Page 58 of It Takes a Thief

“This is amazeballs,” said Wolf. “Our building says users can capture Tyranitar here.”

“Okay,” said Tobiah, who had been listening attentively since the students had entered. “This is just too weird. Who the hell would suggest us as a PokéStop?”

Wolf and I looked at each other, stunned. I said it first.

“Someone with bite and STAB.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MADISON

“Did you ever read Dostoevsky?”

I had to admit that I hadn’t. But my husband had. He’d read a large chunk of the classics on his own before he’d been Special Ops in the Navy. “No.”

Ellis said, “Well, of course he’s got a bunch of people raving against God, just like we are tonight. The youngest brother, Alyosha, is a novice in a monastery. His brother Ivan, by describing news accounts of tortured children, gets Alyosha to admit he can’t condone the moral world he’s devoted his life to. Ivan says, ‘It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket.’”

“What do we do if we conclude that innocent torture is too high a price to pay?” For that day in the ER, we’d dealt with two children unable to breathe, hearts pounding out of their chests, contorted into the most impossible pretzels of anguish, all because they’d drank some of their father’s “Montana Gin.” This sky-blue concoction of hairspray and water was for people unable to afford alcohol.

Both children died.

I said, “Being unable to do anything in the face of another’s pain is the biggest suffering of all. I think being angry with the universe isn’t the sin it’s made out to be. I doubt God is so delicate, so devoid of empathy, that He’d get offended at our anger.”

“I think you’re right,” said Ellis, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin. Cloth napkin! In someone’s home! For we were having lunch at his house, prepared by him, just us two.

I know. After the kiss, I should’ve stayed far, far away from Ellis. But the kiss had only confused me. Ford was a heroic man, blazing in in a blast of glory to save me from a pervert—a hero who then abandoned me for his club for the two thousandth time. Ellis represented safety, security, all the things I craved. He loved children. One weekend, Bee had brought Fidelia and Niko to see me, instead of me going back to P&E. It had literally wrenched my heart to see the easy way he played with my kids, and Bee had cast me several knowing looks. Knowing of what, I don’t know, because there was nothing to know. But later she said, “That hot doctor sure likes children.” All I said was, “He has to. He’s a doctor.”

What Ellis didn’t know was that I was pregnant. I’d peed on a stick, and gotten Desiree to do the initial sonogram showing the baby at about six weeks. We’d detected a heartbeat which meant it was viable. All I could figure was, it’d happened that time Ford had come against my wet pussy. There had been no penetration but there didn’t need to be, in that environment. I was wet and horny, and the pussy is a wonderfully welcoming environment for wandering sperm, especially the first spurt, chock full of the little guys.

I hadn’t even told Penny, much less June or Bee. I’d been considering telling Galileo, but he wasn’t really a man of the world. He’d have no advice for me. I could either go back to Ford, a man whose appearance at the dinner table warranted a celebration it was so rare, or I could try my fate with Ellis, a man who actually cooked the dinner. As he had now. Grilled steak and fresh, not canned, green beans in a cheese sauce. Ford had read Brothers Karamazov, but he’d never sit around talking about it.

Ford would be the last person I’d tell about the baby. I know, I know. A secret baby. Oh brother. But for now, I wanted to leave my options open. If he knew I was pregnant, he’d just see it as another heir to his dynasty, and would never tolerate my choice to possibly terminate it. I was keeping that choice open.

Ellis reached across the table and covered my hand with his. He was a straight shooter, that was for sure. He didn’t mess around with head games. He told it like it was, for better or for worse. “Maddy. Don’t give up on God. I don’t want to see you without the solace of spiritual grace, without hopes or faith. I know to have your hopes ruined and your expectations unmet, the faith without its fruit, just compounds the agony and disappointment in your heart.”

“False hope is worse than none,” I agreed.

“Right. It’s better to know you’re alone in that boat in the ocean than to wait for a savior who never arrives. I’m here to tell you that at moments of doubt such as you’re having, if you can’t bring yourself to believe in a higher power, then have faith in yourself, Maddy. Weren’t you a good and reliable self once upon a time? When you had your kids, did you doubt what you were doing? You once knew what you were doing, and you may one day again.”

I had to agree. But I said, “Just not right now.”

He nodded, squeezing my hand. “Just not right now. But Maddy. I’m here to tell you. I see a vivacious, earnest, hard-working young woman”—it had been years since anyone had called me a “young woman”!—“who has a lot to offer her patients, her friends, and yes, maybe her lovers.” He assumed a more serious face. “You’re married. You probably love your husband.”

I shrugged. “I do.” It didn’t sound that convincing.

“But I know you’ve been having problems with him. I just want to let you know that I’m here for you. I haven’t had a girlfriend since my divorce, but you’re making me revisit that decision. You’re warm, sexy, and let’s face it, smoking hot. If I did choose a girlfriend, it would be you, Maddy.”

I couldn’t believe a man was speaking to me in such direct, frank terms. Ford would be like, “Well, you know, let’s fuck.” I would be forced to interpret from that that he cared about me. During another bout of fucking, he’d let it slip that he loved me. It would be up to me to say it back. That sort of thing. Lots was left up to the imagination with a man with zero communication skills.

Ellis said, “You’re exactly the partner I could picture traveling the world with, visiting clinics or setting them up.” He traveled a lot, mostly to Colorado or Mexico, giving free birth control to people who were fed up with having kids. Of course people would get in line for other things, but the main thrust was to hand out rubbers and measure for diaphragms. Ellis was a big believer in population control. He wanted children to be wanted. “Being independent like that forces you to act on what drives you from inside, Maddy. Sometimes it seems that the heavens are closed to us. But it’s only to give us time to find direction from ourselves.”

Why did I always agree with him? And how did he manage to put everything so eloquently? I was so carried away with his talk, I put my other hand over his and squeezed. “I feel everything you feel, Ellis. You’re a warm, sexy man with a big heart and a huge intellect. Being with you is stimulating, and not only in one way.” Here came the “but,” right? “But right now things are a bit… complicated.”

That was where he pulled his hand away and looked down at his plate. “I know, I know.”

Did he know? Had Desiree blabbed to him? “You know about what?”

“About your husband and his motorcycle club. Believe it or not, I used to belong to one in Denver.”