“You know, that’s a great idea. I think I will.” She sounded shocked that her single sister might have one shred of marital wisdom. “Now, what were you calling about?”
I hated to ask Katrina for relationship advice when she was having a personal crisis of her own. But since I had her on the line, I might as well tell her the truth.
“Stone called me today.”
“And?”
“And…I’m getting every vibe that he cares for me, even likes me, you know?”
“You two did have a little thing going last year—you kissed him, right?”
I wasn’t too ashamed of the one time I impulsively kissed Stone on the beach. Then again, it took a lot to embarrass me.
“Yes, but things changed…maybe when Jonas and I started talking on the phone regularly to discuss the book club selections.”
“Nothing says romance like a little bookish chitchat,” she said saucily.
“Sis—” I started to reprimand her, but then noticed the pigeons’ circle was growing more erratic. A shadow drifted above them…and it was a hawk.
“I have to run!” I shouted. “Hawk near the pigeons! Text me later!”
Sliding the phone into my pocket, I stood and started frantically whistling for the birds. I grabbed the food bag and shook it for all I was worth. The hawk gave a sudden dip, nearly snatching one of the pigeons, but the flock made a sudden descent into the yard. I grabbed a long stick and waved it at the hawk, screaming death threats at it.
“Well, this is an interesting situation,” Jonas said, walking up behind me. “Is this how you handle all your pet-sitting jobs?”
I couldn’t even laugh at his joshing because the predator was still circling above. “I need to get the birds in…there’s a hawk,” I said, gesturing wildly.
Without asking any questions, Jonas rushed to help me get the birds back into the loft.
I pointed out the nest that had eggs in it, then we pulled the door shut. Relieved to have all my pigeons in a row, so to speak, I dropped into the wooden chair. “Levi got out okay?”
He nodded, pulling the other chair closer. “It was hard to say goodbye.”
“Even though he didn’t help you on the farm?”
Jonas smiled. “Even then. I think he would help, if he ever decided to stay a little longer.” He turned to me, his brow wrinkled. “Belinda, I talked with my friend on my trip home. He told me these pigeons have probably imprinted on my farm, and that re-homing them will take quite a bit of time. Even if they do get used to a new place, there’s every chance they could choose to fly back here.”
I nodded. “I can see that they’re really attached to your farm.”
“And they’ve gotten attached to you.” He paused, scuffing at the seed-flecked dirt with the worn toe of his boot. When he glanced back up, I caught a quick glimpse of uncertainty, which was utterly unlike Jonas. “I can’t ask you to stay around for these pigeons any longer. I know you have a career you’ve been building back in Greenwich. It’s not fair of me to impose on your time.” He waved a hand as I started to speak. “I know you’re going to say you’ll stay as long as I need you—because that’s who you are, Belinda. You’re a person who’s always there for your friends.”
A friend? That didn’t really capture all that Jonas was to me, but I stayed silent, because I knew he was working his way up to a point.
“Anyway,” he continued, “you’re free to go.”
It seemed so…permanent somehow. It was a dismissal I wasn’t quite prepared for.
I made a split-second decision, something I was quite talented at. “I’m going to stick around for book club, at least,” I said. “It’s this Saturday night, right? I haven’t been plowing through that terrifying book for nothing, you know?” I cringed, thinking of how the main character, Eleanor, was repeating a particular phrase to herself at this stage of The Haunting of Hill House. That book really did give me the heebie-jeebies.
Jonas smiled, dispelling my gloomy feelings. “Yes, it’s Saturday at seven thirty, over at Literary Lattes. You want me to pick you up?”
“That would be great.” I followed Jonas out of the pigeon yard, and he walked me toward my car. As he gallantly opened my driver’s-side door, a half-formed thought tumbled straight onto my tongue.
“You’re more than just a friend, Jonas,” I said. A traitorous flush crept up my cheeks, emphasizing the seriousness of my confession.
His mouth dropped open slightly, but before he responded, I closed my door and drove off.
Slick. I was such a smooth operator. And a passive-aggressive one, at that.
But at least I’d finally said what I needed to say. Now the truth was out there. It was up to Jonas to decide on the next step.
9
The alarm started its incessant buzzing the next morning, forcing me out of bed. After scrounging in the depths of my suitcase for several minutes, I finally laid hands on my last pair of clean jeans. I should have unloaded my clothes into drawers, like Mom had suggested, but I hadn’t taken the time yet. And it didn’t make sense to do it now, since I’d soon be heading back to Greenwich.
Jonas texted me last night, after I got home. He’d said he’d be happy for me to continue feeding the homing pigeons until I decided to leave, but he didn’t want me to feel obliged in any way. If I needed to go, he’d step in to feed the birds until he could find someone to re-home them.
He hadn’t directly mentioned my outburst, but he did say he was looking forward to picking me up. That was it. Nothing deeper, along the lines of: “You’re more than a friend to me, too, Belinda. In fact, you’re the one my heart longs for every day and night.”
I supposed I should be thankful he hadn’t said, “Thanks for telling me how you feel, but I think we should just stay friends.”
Stone also texted around midnight, but it was quite brief. He said that Dietrich’s show went surprisingly well, and that Dietrich was so excited about the sales he’d made, he’d only mentioned my absence once. I was glad Dietrich hadn’t overreacted for Stone, but at the same time, I felt strangely dejected.
Trying not to wallow in self-pity, I trudged down to the kitchen. Dad sat at the table, eating his standard maple oatmeal before work. I gave him a quick hug before pulling on my coat and boots.
“Let your car heat up a little,” Dad said. “It fell to twenty-seven degrees last night, and I’m betting your Volvo engine takes a little extra love on days like this.”
“Don’t we all,” I joked. Tugging on my leather gloves, I headed out into the bracing cold. I hoped Ella would stay inside until I got there to pick her up—she was quite thin, not to mention she seemed to have a propensity to dress too lightly for the weather.
I was thankful when I pulled up to her place and she emerged from the house wearing boots instead of flip-flops. Apparently the girl did have a little sense, or at the very least, she listened to her mom on days like this.
I glanced at Ella as I drove away from the van Dusens’ impressive place. She didn’t wear makeup and her hair looked smooth in the front but rough in the back, like she’d forgotten to check the mirror. Her backpack, which looked like an old Army rucksack, was stuffed to the gills and might’ve weighed forty pounds. Although I was glad classes were still rigorous around here, it seemed like overkill on the homework…for whatever grade she was in. I realized I didn’t even know how old Ella was, although I was fairly certain she was a teen.
“Adrian’s eighteen, isn’t he? And how old are you?” I asked her.
She looked out her window, not at me. “I’m thirteen and a half, and yeah, he’s almost nineteen now.”
So she’d been somewhere around ten when Claire died. I tried to remember my life at ten. Katrina and I had spent a lot of time in a treehouse, and we’d had a terrific dog named Blitz. That dog had been my life. I’d talked to him like a best frien
d, telling him all my darkest secrets. I begged him not to die before me. He lived until I was out of college, which was probably the best he could do.
Ella didn’t seem to have any animal friends. I wondered if she had any friends at all. I had to contrast her life with that of her older sister, who seemed to have been a social butterfly.
The silence became uncomfortable as I rolled into a parking place near the coffee shop. Ella jumped out and clomped toward the door. I shut off Bluebell and hurried to keep up with her, following as she walked directly to a booth table and plopped down.
She took her coat off and fixed me with a look. “I know what I’m getting; how about you?”
I smiled, hoping to take the edge off her prickliness. “I’ve only been here once before, so it might take me a minute.”
She huffed as I opened my menu. By the time the waitress came over, I had chosen sausage biscuits and gravy. I told Ella to get whatever she wanted, since this one was on me, and I was pleased when she ordered a very reasonably-priced breakfast.
We made casual conversation until our food arrived. Ella took a huge bite of her omelet, and some of her irritability seemed to fade.
I ventured in with a more personal question. “Adrian has taken Claire’s death really hard, hasn’t he?”
Her lips twisted. “You’d better believe it. He used to do so much with me, and now I hardly see him leave his room. He plays video games all day.”
I made a mental note that I had some common ground with Adrian. I might be able to get closer to him if I talked video games.
“What about your dad and mom?” I asked. “What’s your dad do again?”
She crunched into a bite of toast and spoke around it. “He sells parts for jets, so he travels a lot. Mom’s home, as I guess you noticed. She sells kitchen stuff, but I don’t know why, because she actually hates to cook.”
“Hmm.” I was trying not to overreact to anything Ella said. “And what about you? How’s school for you?”
“Fine,” she muttered, taking a gulp of orange juice.
I couldn’t stop myself. “Things didn’t sound fine when you called me.”
Her lips formed a straight line and she glared at me.
“I heard those girls in the background.” I held her gaze and took a long sip of coffee. “They sounded obnoxious.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she sniped. “I can take care of myself.”
I persisted. “You’re only thirteen. Are there any groups you enjoy at school, or maybe hobbies you like to do?”
She shrugged. “I’m not musical, so I’m not in the band. I’m not coordinated enough for cheerleading, and Chess Club’s ruled by dudes who don’t think I’m good enough. So, no. I don’t do anything at school.” She shot me a furtive look. “I do like animals, but Mom doesn’t let us have any.”
I had a brainstorm. “Hey, maybe you could help out at my dad’s vet clinic sometime. They can always use extra help feeding and walking the boarding animals, and it’d be on your way home after school.”
Ella visibly perked up. “Sure, if you think you could work that out. I don’t think Mom would have a problem with it.”
By the time I’d paid and walked Ella outside, I felt I’d managed to crack into at least one of the walls she’d built around herself. When I offered to drive her to school instead of having her wait for the bus in the freezing cold, she surprised me by accepting.
Sure, I might’ve blown our rapport a little by waving like a proud mom as I stopped in the school drop-off line, but I tried not to overthink it. I’d finally connected with the lonely teenager, and I felt a little like a hero. Did Katrina do this kind of thing every day with her clients? I was flooded with fresh respect for my big sister.
And Ella no longer had a big sister. Maybe if I continued doing things with her, I could act as a sort of stand-in for Claire to help ease Ella’s loss, if only just a bit.
* * * *
Jonas was out on the tractor when I drove over to feed the pigeons. I kept busy while the flock was aloft, spreading fresh wood chips on the dirty loft floor and using a rock to try to hammer down a protruding nail in the metal roof. After examining the enclosed mesh area on the outside of the loft, I realized that the top was fitted with a multi-tined door that only opened inward, then against the wall, there was a flap that gave into the loft interior. It was brilliant—a one-way trapdoor that let pigeons into the loft, but they couldn’t escape the same way.
The pigeons hadn’t used their trapdoor yet, but they’d probably preferred me to open the large door for them since it was less work. Now that I knew the trapdoor was an option, I could leave earlier instead of standing around in the bitter cold, waiting for all the stragglers to return.
Although I worried about leaving them flying around like hawk-bait, I knew Naomi had probably trained them to use the trapdoor. And Jonas certainly wouldn’t have all kinds of time to stand around and babysit homing pigeons when he took over. The trapdoor made me feel better about handing the pigeon tasks over to him.
By the time the birds descended, the loft looked neat and tidy and I was all kinds of filthy. I glanced at my phone and realized more time had passed than I’d thought. I needed to get home and grab lunch and a shower before Chloe showed up. Tonight, I had an undercover investigation to conduct.
10
Chloe knocked on the door around four in the afternoon. Mom gave her a hearty welcome and offered her some homemade pita chips, which Chloe wisely declined. Mom had salted the chips so much, I’d had to guzzle two water bottles after eating a mere handful.
Chloe pranced up to my guest room, a dress bag draped over her arm. She unzipped it dramatically and pulled out a lovely iris-purple silk dress. She held it up to me. “This is going to look perfect on you!”
It was fancier than anything I’d worn for a while. Chloe stepped out so I could wrangle into it, and once I did, I stared at the full-length mirror in awe. I could slip right into Greenwich high society completely undetected in this little number.
“You ready?” Chloe’s voice was singsong.
“Yes, I just need to get zipped up.” I opened the door.
Chloe grinned. “You look amazing. Tell me again why you don’t have a boyfriend yet, Belinda Blake?”
I stepped into the hallway while Chloe took a moment to get her dress on. Hers was a bright red sheath and it fit her like a glove. As she put on dangling gold earrings, I asked why she wasn’t dating anyone.
“I’m not interested in most local men. I know too much about the ones who are still single,” she said.
I was going to ask if she was lumping Jonas in with that group, but stopped myself. It would seem a little too desperate. Besides, I knew Jonas.
Chloe stepped closer, touching my hair. “Honey, were you going to wear it this way?”
I’d gelled my curls and let them air dry, so I thought they were looking about as good as they could. “What were you thinking?”
She gave a little squeal. “I brought some clips—want me to give you an updo? With your volume and those curls, it’ll look amazing!”
I looked at Chloe’s smooth brown hair that needed nothing by way of accessory. “Go ahead,” I said, trusting that she still had the gift of making me look great.
After my hair was finished and I did my makeup, I slipped into a pair of strappy nude heels Katrina had left at home and walked back to the mirror. I was blown away by the finished product. I wished Stone or Jonas could see me now. I had Chloe take a couple of full-length shots of me so I could remember how good I was capable of looking. Then I snapped a few selfies of both of us.
When she was done exclaiming over my transformation, Chloe got serious. “Okay, so you’re going to tell everyone you’re my news assistant, right? You can interview your people, while I interview mine and take photos for the piece.”
“Sounds great,” I said. Although I did have some specific questions, my first priority was simply to get to know the key players in Claire’s literature club. Had any of them been involved in Claire’s death or Jackson’s hit-and-run? I wished murderers had a mark of Cain on them so they were easy to spot, but I knew from experience that they rarely seemed like killers. More often, they were regular people who’d been pushed to the brink—even if only in their own minds.
Mom gave me a hug and kiss and swore I looked just like her sister, my aunt Lorraine. Auntie Lorry was a single world traveler who always had a glamorous je ne sais quoi about her, so I soaked up the temporary comparison. Though, truth be told, my mom always looked every bit as gorgeous as Auntie Lorry, makeup or no makeup.
We took Chloe’s newer sedan to the Meiers’ house. The drive was gated, which was quite unusual in Larches Corner. When they opened it for us, I glanced at the heavily landscaped yard and felt like I was back in Greenwich. Although the Meiers’ home wasn’t as large as most Greenwich abodes, it was laid out like one…even down to a large in-ground pool in the backyard. I’d known the Meier family was wealthy, but I hadn’t ever visited their place before, so I was duly impressed.
However, the Greenwich illusion was shattered as soon as Chloe pulled into a parking space—right between a large truck and a dirt-encrusted Kia. It was further shattered when Mrs. Meier herself opened the front door after we rang the bell. There weren’t any butlers here in Larches Corner, and somehow I found myself breathing a sigh of relief.
Mrs. Meier was friendly, exclaiming over our dresses and jewelry. It didn’t take long for me to realize she was trying to commandeer Chloe’s full attention, because she began to run through the schedule of events for the evening. I wandered off, accepting a rosemary-sprigged cube of marinated mozzarella from a waiter, and rejecting a glass of pink champagne from another. Drinking had never appealed to me, and besides, I wanted all my wits about me as I targeted the literature club for my little interrogation.
Belinda Blake and the Birds of a Feather Page 7