Gray found Lexi in the library, sitting on the floor with an engine between her knees.  It was as big as her body.  "I really ought to put it on the stand before it gets too heavy to lift," she said as Gray entered the room.  "Actually it's already too heavy to lift, just the shortblock by itself.  I have shot myself in the proverbial foot."  She looked at the bright red engine stand sitting a few feet away, and sighed.

"How did you get it in here if it's too heavy?" Gray asked.  She didn't want to talk to Lexi at all but for some reason whenever the stupid woman spoke she answered.  It was as if Lexi was somehow winning if she didn't get a reply, but any reply merely started a new salvo of nonsense and scored points for Lexi as well.

"I don't remember," Lexi said, not looking up.  She began humming the theme to "Freakazoid," but doubted that Gray would recognize anything that had to do with cartoons.

She didn't.  "Are you building a car?"  she asked, surveying the half-boxed and plastic-wrapped pieces scattered about.

"Mm-hmm," was the reply.  Lexi still didn't look at her.  Getting all of the plugs in the block was easier when it was on a stand, that was for sure.  Her fingers were sticky with thread-lock.  It was a familiar feeling.

Gray sat on a plastic-wrapped seat.  "It doesn't all seem to be here."

"It's not.  The bodies in white are at our warehouse, in Detroit."

"Bodies in white?"

"The shell of the car.  The rest of the parts were shipped here by happy accident.  I'll have to go get one to attach all of these bits to it.  Very fun.  Want to help?"

She stood, shaking her head.  "No."

"Well, that's a relief.  I don't work well with others," Lexi replied.  She hadn't looked at Gray once.  "Where's Nikki?" she asked.

"I do not know," Gray replied, her voice implying that she didn't care, either.

"Of course you do," she said.  Gray managed to suppress her frown.  "Hey, Gray, when the wheel fell off of your car, did it come off before Martin hit the pole, or after?"

"I do not remember," she said.  "You'd have to ask him."

Lexi looked up at her.  "How long have you guys had that car?  Has the back bumper always been a board?  It's very sad that way, you know.  It wants to be fixed.  It's a very maltreated car, and I shouldn't let you have it back, according to my religion."

"Your...religion?"

"I believe in fruit juice and neon," Lexi said.

"I thought you believed in free everything."

"Oh, that too.  I also believe that Dwight Eisenhower and John Waters are the same man, before and after a horrible, secret experiment gone wrong.  And I believe you never noticed that bumper had been replaced by a chunk of wood before, because you don't love your car properly.  What do you think of that?"

"I think you're mad," Gray said, meeting Lexi's eyes and imagining the insane sparkle going out of them as she bled from a slashed throat.  The thought made her smile, and in an eyeblink she'd grabbed Lexi by the neck, pulled her up out of her squat on the floor, and she was driving her thumbs into the soft hollows on either side of Lexi's jaw.  Lexi squeaked in pain, unable to make any other noise, and Gray smiled, and let her Italian accent slip away.  "And I think you mock me when you ought not to.  Do you have any other funny things to say now?"  

Lexi grabbed Gray's forearms in desperation but wasn't strong enough to pry away the fingers that were cutting off the blood to her brain.  She tried to stand and Gray kicked her feet out from under her, suspending her by the neck.  

"Perhaps you'll be politer now," she said, and let Lexi go.  It wouldn't do for someone to find the mistress of the house dead, after all.

As she thought that, she heard a dog growl, close.  It sounded like it was coming down the stairs into the foyer.  Fear chased a trail of cold sweat up her back.  She couldn't abide dogs, couldn't abide the gnawing terror in her gut at the sound they made, the thought of their teeth and claws on her.  More than once, she had shot them in parking lots for barking at her through car windows.  She had no gun, now, though, and didn't relish the thought of wrestling what sounded like a rather large hound.  She hadn't seen or smelled a dog, but given the size of the house she might have overlooked it.

Gray had her back to the foyer, but she could clearly hear the paws on the wood steps, nails clicking, the wet canine panting.  She stepped away from Lexi, turning slightly so she could see the doorway to the foyer and Lexi at the same time, dreading the dog's appearance.  "Your dog is friendly?" Gray asked, thickening her accent to hide the tremor in her voice.

Lexi was panting, pushing herself to a sitting position.  If Gray was going to pretend nothing had happened, so would she.  For now.  "They're cats, not dogs," Lexi said.  "Sillyhead."  She pushed herself up to a crawl--she was pretty sure she'd pass out if she stood--and dragged herself to the engine block.  The abuse struck a deep and angry chord in her.  She hadn't put up with Darron slapping her around, and she wasn't going to take it from a houseguest who was more than she seemed, either.  But attempting to brain Gray with a brake caliper was the sort of thing that would probably be a much better idea in theory than practice, based on the events of the previous minute and a half or so.

Gray wanted to turn and face Lexi fully, but couldn't do so without losing sight of the foyer.  The dog was almost to the bottom of the steps.  It was a large dog; the stairs creaked under its weight.  And when it reached the room, it would rush in and attack her, jumping up and sinking its teeth into her belly, into her soft parts, and it would pull them out and shake its head, tearing...

She couldn't stay, she couldn't stay.  Gray dug her nails into her palms and walked rapidly into the den, where the television was.  It put a room between her and the dog.  When she was in there, she couldn't hear it any more.  Good.  Good.

Lexi watched her go, angling her head.  Movement from the foyer caught her eye, and she turned the other way just in time to catch the barest glimpse of Marion's shadows-on-light form.  The ghost moved from the steps toward the front door and faded out of sight along the way.