Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do When Aubrey Scott invaded the bathroom where I had retreated that Monday morning, I knew I was in for a surprise. It just wasn't the kind I was expecting. For starters, he was fully dressed. And what was worse, instead of taking off his clothes and joining me in the steam room like he had some sense, he dragged me out of my warm cocoon by the hand. "Check this out," he ordered as he turned on the television in the bedroom. An early morning talking head was blabbering about the aftermath of a multicar accident on Route 219 near Modesto, some three hundred miles north of Los Angeles. Saturday morning, he informed us, "tule fog, that monster weather condition peculiar to California's Central Valley, had spread like a cancer, causing a sixty-Five-car pileup that claimed the lives of nine people, including a CHP officer, and injured twenty others," including the subject of the news bulletin Aubrey was so intent on me seeing. "As reported on Channel Four this weekend," the newscaster went on, "the driver of one car, a late-model Toyota, had disappeared.

Police speculated that he may have wandered away from the scene and died from his injuries. Well, the mystery driver has been found alive and identified as nineteen-year-old Nilo Engalla, wanted for questioning in a shooting that occurred eight months ago right here in Los Angeles." Aubrey stroked my arm. "Isn't that the Filipino kid you were looking for last summer?" I mumbled a reply, surprised Aubrey would remember a case I had investigated during the early months of our relationship. I pulled on my robe and sat on the edge of the bed to try and figure out how to handle this unexpected curveball. An exterior shot of a one-story concrete-and-glass building was on the screen. "Engalla showed up last night at this urgent care center in Ceres, some five miles south of the scene. He was transferred to a Modesto area hospital, where he's listed in critical condition.

Police are hoping Engalla regains consciousness so they can determine how he found his way to the urgent care center and how he came to have over twenty-seven thousand dollars in cash concealed in the wrecked car." I was still staring at the television when the bulletin ended, concerned that they'd revealed too much about Engalla, and concerned about something else, too. "This is great news!" Aubrey exclaimed, putting an arm around me. "Nothing like getting back into the swing of things after a tough case." "Nothing like." Thankfully, Aubrey was sitting on my right because my left eye had started twitching again, as it had regularly since I'd left the Parker Administrative Building last Wednesday. Twitching in response to a sight I never wanted to see again, but which kept playing in my dreams in a continuous loop of blood and brains and tears. Which was why I was sitting here instead of "getting back into the swing of things," as Aubrey so quaintly put it.

But how could I tell him the truth? My dilemma reminded me of an old saying of my grandmother's: One lie calls for another and another. Aubrey kissed my neck and kneaded my shoulders. "The steam seems to be helping these knots." If it would only stop the racing of my heart. "What're you up to today?" "Typical Monday. Meeting with the CEO over at White Memorial to review the short list of candidates for their new ER director. But I'll be home early to start cooking for tonight. Unless you want to cancel.

" Cancel what? Then I remembered, said, "No, that's fine," hoping he hadn't realized that I had forgotten March was our month to host Film Night. It was a tradition that started in the Justice family years ago and now included Aubrey in my family's cut-'me-low critique of new and classic movies. "Did we.