THREE TIMES A LADY Read Online Free Page A

over the past year and a half she’d lost just about everybody in her life who’d ever mattered to her.  So no matter how hard she scrubbed or what new soap she tried, Dana knew that her hands would never come clean.  Not really.  Not in any meaningful sense, at least.  Not in a million fucking years.  And the real kicker about the whole thing was that her work was something for which the FBI routinely presented her awards.  Life was funny like that sometimes, though, wasn’t it?
    Sure as hell was.  Goddamn shame there was no humour in it most of the time.
    ‘Are you crying?’
    Dana gave a sudden start and looked up to see a tiny face peeking out over the seatback in front of her.  Tousled brown hair rife with cowlicks sat atop unlined features.  Big blue eyes glistened with doe-like innocence.  Thin lips produced R s that sounded like W s – turning the little boy’s unexpected question into Aw you cwying?   Suddenly, Dana became painfully aware of the fact that a single tear had somehow managed to escape her left eye and slip down her cheek.
    Dana straightened in her seat and wiped quickly at her face with the back of her right hand, feeling stupider than she had in years.  ‘No, no,’ she said.  ‘I’ve just got allergies, that’s all.’  Nothing quite like lying to a four-year-old to cap off yet another red-letter day.
    Another face peeked out over the seatback next to the little boy’s a moment later.  Heavily made-up features couldn’t hide the lines of exhaustion carved deep around the eyes – eyes that appeared practically identical to the bright blue eyes into which Dana had just been looking.  ‘Bradley Thomas Taylor,’ the woman scolded, ‘leave this poor lady alone.  If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times before, you don’t have to talk to everybody you see.’ 
    The woman Dana assumed to be Bradley’s mother cut her gaze back to Dana and rolled her tired eyes.  ‘Sorry about that.  This kid, I swear.  He’s got no off-switch.  Not one I can find, at least.’
    Dana smiled at the woman and hoped against hope that the allergy lie had actually worked.  Because getting caught crying by a child was one thing, but getting caught by a fellow adult was a completely different matter altogether.  ‘Oh, it’s no bother,’ Dana said, cringing mentally at what her mascara must look like right now.  No doubt both Rocky Raccoon and Tammy Faye Baker would’ve been proud – and justifiably so.  ‘He’s just being friendly, that’s all.  I don’t mind one little bit.  Honest.’
    The woman laughed.  ‘Oh, is that what you call it?  Being friendly?  Last week he asked some heavyset woman in the Wal-Mart parking lot why she’d left her house wearing her butt on the front of her body.’
    Dana burst out laughing before she could stop herself – the first genuine laugh she’d enjoyed in weeks.  Thankfully, some of the mental tension frying her brain escaped right along with it.  The relief felt exquisite .  ‘Kids say the darndest things, right?’
    The woman pursed her thin lips, crinkling up the pale skin around her mouth.  ‘You can say that again.  And his enunciation isn’t the best, either.  After we got into the Wal-Mart he was playing with his Buzz Lightyear doll in the front of the shopping cart and hollering, “White Power!  White Power!” for all the world to hear.’
    Dana scrunched up her face.  To say the least, casual racism wasn’t her first choice of conversation topic with a stranger on a plane.  Or with anybody else, for that matter.
    The woman read the unspoken disapproval in Dana’s eyes at once.  Shaking her head, she waved her left hand breezily in the air, showcasing the four-karat boulder weighing down her ring finger.  ‘Instead of “Light Power!”, I mean.  His L s sound like W s.  Anyway, I just about died of embarrassment.’ 
    Dana lifted the corners of her mouth into the semblance of a smile, happy