Midnight Whispers (Cutler 4)

When we returned to the living room, we found Aunt Fern and Morton sitting on the floor by the center table. On the table was the pack of playing cards and their gin and tonics. At her insistence, Morton had made two drinks for us.

"Come on," Aunt Fern said, beckoning for us to sit on the floor around the table, too. Her eyelids looked half-closed and what I could see of her eyes looked bloodshot. "You're holding up progress. Here are your drinks."

"I told you we don't want any of that," Gavin said.

"What kind of a teenager are you?" she asked him angrily. "You act more like an old man." Then she smiled. "You're certainly not a chip off the old block; that's for sure. Daddy Longchamp," she told Morton, "was a famous drunk." She gulped some of her own drink.

"He was not!" Gavin fumed.

"I know what he was, honey," she said, putting her glass down and fixing her gaze on him. "There's no sense pretending he didn't drink and he didn't go to prison."

"Well . . . he doesn't . . . doesn't drink now," Gavin stuttered. She had nearly brought him to tears.

"Not in front of you, maybe, but I bet he sneaks it," she said, enjoying Gavin's discomfort. "Once a drunk, always a drunk."

"He doesn't drink like that anymore," Gavin insisted.

"All right, he doesn't. He's pure as the driven snow, perfect, a reformed drunk and kidnapper."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Gavin said. "You shouldn't say those things about Daddy."

"All right, all right," she said, satisfied she had tormented him enough. "Let's have some fun for a change. Sit down."

"I'm not drinking," Gavin insisted.

"Don't drink. Be a minister for all I care," she said irritably. We sat down. "But you gotta play by the rules," Aunt Fern added. I looked at Morton who broke into a wide smile again.

"What rules? What sort of a game is this?" I asked.

"We're playing strip poker," she said. "Cut the cards, Morty."

"What?" Gavin said.

"Don't tell me you two never played strip poker. Do you believe this, Morty?" she asked him. He shrugged and started dealing the cards.

"We're not playing any such thing," Gavin said. He looked down at the cards as if our touching them would contaminate us.

"Oh, you only play with each other, is that it?" Aunt Fern taunted.

"We've never played this," he said.

"So? There's a first time for everything. Right, princess?" she said, turning to me. "You can talk about first times, can't you."

"Stop it, Aunt Fern."

"Then pick up your cards," she ordered hotly. "You know how to play poker."

"Don't do it, Christie," Gavin said. Fern picked up her cards and smiled.

"I bid three pieces of clothing," she said. "Morty?"

"I'll see you and raise you three pieces," he replied.

"Gavin?"

"We're not playing this stupid game, Fern," he said firmly. She lowered her hand.

"I don't like my fun being ruined," she said steely-eyed. "It makes me want to call people, people like Philip."