at her. “It’s Todd. Mr. Sloane.”
    â€œTodd Mr. Sloane? That’s a silly name. You should just get rid of the mister part.” Rosie arranged herself more comfortably on Sally’s lap. Sally remembered when the little girl weighed only twenty pounds, or thirty. She weighed forty knee-crushing pounds now, but Sally still loved holding her on her lap.
    Rosie handed Todd another diskette. “Try this one. I bet it’s Dark Thunder.”
    He looked quizzically at her, then inserted the disk into the drive. Within three seconds, the title “Dark Thunder” filled the monitor. “How did you know that?” Todd asked, awe tempering his obvious irritation.
    â€œThese are Daddy’s games,” Rosie said. “He kept them in a little wooden box at work.”
    â€œHe did?” Sally asked.
    â€œHow did you know that?” Todd asked simultaneously.
    â€œHe tol’ me,” Rosie answered with forced patience, as if she believed she was addressing two morons. “He tol’ me he kept them hidden there. If you’re not gonna play, I’ll go back downstairs and draw some more. Butit’s really not fun without colors, Mommy. You didn’t bring any crayons with you, did you?”
    â€œI’m afraid not.” She let Rosie slide down her legs to the floor.
    Todd stared after her as she scampered out of the room, then turned back to Sally. “Maybe she knows about Laura.”
    â€œNo,” Sally said sharply. She’d already imagined that possibility, and it made bile rise in her throat. As venal as Paul had been, she refused to think he would have risked letting Rosie find out about Laura. “She knows about computer games because they’re designed for immature children. Like Paul,” she added spitefully.
    â€œI think we should ask her about Laura.”
    â€œAbsolutely not.” Sally shook her head. “I don’t want her being questioned about this disgusting situation.”
    â€œWhat makes you think it’s disgusting? Maybe Laura was a classy lady.”
    â€œSneaking around with another woman’s husband? Real classy.”
    He leaned back, and his chair went with him, hinging backward until he was nearly reclining. “Maybe I can sneak back into his office and look around some more,” he said.
    â€œWhy the hell should you care?” Sally asked, still fuming. “It’s my problem. It’s my pocketknife he gave her. It was my marriage that was a sham.”
    â€œMaybe my friendship with him was a sham, too,” Todd said, seeming to struggle with the words. “Paul was like a brother to me, you know? We told each other everything. And he never told me this.” He swiveled in the chair and straightened. The chair back straightenedwith him. “He had a good reason not to tell you about Laura. He had no reason not to tell me.”
    â€œPerhaps he didn’t trust you,” she said, knowing it was a mean thing to say but not caring. “Perhaps he thought it was none of your business.”
    â€œWell, you found those letters, and that made it my business.”
    â€œMine,” she asserted. “ My business. I found the letters.”
    â€œAnd I’ll figure this thing out.” He pondered for a minute, then frowned. “It bugs me. I think maybe there’s a mistake, or—or maybe it was some fantasy thing. Maybe Laura doesn’t even exist.”
    â€œThe letters exist. And my knife is gone.”
    â€œYou’re sure about that?”
    â€œI’ve searched everywhere it could