The Night Cafe
Orange County, California Sunday, April 16Hannah Nicks, loser. Black sheep. She whose bizarre line of work is not really suitable dinner-table conversation.The accusations ran on a loop through Hannah's brain during these family get-togethers. How could anyone not feel inadequate faced with the perfection that was her sister Nora?Sliding onto a tall stool, Hannah tucked her unruly dark hair behind her ears and helped herself to a homemade scone from the linen-lined basket on the kitchen island.The island was a granite oasis in a sea of domestic perfection. Nora's home in the upscale seafront community of Corona del Mar was right out of Architectural Digest. Her kitchen was a Tuscan-inspired designer's vision of terra-cotta and honey tones, run through with a grapevine motif. Outside the mullioned French doors that covered the entire west side of the house, the view was of tented gazebo, patio and pool, the blue-gray Pacific Ocean beyond stretching to the horizon.Selecting a jar from a carousel in front of her, Hannah spread preserves on the scone. She took a bite, then leaned back and sighed over the warm, flaky pastry. "Oh, Lord, these are bliss."Nora, standing on the other side of the island, looked over and smiled. "Those are the last of the raspberries the kids and I picked at the cottage last summer." Her husband's family had a three-thousand-square-foot post-and-beam house in Ogunquit, Maine, where the California Quinns spent part of each summer. It was a "cottage" like the Hope Diamond was a bauble.Hannah's travel destinations tended to be war zones, where accommodations were spartan, at best. Her own home, a condominium in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, was a replacement for the only house she'd ever owned—well, not owned, exactly, given the size of the mortgage, but it had been a real house, an old Craftsman bungalow in Los Feliz. Her ex had signed the property over to her in the divorce but sadly, before she got around to renovating the place, it had been blown up by Russian gangsters intent on her demise.In addition to a condo and a broken marriage, Hannah was the proud possessor of a son she saw only intermittently  and  a  bank  balance  that  constantly hovered near the red zone. She, needless to say, was not the daughter their mom bragged about to the other white-haired ladies in her Tuesday-Thursday Aquasize classes. Nora, oldest child of immigrant parents, was the American Dream personified. For Hannah, a major achievement would be getting through a week without being shot at, maimed or killed.She spooned another dollop of raspberry jam onto the scone. "Can I just say for the record that these are going to be the death of me?" She popped it into her mouth. "Want me to slather one for you?" she mumbled."No, I'm good. Thanks so much for that view, though." Hannah opened wide. "Bwah-ha-ha."Nora rolled her eyes. "Very mature."Hannah grinned. She couldn't help it. Put her in a room with Nora and she was ten all over again.On first encounter, Nora was often mistaken for Hannah's better-groomed twin. No one ever guessed that dark-eyed, glossy-haired Nora was a dozen years older than the misfit baby of the Demetrious clan. Of course, in affluent Orange County, the trickery of Botox and the surgeon's knife kept a lot of women looking preternaturally young. In Nora's case, though, the only magician at work was Mother Nature herself. At forty-two, she was an elegant beauty, grace personified. She knew the names of china patterns, the art of Japanese flower arranging and how to put together a gourmet dinner for twenty on a few hours' notice.Hannah knew aliases and suspected hideouts for a dozen of the world's worst terrorists, the art of covert message drops, and how to dismantle and reassemble an M-16 assault rifle in sixty seconds flat. Nora invariably put others at ease. Hannah, who leapt into high alert at the snick of every opening door and scrutinized every stranger for signs of lethal intent, didn't even know how to put herself at ease.As if grace, brains and beauty weren't enough, there was also Nora's gorgeous, castlelike home overlooking the Pacific Ocean, her doting, successful husband, Neal, and their two picture-perfect kids, Nolan and Natalie. (Nora, Neal, Nolan, Natalie—they were big on alliteration, the Quinns. Even the dogs, golden retrievers with sleek Lady Clairol coats, were called Nugget and Noodle.) Nora's entire, flawless life was a page out of frigging Martha Stewart Living.Hannah, at thirty, was on her own but already on her second career, one she'd taken up after eight years as an L.A. cop. Switching from police work to the world of private security contractors was supposed to have been a lucrative career move, one she'd hoped would put her in a better financial position to regain custody of her son from her wealthy ex and his current squeeze. It hadn't worked out that way.She finished her scone, then glanced down and froze. On her wrist, a red drop glistened under the glow of the pendant lights hanging over the island. Hannah could almost feel the pain of the gash, even though her rational mind said it was just a dollop of raspberry. Her memory flashed on gunfire in a dark desert night. On a young man's bleeding head cradled in her lap. On his life slipping away before her eyes."Here, use this." Nora reached across the island. Startled by the sudden movement, Hannah shoved back, the legs of her bar stool screeching on the travertine floor."Hannah?" Nora's brow creased with the worried look she often took on when her baby sister was around. She indicated the blue gingham napkin in her hand."It's okay. I was just trying to help."Hannah gave her best Alfred E. Neuman dopey grin. Bringing her wrist to her lips, she licked away the sweet drop of jam, but when Nora sighed, she relented and took the napkin, dutifully blotting her wrist dry. She might have resented the fact that Nora still treated her like the awkward child she used to be, except she knew her sister couldn't help feeling the heavy responsibility of serving as maternal figure in Hannah's life.They had an actual mother, mind you. Ida Demetrious—"Nana" to her three grandchildren—was snapping green beans over at Nora's antique pine trestle table this very minute. Nevertheless, Nora had been overheard on more than one occasion to say she'd "raised Hannah." Not altogether accurate. Not something you'd think she'd want to brag about, either, all things considered.It was true that at seventeen, Hannah had been sent from Chicago to live with the Quinns in Orange County. It was about the time that their father, Takis Demetrious, began showing signs of the Alzheimer's that would eventually strip him of his mind, his great physical strength and finally his life. Poor Nana. A sick husband and a rebellious teenage daughter were a tough hand to be dealt, especially when she was also trying to keep their import company afloat in those early days when Takis's intermittent confusion, intransigence and paranoia were threatening to run the family's once-thriving company into the ground. Something had to give and, in the end, that something was Hannah.Nora's kids had been four and seven at the time. Hannah could give Nora a hand, the thinking went, and maybe if she escaped Takis's unpredictable rages, she might be less inclined to act out. But she arrived at Newport Beach High School carrying a lumber-sized chip on her shoulder. That, and shyness that came across as aloofness, pretty much guaranteed her the caption of "Most Inscrutable" in her senior yearbook photo. She hadn't set out to be antisocial, but even the Porsches and BMWs in the student parking lot seemed to be sneering at the hopelessly uncool Midwestern import with the wild hair and the uneasy dark eyes. She stayed with Neal and Nora for two years before moving into a dorm at UCLA. By February of her freshman year, she was pregnant. She dropped out of college and went to work as an L.A. Sheriff's Department dispatcher so that her hastily married hubby could finish law school.Pathetic—which only made Hannah wonder why Nora would take the rap for raising her."Yee-haw!"Home  on  spring  break  from  Stanford,  Nolan galloped into the sprawling kitchen, his surfboard-scaled flip-flops slapping the floor. Close behind came ten-year-old Gabe, grinning as he aped his big cousin's galumphing stride."Last one in is a horse's…um—" Nolan paused, glancing at his mom "—patootie!"Hannah raised a hand, traffic-cop style. "Hold it! Gabriel Nicks, don't even think of going out there before I get sunscreen on you."The boys' bodies were winter-pale but spring in Southern California meant the beginning of pool season, and this particular Sunday had turned out to be a scorcher. The thermometer on the blue-and-white striped cabana outside hovered in the mid-eighties. Neal was out there in shorts and T-shirt, stretched on one of the plush chaise longues, working the Sunday crossword, while Natalie was at the beach with a friend. With the pool heated to a balmy eighty-eight degrees, even the adults might venture in, if only for a toe-dabble.Gabe moaned. "Ah, Mom, it's only April. I'm not gonna burn. Besides, I'm tough like you. I can handle anything."Hannah couldn't miss the exchange of another of those "what are we going to do about Hannah?" looks between Nora and their mother. Hers wasn't the sort of family where fearlessness in dark alleys was considered a desirable trait."Ultraviolet rays don't read calendars," she said, restraining her wriggling son with one hand while she snagged the sunscreen off the kitchen counter with her other."Yeah, that's a fact, bro," Nolan said, turning back. Gabe immediately stopped squirming. His mother might be a worrywart, but if Nolan, bless his heart, said something was so, then it was gospel."You slather up, too," Nora said over her shoulder. The two boys exchanged eye-rolling grins, but Nolan took the plastic squeeze bottle from Hannah and went to work on himself.At the granite island, Nora went back to spreading phyllo dough for ...