Misery Loves Company

by Rene Gutteridge

  Suddenly she felt improper, as though she were a houseguest who’d rudely overslept. But that thought was so weird.

  She folded her arms, tried to speak slowly. “Dress code aside, what is going on here?”

  “All in due time.” He gestured toward a closet. “You’ll find something suitable in there.”

  I’m not interested in this bizarre bed-and-breakfast you’re running, she thought, wishing she could speak as harshly as it sounded in her head. “I want to go home.”

  He coolly put his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t overly tall, probably not even six feet, but he seemed to tower over her with his presence. “Do you really, Juliet? You really want to go home? It’s that fulfilling, all by yourself, peering at a computer screen?”

  “Don’t act like you know me.”

  “But I do.”

  “How is that? We’ve never met before this.”

  “You’re a fan, are you not?”

  Was. Less so by the second.

  “You’re quieter than I imagined you to be. You don’t come across that way on paper.” He gave a small smile.

  Jules whispered, “You spied on me?”

  He laughed. “I don’t have to spy on you. You bare your soul every day, don’t you? For all the world to see?”

  Jules glanced at the ceiling. “You read my blog?”

  “Isn’t that the point? That people read it? Don’t you hope they get to know you?”

  “But . . .” Him?

  “You’ve been disappointed by my last three books.”

  Jules took a deep breath. That was what this was about? Her mind scrambled to remember the words she’d used to show her discontentment with his latest work. They didn’t seem harsh at the time, but as she stood in front of him now, her review did seem . . . regrettable. “It’s not personal,” she mumbled.

  “It’s not personal for whom?” he asked. “You? Or me?”

  Neither. She’d critiqued it as a piece of literature. She put her trembling hands behind her. “I didn’t mean for the review to hurt you.”

  “If you’d known I’d be reading it, you would have perhaps chosen your words more carefully?”

  Jules’s nostrils flared at the insanity of the entire situation. She found herself growing bold. “I actually chose my words quite carefully. I always do.”

  “So you meant every word?”

  How was she to play this? She studied his eyes. There was a gentle, wise veil to them. “Yes. I meant every word.” She pressed her lips together and kept eye contact. “And if you must know, I am not a fair-weather fan. I am still as loyal as ever.”

  He blinked as if he was not expecting that answer. Then he turned. “Get yourself presentable. Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes.”

  He closed the door and did not lock it. Jules let out a breath and a cry, covering her mouth as she rewound the conversation in her head.

  “Jason . . .” Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “You’re not going to believe what is happening to me.”

  Near the window was a closet with a sliding wooden door. Inside, she found an array of nice winter clothing, ranging from sweaters and shawls to slacks. No jeans or sweats. The shoes she’d worn to the grocery store were neatly placed on the floor next to some other shoes she didn’t recognize.

  She changed in the bathroom—a cold, overly tiled, suffocating room. Inside the medicine cabinet were a new toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash. But on the counter she found another toothbrush that appeared to have been used and half a tube of toothpaste. Next to it was a hairbrush, hair tangled around it. She picked it up and for the first time noticed herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot and she looked pale and drawn. It reminded her of how she’d looked the morning after she learned Jason had been shot to death. She remembered waking up after maybe thirty minutes of sleep and staring in the mirror. She didn’t even recognize the woman who stared back at her.

  But something told her that she’d better look the part of a pulled-together woman, because the man holding her had to be unraveling in some way. If she seemed composed, maybe she could talk some sense into him. Or better yet, run for her life.

  She set the brush down. One thought kept scrolling through her head: Patrick Reagan read her blog. It never occurred to her that he might. Would she have said things differently? Had she been unintentionally cruel?

  She washed her face and then noticed, on a small vanity near the tub, a beautiful silver watch set out as if on display. She picked it up and marveled at all the diamonds. If she wanted to be on time for dinner, maybe she should wear it. But the time had stopped, at twelve o’clock on the dot. It seemed odd to her that she didn’t even know what time it was.

  Turning toward the door of the bedroom, she walked with weak knees. Somehow she was going to have to gather the strength to face what was on the other side. Because the writing on the wall made her fairly sure his intentions were to truly terrify her.

  His shift had ended two hours earlier, with a lecture from Maecoat about how he needed to let things rest for a couple of days. Jules would probably return.

  “You’re right,” Chris had said with an assuring smile as they walked out of headquarters, all the while making plans to head straight back to Jason’s house.

  The sun was setting earlier, and by the time he grabbed something to eat, it was almost entirely dark. He drove his pickup over to the Belleno home. He doubted the house would be locked, and he planned to use this to his advantage.

  But standing on the porch, he found that the door was locked, much to his dismay. Had the Lt. Colonel gotten it locked again? With a matchstick? Or did someone else have a key?

  He rattled the door again, but it was definitely dead-bolted. So now what? He knew how to pick a lock. But should he? What if the captain found out? All these thoughts were swirling around in his mind when the dead bolt turned and the door opened.

  “Lt. Colonel,” Chris said, trying not to sound bewildered.

  “Chriiii . . .” He opened his arms. “Come in, on in.” He stumbled backward while maintaining a sloppy smile. “She’s not back, if you were wandering . . . wondering.”

  “Where is your truck?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Chris followed him in and shut the door. “I came by because I wanted to look at her computer,” he said, watching the Lt. Colonel lurch toward the couch, where he plopped down.

  “You got some way to track her with it?” He picked up a bottle of bourbon from the table.

  “I have some new information,” Chris said, sitting down at the desk near the couches. “She was at the grocery store Tuesday. Midmorning.”

  The Lt. Colonel leaned forward. “You sure?”

  “A kid there remembered her, a sacker.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means she was in her regular routine.”

  “What does the computer have to do with any of it?” He was now settling back into the cushions, listing slightly to the right.

  “I want to look at her Facebook page and her blog, see if that offers any clues.” Chris cleared his throat. “This needs to stay between us, sir. Technically, there is no official investigation and I shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Well then, get to looking,” he said; then his gaze wandered to the ceiling like there might be something of interest going on up there. “I’m no fan of your procedures anyway.”

  By the time Chris had Jules’s computer out of sleep mode, the Lt. Colonel’s head had tipped backward and he was snoring. Chris counted that as a blessing.

  He was hoping her Facebook page was still logged in. When he woke the computer, her page pulled right up. This time he checked her statuses over the last week. Some were generic, but others offered more clues about the fact that her anniversary with Jason was coming up.

  He read carefully, including the day she disappeared. The day before she was supposedly seen at the store, her status read, Making pasta from scratch tomorrow. That offered
no clue that she was going to the store or at what time. But as he trailed backward through her posts, there was an obvious pattern—enough to know that she was in a routine. Someone could easily garner enough information to know what she was up to. The problem was, she had nearly two thousand Facebook friends. How could he know which one had intentions of harming her, if she was harmed at all?

  The Lt. Colonel groaned and rolled to the side, his head awkwardly turned in to one of the cushions, his mouth hanging open like he was in midsentence.

  Chris returned his attention to the computer. He spent an hour reading through her blogs. She was passionate about her hometown, about Maine, about all that her state had to offer, and about . . . Patrick Reagan. Her last post had been about his latest book, The Lion’s Mouth. The review wasn’t favorable.

  Chris sat back in his chair, mumbling through thoughts, wondering if there was a connection in the fact that Patrick Reagan was at the grocery store at the same time.

  “Ridiculous, Downey.” He got up from the desk as his mind nagged at him to reconsider the possibility. It was clear that Jules had an affectionate admiration for the author. But most of this town did.

  Chris, like everyone, knew where the author lived. It was a sprawling estate a mile from the coast. The house was impressive. Built in 1842, it had belonged to a host of famous personalities through the ages. He thought Reagan had lived there about three decades. Whatever the case, it kept the department busy whenever a book released—always a traffic problem as tourists drove by, attempting to get a glimpse of the king of suspense. But Seth was right—as far as he knew, Reagan spent the winters elsewhere.

  Later that evening, Chris was still pondering it all at his kitchen table when Addy arrived home following dinner out with the girlfriends she liked to visit when she came into town.

  Addy eyed him coming in, got a carton of ice cream out of the freezer, and grabbed two spoons, joining him at the table. “Whatever this is, it requires ice cream,” she said, sliding a spoon toward him.

  “Wish I had an appetite,” he said.

  “No one needs an appetite when it comes to ice cream. Come on, eat up. Sugar helps you think.”

  Chris obeyed. “By the way, please don’t give Maecoat the time of day.”

  “Greg?”

  “Call him Maecoat, please. Greg sounds like you’re friends, and I really don’t want you to be friends with him.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “He’s fine. I do. But he’s really girl crazy.”

  Addy smiled. “Thanks, but I can handle myself.”

  “The problem is that he can’t. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “Also, I told him you’d fix him your famous clam chowder.”

  “He owes you for something.”

  Chris sighed. “Yeah.”

  She twirled the spoon in her mouth. “I guess Jules hasn’t shown up?”

  “No. Last seen at the grocery store as far as I can tell.”

  “Still nothing unusual coming up?”

  “No, not really.” Chris set his spoon down after only a couple of bites. “Tell me what you know about Patrick Reagan.”

  “The author?”

  “Yeah.”

  Addy shrugged. “I’m not a fan. Too commercial for my taste. I mean, I know he lives here—I know which house. But that’s about it.”

  “He’s supposedly a recluse, right?”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Tell me I’m crazy, okay? But Jules wrote an unfavorable review of his book on her blog the morning she disappeared. Then this kid at the grocery store tells me that Patrick Reagan was there at the same time Jules was.”

  Addy considered it for a moment. “Well, okay. Could be a coincidence.”

  “Kid also said he doesn’t spend the winters here. He’s always at some cabin in the woods.”

  “Sounds mysterious.”

  “Yeah. But is it wacked out to think there could be a connection?”

  “So you’re saying that Reagan takes Jules because she wrote a bad review of his book?”

  “Crazy, right?”

  “Yeah. A little bit.” She scooped more ice cream. “I mean, first of all, how would he know her? And how would he know she would be at the grocery store at that exact time?”

  Chris nodded. “Exactly. Except . . .”

  “Except?”

  “I got on her Facebook page and her blog. If someone was following her posts, they could pretty easily figure out a pattern. And she is definitely a pattern girl.”

  “So she always goes to the store at the same time, on that same day?”

  “Yes, according to her father.”

  Addy nodded. “Well, then I guess it’s not that far-fetched, is it?”

  “Isn’t it, though?” Chris put his head in his hands. “It’s ludicrous. Authors don’t kidnap fans because of bad reviews. The dude has written a ton of books. Surely this is not the first bad review he’s received. Aren’t they supposed to have thick skins and all that?”

  “I knew many writers in college. One was a close friend. He was a sensitive dude. Wrote romance. But I figured you have to be in touch with a lot of feelings to be able to write well.”

  “Yes, well, this guy writes about murder and mayhem. What kind of feelings is he in touch with?”

  Addy put the lid back on the ice cream. “You’re not going to let this go, I’m assuming?”

  “How can I? She’s Jason’s wife. Widow . . .”

  “Then I think you better go find Patrick Reagan.”

  ALL SHE HEARD WAS a room full of people laughing. Then a single voice. Then more laughter, like they all were in the presence of the funniest person alive. Patrick Reagan didn’t strike her as even the tiniest bit humorous.

  Unsure what to do, Jules stood for a moment at the bedroom door, trying to process yet another bizarre moment in her day.

  As she listened more carefully, she realized she was hearing a TV. Along with being humorless, he didn’t strike her as being a TV watcher either. For some reason she pictured him sitting near a fire in a dark turtleneck, smoking a pipe with Spanish tobacco in it, reading James Joyce for pleasure. The man had graduated with honors from Yale, though he’d been outspoken about his dislike for the school ever since. His mother had been a seamstress, his father a coal miner who’d died tragically in a car accident in New York when Patrick was just fifteen.

  He’d implied over the years, in the few interviews he gave, that his mother never accepted his career in literature and that she felt he had a mind meant more for science. Whatever the case, Jules thought he was suited perfectly for what he did. From what she’d read, he was always a bit embarrassed by the widespread success of his novels and their commercial appeal. But to her, it didn’t in any way diminish his talent. He had such a command of the English language and used words in a way that made her want to read and reread everything he wrote.

  Blinking her way back to the fact that she was still standing by the door, she heard the voices again and realized it was, indeed, the canned laughter of a sitcom.

  Jules opened the door and stepped lightly into the hall. As she rounded the corner, she saw a warm, comfortable-looking living room with leather chairs and couches and bookshelves on every wall, each running as high as the ceiling.

  Patrick sat with his back to her, leaning forward, engaged in what he was watching. The TV was small, but a modern flat-screen. She held her breath, taking in as much as she could. The room had a fireplace, but no fire. Off to the right looked to be a kitchen, painted dark red, with a dinner table in a very small dining area off the kitchen. Another hallway was just opposite where she stood, but she couldn’t tell where it led. There were two doors on either side of the cabin. Both looked like front doors.

  Patrick chuckled suddenly, right along with the laugh track. Jules didn’t know which show he was watching; she didn’t watch TV very much herself. But it looked like maybe M
ary Tyler Moore.

  Her hand slowly made it to her mouth as she began to realize where she might be. The cabin? The famous cabin? Nobody knew where the rumor came from that there was a hidden mountain cabin somewhere in Maine or one of the New England states. Some even speculated it was in Canada. But it was legendary among his fans as the place Patrick Reagan retreated to every winter to write his books.

  Was she really here? Could it be?

  Outside, it was almost completely dark. But it all made sense. She’d peeked out the window earlier and seen trees, like she was in the middle of the forest.

  “You’re early.”

  She gasped, not realizing he’d even turned to notice her. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve interrupted my show,” he grumbled, picking up the remote and shutting the TV off.

  “I’m sorry. Please, don’t mind me. . . .” The words sounded ridiculous as they spilled out. But she always sounded ridiculous when she spoke. “I just didn’t want to be late.”

  “Hm.” He eyed her, then went to the table, pulling out a chair for her.

  Jules sat and he gently scooted her forward. On the table were shiny brown ceramic bowls, with a silver spoon to the right of each one, a napkin neatly folded over the bowl, and water glasses already filled with ice.

  He took her bowl, went to the stove, and dipped something into it from a large, cast-iron pot. When he returned, the bowl was steaming and smelled amazing. It looked to be stew. Maybe lamb stew. He brought to the table a loaf of Italian bread, already sliced, on a cutting board.

  She waited patiently, her hands trembling underneath the table.

  Patrick joined her shortly, his own bowl filled. He sat down and stared at her for a long moment. She was hungry again, though her stomach churned with uneasiness that hid the hunger from time to time.

  “I am going to give you this warning one more time,” he said. He looked toward the door to her left, where a rack held several coats and two pairs of boots sat underneath. “Do not try to escape. It is too treacherous out there. More snow is expected tonight, and we are in a very remote place. You’ll die on this mountain if you try to get away.”