Melissa ran a hand across her forehead. She should just go back to sleep. Forget she heard anything. Whatever had happened, it was over. It didn’t pose her any threat, none at all.
She pushed to her feet, headed for bed, then found herself veering for the closet. Even as she headed for the walk-in she told herself not to do it.
Melissa crossed the threshold of the closet, trying to think nothing, nothing at all. She pulled a silky summer robe from a hanger and thrust her arms into it. Tied it around her waist. She stepped out of the closet and gazed at her bed, bottom lip sucked between her teeth. This was her last chance to turn away from this.
Her eyes closed in disgust. What a wimp she was. After all she’d handled in her past? After her own mother’s death?
Head up, determination pulling back her shoulders, Melissa strode toward her bedroom door.
SEVENTEEN
FEBRUARY 2010
At 7:00 a.m. on Sunday I sat at Dineen’s kitchen table, sipping coffee and feeling like the walking dead. A thick lump of tiredness sat in my chest, blood sluggish through my veins. Worse, my brain felt like mush. I had to wake up. Today of all days I needed my wits about me.
No sign of Dineen. I hoped she was sleeping soundly. I’d rummaged in her computer desk drawer and found a flash drive, copied my file onto it. My pages of handwritten notes were in my purse. One more cup of coffee and I was out of here, back to my house. I needed to shower, prepare for the tasks that lay ahead.
I needed electricity.
Wandering into the den, I flipped on Dineen’s TV to low volume and searched out local news. The meteorologist was the man of the hour, prognosticating that although the storm of the decade had run its course, more rain could hit as early as this afternoon. A reporter stood in a Vonita neighborhood, indicating downed small trees, a broken mailbox. “A tree on a power line cut electricity to over a hundred homes last night. Repairmen worked into the early hours of the morning to fix the problem. Those Vonita citizens will surely be happy to wake up to restored power this morning.”
The news sent a spark of energy through me. I drained my coffee and returned to the kitchen. I cleaned up after myself and left a note for Dineen:
As I pulled away from Dineen’s, a dull ache thrummed in my head. Another full-blown headache was on its way. I detoured to stop at the convenience store for some high-powered aspirin.
The sky hung swollen and bruised. Runoff funneled down the side of the curb, the drains unable to keep up. In some places the water swirled into the street. My tires hit the puddles, sending hissing sprays at the gloomy sky. People were in their yards, picking up branches and other debris. A few glanced my way. No one waved. Before the newspaper article, that wouldn’t have been the case.
Maybe they hadn’t noticed who I was. Maybe I was just being paranoid.
I thought of all my friends at Vonita True Life Church, attending services in a few hours. Would they breathe a sigh of relief when I didn’t show up? How many would offer their condolences to Baxter for my harshness?
My headache was quickly growing worse. I pulled into Perry’s Corner Store and lugged myself inside.
“Hey, Joanne,” Perry Bracowski called from the cash register area. He put the paperback he was reading facedown on the counter and shot me a smile. Perry was never without a detective novel. They filled the long hours at work, he’d once told me. After his wife died a year ago—following a protracted battle with cancer—he admitted to reading all the more. The books didn’t fill the empty spaces at home, he said, but at least they were something.
Other than the two of us the store was empty. “What’re you doing here on a Sunday morning?” I asked. Hired help usually opened the store. Perry worked the later shift and closed. Plus I knew he typically attended the Baptist church in town.
“Ah.” He waved a hand in the air. “Lost my employee. Again. Doggone kids, think they have to go to college.”
We smiled at each other.
“Nice night we had, huh?” He raised his bushy eyebrows.
“Stellar.” I headed for the first aid section, close to the checkout counter, my rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the floor.
“A CSN night.”
CSN—Crosby, Stills and Nash. Perry was playing our name-that-song game. I slowed, trying to think through the pain in my head. “ ‘Cold Rain.’”
“You got it. The
I managed a smile.
“You one of those without electricity?”
“Yup. Went to my sister’s for the night. You?”
Perry grunted. “I got lucky.”
He folded his arms and watched me pluck a bottle of extrastrength pain reliever from the shelf. Perry is around my age, with an average build but strong, his hair pepper and salt. Dark brown eyes. A bit of a dreamer in a feisty sort of way. Not content, like my Tom. Not nearly as laid back. But I’ve always liked Perry. Solid—that’s the word for him, in body and soul.
Silence descended. Perry’s gaze slid to the nearby rack of Vonita’s weekly paper, then bounced away. He cleared his throat.
I walked to the checkout and set down the plastic bottle. Perry focused on it, then raised his eyes to mine. “Headache?” His tone revealed more than the question.
“Yeah.”
He opened his mouth as if words trembled on his tongue, then shut it.
I suppressed a wince. Perry and I had known each other for years, yet he didn’t feel he could say what was on his mind? The subject separated us as tangibly as the slick green counter. Was he judging me for that newspaper article?
He concentrated on working the register, and I paid him. “Want a bag?” he asked.
“No, thanks. I’ll just stick it in my purse. After I take some.” I opened the top and dry-swallowed two tablets, then dropped the bottle in my handbag. With a nod to Perry I turned to go.
“Joanne?”
“Hmm?”
He shifted on his feet. “For what it’s worth, I think it looks fishy too.”
The words practically glowed in the air between us, as if Pandora’s box had been opened. My eyes locked with Perry’s. I wanted to say thank you, squeeze his arm to express how much his statement meant to me. Instead I blurted, “Why?”
His gaze wandered past me. “You know Linda was supposed to be on her way here that night? Baxter said she had a headache and needed some aspirin. Funny, huh. Just like you coming in here right now.”
Not so funny. More like prophetic. A link from my best friend on that fatal day to me here, now, pursuing the truth. “I remember that’s what Baxter told the police.”
Perry focused on me once more. “I always thought that was strange. You know I’ve owned this place for years, before Linda came along. Not once did she come here that late at night. During the day maybe, but once dinnertime hit…” He shook his head.
“Maybe a bad headache was enough to change that.”
“That’s what I told myself. What’s kept me quiet all these years. And after all, it’s Baxter, so who would doubt him? But then when Cherisse died…”
“You don’t believe that was an accident?”
He smiled wanly and tapped the paperback. Shrugged. “Maybe I read too many of these things.”
“Maybe you’re listening to your gut when others are refusing to.”
