A Deadly Reunion (20 page)

Realizing Annabelle was, like me, probably
just stressed and trying to make light of the situation rather than
wallow in it, I let it slide.

“What time are the drinks, anyway? We should
try to pop our heads in, if we can.” Annabelle leaned right around
in her seat, checking her lane before she pulled out from the
curb.

She was an extremely cautious driver. Which
was kind of nuts considering there was no traffic in Wetlake. I
could understand why you’d want to be careful out on the forest
roads; there was a real possibility of running into deer or fallen
trees. But in town, it was just you and the only other guy who
owned a car.

“Nine.”

“Well we’ll be there. If you’re up to it,
that is?” She looked at me carefully.

I nodded.

“You know, Patti, you’re one of those
peculiarly strong women. I got to say, I admire you.”

I frowned at her sudden and confusing
admission. Me, strong? Well yes, I usually liked to think of myself
as strong, but I was falling apart right now, big time. What I’d
done to Denver was evidence enough of that. Hell, by accidentally
forgetting to check in with him, I’d made him think I’d been
kidnapped and murdered.

He’d wasted time and resources on my
mistake. That didn’t make me strong; it made me dumb.

“You seem totally unflappable. I wish I had
a bit of that,” she casually continued.

Was she joking? She had to be, because,
hello, I was seriously flappable. When she’d come across me that
afternoon, I’d been trying to clamber over a safety railing, with
the horrendous idea of scaling down a near vertical rock scree to
get away from the traffic which my addled mind had told me was full
of murderers.

I couldn’t answer.

“It’s always nice to see someone who’s made
a success of their lives,” she added finally.

Now that made me frown. It wasn’t just
that I was a little touchy on the whole successful and wealthy
thing. It was that... well, Annabelle was clearly taking a dig at
herself.

“I envy your life up here,” I quickly tried
to change the subject; even though I couldn’t say I was being 100%
honest. Still, there were aspects of living up in Wetlake that were
desirable. And no, I wasn’t just thinking of Thorne. “It’s always
so beautiful and peaceful up in the mountains.”

“Well, we could do with a lot more of the
peace right now.” Annabelle shook her head as she slowed down to
take a corner.

Shit. I’d walked into that one. I should
just keep my mouth shut before it sounded like I had plain
forgotten Hank and James had been murdered – or worse, that I
didn’t care.

Swallowing uncomfortably, I tried to think
of something else to say.

“We don’t have to go for drinks if you don’t
want to,” I mumbled.

“Now, Patti, you might think you can drink
in the city, but you ain’t seen nothin’, girl. If you think I can’t
handle a couple of beers—” she began.

I laughed. “Not what I meant.”

“Of course it wasn’t. I’m just trying to
make a joke, anything to lift my mood. Everything is really dark
out there right now.” As she drove, she brought her hands up and
she massaged her brow.

I swallowed again. I couldn’t say anything
insightful, anything wise, or anything helpful. I just sat there
and gulped like a frog by a pond.

“You know, I think we need to change the
subject and change it for good this time,” Annabelle admitted
through a heavy sigh, “no more talk of murders. There’s nothing we
can do about it. We’ve got to leave it up to the Feds and the
police. But that doesn’t mean we have to spend all our time
fixating on it and driving each other nuts.”

She was right. There was nothing we could
do. Though we both clearly had our theories, they were just that,
theories. We had to leave it up to the police, and we had to move
on, as cold and terrible as it sounded. We had to mourn James and
Hank and give them the respect they deserved. But we couldn’t...
obsess about it.

There was a thin line between ignoring the
murders and wallowing in them. And that line was constantly
shifting.

“Oh dear, look at me; I’ve made you quiet.
Well how about this? I think you and I might be the same size, and
believe it or not, I do have the occasional snazzy top and pair of
heels. What do you say we dress up nice tonight? Try to look our
best while we say goodbye?”

I smiled. It was awkward because the
proposition was awkward... or maybe because I was awkward.
Annabelle had said she wanted to move on, and she was right to
try.

Shaking my head, I suddenly nodded instead.
“That sounds great.”

“Then we can come home to red wine, popcorn,
and stories of Thorne and Denver,” Annabelle added.

I nodded a lot harder at that one.

As Annabelle drove out of town, again I was
struck by how damned beautiful this place was and yet wild at the
same time. Thorne was right; from the rocky peaks to the call of
the animals, it was darker out here. Okay, so you didn’t have
junkies and skyrocketing crime, but there was something primal
about those dank, closed woods.

“Sorry I live so far out of town, but I got
to say, as strange as it sounds, I like my privacy.” Annabelle
turned up a small, winding, dirt road.

I turned to her sharply at that. “You’re the
most sociable person I know.”

She shrugged, taking her hands off the
steering wheel briefly while trusting her car to drive in a
straight line as she did.

That apparently innocent move struck me as
strange.

In town she had driven as respectfully and
slowly as an old nana heading to church. Yet out here she
apparently didn’t care that her car was veering towards the
ditch.

“Oh, people are never what they appear to be
on the outside,” she counseled as she pulled up in front of a
house.

Annabelle had been right; it was big and it
was truly beautiful.

Made of white and blue weatherboard, it had
three levels, the top of which looked like an old attic with a
small door leading out to a tiny balcony.

There were dense firs and pine trees about
the back of the house and the steep slopes leading up to it, but
unlike Thorne’s bachelor pad, there was also a garden. Lush and
meticulously cared for, the lawn looked as if it had been cut with
a ruler and a pair of nail scissors. All of the flowers and roses
and shrubs were weeded and bunched together in attractive beds that
had clearly been planned by someone with an eye for design.

“Wow,” I gestured to her house as she got
out of the car, “this is incredible. A place like this would go for
millions where I come from.”

“Don’t you come from Wetlake
originally?”

“Sorry, figure of speech.”

Annabelle didn’t say anything more; in fact,
she silently walked up the garden path, extracting her house keys
from her bag as she did. Her simple heels clapping over the old
wood of her porch steps, she waved me forward.

“You know, Annabelle, you should join forces
with Thorne. The both of you live in secluded little parts of the
forest, but he clearly has no idea how to keep a garden or a
house.” It was an awkward thing to say, and halfway through, I
realized I was just babbling.

Annabelle turned as she opened the door, and
her eyebrows crunched down quickly. “You’ve seen Thorne’s
house?”

When I’d filled her in on what I’d been
doing with Thorne and Denver, I’d forgotten to mention I’d spent
last night on Thorne’s couch.

I offered a rather meek smile. “Not what you
think.”

“Of course not,” she snorted, “Thorne is not
that kind of boy. Unlike his brother.”

Turning sharply, she walked into her
house.

I pushed my lips together and let a spark of
confusion scrunch up my nose.

Had that been a dig at me or was I just
stressed?

Shit. Annabelle was possibly the nicest
person I’d ever met, and here I was second-guessing everything she
said and everything she did.

I needed to pull my head in and start
thinking of other people for once.

Walking into Annabelle’s house, I instantly
noted it was even more beautiful within. There were all these old
antique chests of drawers and side tables and lamps, and all the
curtains were made out of white lace that had been meticulously
cleaned and dusted.

It made my perpetually messy and dog-hair
filled apartment look like a disaster zone.

Annabelle kept going on about how much of a
success I was; well she clearly hadn’t done so badly herself.

Retiring to a country palace like this was
the number one dream of most of the city slickers I knew.

The grass is always greener on the other
side of the fence, as my mother would say.

“You probably want a shower, huh? Maybe a
small bite to eat before we head out again?” Annabelle walked
forward and led me to the kitchen.

“That sounds fantastic,” I said as I
continued to survey the incredible house around me. “You live here
all on your own? God, it must take you weeks to do the
cleaning.”

“I’m pretty particular about some things,
Patti Smith.” She walked over to her sink, grabbed up a clean glass
from the dish rack, filled it with water, and handed it to me with
a smile. “I’m an old girl who is set in her ways. I have an idea
about how things should be, and I don’t stop trying until I make
them that way. And if I see someone who’s left a mess, I go after
them.”

I nodded my head as I finished off my glass
of water and patted my lips dry. “You sound like a determined
woman, every feminist would be proud.”

It was a compliment.

Annabelle’s smile stiffened.

Realizing I’d stepped on her toes yet again,
I nodded nervously. “Do you have any pets?”

“Oh no, can’t say I have the time.”

Damn. I found talking about pets was always
a way to ground a conversation and to make friends. It was the
greatest tool to diplomacy. If President Kennedy and Khrushchev had
just sat down and talked about their dogs, the Cold War would have
been sorted out quick smart.

You couldn’t help but smile when you
described the strange behavior of your cat or pooch. But
unfortunately, Annabelle didn’t have pets.

So that slightly disapproving edge to her
smile remained.

“
Do you need... a hand doing anything?” I
asked nervously.

She shook her head, took my glass off me,
and immediately cleaned it and stuck it back in the dish rack. “You
just go and have your shower and then get ready for to tonight.
With everything that’s been going on in this town, I’m sure you
just need the chance to relax.”

I thanked her and let her lead me out of the
kitchen and up to one of the upstairs bathrooms. She handed me a
towel and then told me about the dodgy taps before closing the door
behind her.

I listened as she trundled down the
stairs.

People didn’t get as nice as Annabelle was,
I told myself quickly.

She wasn’t acting strangely. She was
just... dealing with the same things that everyone else
was.

Suddenly feeling exceedingly saddened and
confused, I found myself sitting down glumly on the edge of the
bath. The cold ceramic cooled the back of my legs as my shoulders
rounded and my arms dropped into my lap. Staring at my hands, I
made a desperate and rather futile wish for everything to return to
normal. I wanted to go back to my ordinary, happy, carefree life. A
life where there were no Denvers, there was no murder, and there
were no confusing relationships with old classmates. No
second-guessing, no paranoia, just glitz, glamour, upscale
apartments, and certainty.

I still had my bag on my arm, and I unhooked
it. Rifling around for my hairbrush, I accidentally plucked up my
cellphone and realized I should follow Denver’s angry advice and
charge it. Grabbing out the wall adapter from my bag, I moved over
to the sink and plugged it in.

Stepping back, I stared around the bathroom.
It was as clean as clean could be. There were neat little rows of
shampoos and soaps and figurines and fresh flowers. The ceramic
glimmered and there wasn’t a sign of dirt in the grout on either
the floor or the walls.

I was suddenly struck by the fact Annabelle
had a hell of a lot of time on her own.

It was no wonder she was so sociable. Still,
it was a strange surprise to find out that Annabelle didn’t match
up to the person I’d always thought she’d become. I figured she’d
come from a huge family and had millions of siblings, and was the
kind of girl who was never alone. After I’d received the reunion
invite from her, I’d pictured her as a smiling thirty-year-old with
an entire truckload of children and a husband with acquired hearing
loss from all her chatting.

I’d been wrong.

Hell, now I came to think of it, I’d been
wrong about most of the people I’d made assumptions about recently.
Everybody had their nuances, aptitudes, and flaws.

Sighing through my teeth, I stripped, got in
the shower, and told myself to get over it.

By the time I got out of the shower,
Annabelle had already whipped up an amazing meal, and we wasted a
few hours easily chatting before we headed back out to town.

Any possible feeling of ill will I’d held
towards Annabelle and her slightly strange behavior was gone for
good.

She was genuinely nice, friendly, and
clearly wanted to get to know me while helping me out.

In fact, I was laughing at another one of
her rather dry jokes as we made it into the pub.

I stopped laughing almost immediately.

Everybody was standing around justifiably
morose, talking in hushed voices.

Fuck. I was a bitch. Seriously, again I’d
forgotten about the murders. Or rather than forgotten about them,
I’d managed to push them from my mind for a few precious, if
indiscreet seconds.