Impulse by Frederick Ramsay

day.”
    Stark sipped his cola, ingenuousness plastered across his face. “What day would that be?”
    “ The day, Stark. Don’t be cute. You know what day.”
    “Just in the beginning. But I had to go to DISH, so I left them before—”
    “I had to monitor Detention Study Hall that day. You were there?”
    “Me and ten other guys.”
    “So, if it hadn’t been for that—”
    “I might have disappeared, too.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. I think about that sometimes.”
    “I bet you do. But you didn’t have anything to say about that day to our celebrity sleuth to help him…do whatever sleuths do…crack the case.”
    “No, nothing. And what about you, Mr. Light, did you have anything for him? A mention of a meeting perhaps?”
    “No, nothing,” Light said, ignoring the last part of Stark’s question. “Just that that day was the last good day of my life.”

Chapter Fourteen
    Rosemary placed her cup carefully on its saucer, which she in turn put on the coffee table in front of her. Still leaning forward, brows knit, she swiveled her head around and scrutinized him like a jeweler appraising an expensive antique necklace. How much value lay in its history, how much in the gold and diamonds alone? Frank returned the gaze, face expressionless except for the smallest trace of a smile.
    “Do I pass?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”
    He placed his half-filled cup and saucer down next to hers. Hot chocolate from a paper packet, decaffeinated at that, could not replace the real thing. The aroma seemed chocolaty but that was it. He’d accepted it only because she’d offered and it seemed as though he ought to.
    “You said you looked me up on the Internet.”
    “Yes.” She sat back and directed her gaze at the wallpaper on the opposite wall.
    “And you are wondering about my wife?” Those amazing brown eyes shifted to his.
    “It’s none of my business, is it?” She resumed her study of wallpaper.
    “No,” he said, almost sadly, “it’s not, but you can ask anyway.”
    “The report said you were a suspect in her disappearance. Is that true?”
    “Disappearance…and probable homicide, too, don’t forget that part.” He lifted the cup and then put it down. “I’m their best bet. Something over eighty-five percent of disappearances and deaths of this sort are perpetrated by family members. I’m family. I had the means, motive, and opportunity. They can’t find anybody else who does. That leaves me. They don’t have anywhere else to go.”
    “Oh.”
    “The problem with surfing the Internet,” he said, as much to himself as to her, “is that there’s no control on what gets put there. Newspapers, TV, and radio have filters. Editors or owners screen what gets said and what doesn’t. Even in the face of the obvious bias of some media outlets, there are limits. But the Internet has none. Anybody can post anything. The truth is mixed in with lies like diamonds with sewage. There is no sure way to sort them out.”
    “No, I suppose you’re right. So how do we find out the truth?”
    Frank shook his head and shrugged. They sat for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.
    “I thought about you last night after you left,” she murmured. “I didn’t get much sleep wondering how I’d ask you about her. It scared me a little, too. What if it turned out that….” She plucked at a fold in the fabric of her dress.
    “She had cancer,” he said. “She had these stabbing pains and no appetite. Her doctors sent her to the Mayo Clinic, the one in Scottsdale. They did tests and…ovarian cancer. She expected it, you see. She just knew cancer would find her and it did. Do you know how ovarian cancer works?”
    “It’s every gynecologist’s favorite topic for women over fifty. So I’ve heard the lecture more than once. It’s a silent killer.”
    “By the time they made their diagnosis it was already at level four. There was no way they could attack it. All they