LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Two

      “I don’t like having you around that boy,” Canton told his daughter when they were back in their beach house. “His mother is a flake.”

      Karie had to bite her tongue to keep from blurting out the truth. Obviously the Curtis duo didn’t want it known that they were little brother and big sister, not son and mother. Karie would keep her new friend’s secret, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

      Her eyes went to the new hardcover murder mystery on the coffee table. There was a neat brown leather bookmark holding Canton’s place in it. On the cover in huge red block letters were the title, “CATACOMB,” and the author’s name—Diane Woody.

      There was a photo in the back of the book, on the slick jacket, but it was of a woman with long hair and dark glasses wearing a hat with a big brim. It didn’t even look like their neighbor. But it was. Karie knew because Kurt had told her, with some pride, who his sister was. She was thrilled to know, even secondhand, a big-time mystery writer like Diane Woody. Her father was one of the biggest fans of the bestselling mystery author, but he wouldn’t recognize her from that book jacket. Maybe it was a good thing. Apparently she didn’t want to be recognized.

      “Kurt’s nice,” she told her father. “He’s twelve. He likes people. He’s honest and kind. And Janine’s nice, too.”

      His eyebrows lifted as he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Janine?” he murmured, involuntarily liking the sound of the name on his lips.

      “His…mother.”

      “You learned all that about him in one day?”

      She shrugged. “Actions speak louder than words, isn’t that what you always say?”

      His face softened, just a little. He loved his daughter. “Just don’t go wandering off with him again, okay?”

      “Okay.”

      “And don’t go to his home,” he added through his teeth. “Because even if he can’t help what he’s got for a mother, I don’t want you associating with her. Is that clear?”

      “Oh, yes, sir!”

      “Good. Get dressed. We don’t have much time.”

      In the days that followed, Kurt and Karie were inseparable. Karie, as usual, agreed with whatever her father told her to do and then did what she pleased. He was so busy trying to regroup that he usually forgot his orders five minutes after he gave them, anyway.

      So Karie and Kurt concocted their “sea serpent,” piece by painstaking piece, concealing it under the Rourke beach house for safety. Meanwhile, they watched World War III develop between their respective relatives.

      The first salvo came suddenly and without warning. Kurt had gone out to play baseball with Karie. This was something new for him. His parents were studious and bookwormish, not athletic. And even though Janine was more than willing to share the occasional game of ball toss, she wasn’t a baseball fanatic. Kurt had grown to his present age without much tutoring in sports, except what he played at the private school where his parents sent him. And that was precious little, because the owners were too wary of lawsuits to let the children do much rough-and-tumble stuff.

      Karie had no hang-ups at all about playing tackle football on the beach or smacking a hardball with her regulation bat. She gave the bat to Kurt and told him to do his best. Unfortunately, he did, on the very first try.

      Canton Rourke came storming up onto the porch of the beach house and right onto the open patio without a knock. Janine, lost in the fifth chapter of her new book, was so foggy that she saw him without really seeing him. She was in the middle of a chase scene, locked into character and time and place, totally mindless and floating in the computer screen. She stared at him blankly.

      He looked furious. The blue eyes under that jutting brow were blazing from his lean face. He had a hardball in one hand. He stuck it under her nose.

      “It’s a baseball,” she said helpfully.

      “I know what the damned thing is,” he said in a tone that would have affected her if she hadn’t been deep in concentration. “I just picked it up off my living-room floor. It went through the bay window.”

      “You shouldn’t let the kids play baseball in the house,” she instructed.

      “They weren’t playing in the damned house! Your son slammed it through the window!”

      Her eyebrows rose. Things were beginning to focus in the real world. Her mind lost the last thread of connection with her plot. Before she lost her bearings too far, she saved the file before she swung her chair back to face her angry neighbor.

      “Nonsense,” she said. “Kurt doesn’t have a baseball. Come to think of it, I don’t think he knows how to use a bat, either.”

      He threw the ball up and caught it, deliberately.

      “All right, what do you want me to do about it?” she asked wearily.

      “I want you to teach him not to hit

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