by Madelyn Alt
At me.
Chapter 7
I smiled tentatively while my heart did a little Snoopy dance with the excitement of seeing him. It was in the next heartbeat that I noticed he didn’t look especially happy to see me. My bubble of joy burst with a big, juicy raspberry.
Small Stony Mill might be, but it was big enough that for more than two months Tom had managed somehow to avoid all the places I frequent. How many times had I thought I’d caught a glimpse of him, a victim of wishful thinking? Only to run into him, now, of all times, in a bar, of all places. Not to mention the fact that he found me in the company of Marcus Quinn, when I was supposed to be pining for him.
It just goes to show, Murphy’s Law is obviously alive and well.
I turned back to the table and picked up my drink, wishing I had chosen alcoholic after all. I didn’t understand what he was waiting for, why he wasn’t turning his back on me and walking straight out the door. I mean, he’d avoided me this long—why stop now? And Marcus’s knowing smirk made everything that much worse. Was I that transparent? The idea made me feel distinctly green at the gills.
A part of me wanted to sink into the cracked red leatherette booth cushion and disappear. Another part of me wanted to take Tom by the hand and lead him to the dance floor to get, er, reacquainted to the wail of the cheatin’ song on the jukebox. Still another part of me wanted to snub him horribly for turning me away for so long out of pure male stubbornness.
“Maybe we should leave,” I mumbled across the table.
“Too late,” Marcus muttered back under his breath, sliding insolently down on the bench, his knees jutting out akimbo.
“Maggie O’Neill. As I live and breathe.”
Or not . . .
“Can’t say as I expected to run into you this evening,” Tom went on, oblivious to my discomfort. “And what do we have here? If it isn’t the mighty Mr. Quinn. Wasting no time. Not that I’m particularly surprised.” He lifted his beer to his lips and took a draw from the bottle, his gray eyes never leaving Marcus’s face.
Marcus returned that storm cloud gaze with a steely one of his own. “Fielding. Off duty tonight, I see.”
His gaze dipped to the bottle in Tom’s hand. I could have sworn I saw a flush creep up Tom’s neck.
“Yeah. Off duty. It’s been a helluva week.”
I could see it in his face, a strain that evidenced itself around his eyes, his jaw, the very coloring of his skin. Something told me Tom was taking Amanda’s death just as personally as he’d taken Isabella Harding’s. A life taken before its time. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?” I said softly. “My mother knows her mother.”
“Mine, too.”
Small world. In towns like Stony Mill, the world was nothing but small. Sometimes that was a good thing, because the problems that plagued more urban areas tended to pass us by. But sometimes that meant pain and suffering flooded in to make up the difference, a product of small, closed minds. Tragedy, though—that was universal.
Marcus stood up abruptly. “I need some air. You be okay, Maggie?”
I smiled at him, grateful that he had picked up on my need to talk to Tom without an audience. “I’ll be right here.”
He tossed a last look Tom’s way, then sauntered away toward the men’s room.
I cleared my throat. “Why don’t you sit a moment, Tom?”
He hesitated, long enough that I thought he might refuse me. When he set his bottle on the table and sat down, I realized I’d been holding my breath. We sat on either side of the table, warily watching each other and waiting for the other to let down their guard.
I was never good at that kind of contest. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you around,” I offered quietly.
His gaze met mine, then skipped away. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a busy coupla months.”
If I’d thought he was about to give up the ghost, I guess I was kidding myself. That excuse barely even qualified as lame. I should know, I’d just used it myself with my mother. Before I had the chance to consider how I felt about that, I decided to proceed with the next best thing. “So, who was it that pulled her body from the river?”
He snagged his bottle and slouched down in the bench, his head tilted back against the seat as he stared up at the ceiling, where the rafters were hung with old farming implements, license plates, and a variety of throwaway antiques. “Tommy and Harlan Samuels. Stu Samuels’s boys. They were out exercising their hunting dogs when one of them found Amanda Roberson’s shoe. A little further along the river, they found her body.” A muscle jerked at the corner of his jaw. “She’s at the coroner’s right now.”
“Is it . . . was it . . . I mean, I hope . . .” I stopped, unable to get the question out without sounding like a totally insensitive ghoul.
He stared at me between slitted eyelids. “An accident? Hell if I know. There didn’t seem to be any outright evidence of foul play, thank God—can you imagine having to relay that kind of information to a seventeen-year-old girl’s parents? But . . .”
His voice trailed off, but not before I heard the undertone of uncertainty that lurked in the darker corners of his consciousness. “But?”
He sat up and his eyes met mine, pain and rage merging in the cool gray. “I’ve seen drowning victims, Maggie. My cousin Martin lost his footing on the drop-off out at Little Long Lake back when I was eight, and we couldn’t reach him. By the time they hauled him out of the water, it was too late.” He shook his head as if trying to send the memory back to the past where it belonged, then gave a harsh laugh. “I’ve been haunted by that face ever since. I’ve seen it again and again, every time there’s a boating accident, every accidental drowning. The bloating, the burst blood vessels, the strange color. Amanda’s body didn’t have that same look. If I was the kind of man to bet on things like that, I’d lay odds against there being water in her lungs. No water, no drowning. Which would mean, of course, that she died elsewhere and her body was dumped into the river. Much as I hate to admit it, my money is on this being no accident.”
I nodded, but my mind was racing. “Is that a professional opinion?”
“It’s professional speculation. I leave the opinions to the men of science. When the coroner confirms my suspicions, then I’ll bite.”
And yet I think we both knew that his instincts were dead on. It was that crazy sixth sense that electrified the air and intensified a person’s awareness. “How long before they make their assessment?”
“A day. Maybe two. A week, maybe, to get all the results back from the hospital lab. I have a feeling they’ll push this through as fast as possible—they want to catch whoever did this as much as we do.”
And in the meantime, a killer was free to walk the streets, secure in the freedom of the moment. Life just wasn’t fair. I twirled the ice cubes around my glass. “You know, Amanda came into the store on Saturday. A weird coincidence. I hadn’t seen her for years—since Mel baby-sat for her, gosh, that was a long time ago—and then boom, there she was, Christmas shopping with her friends.”
He laughed. “I could make a comment linking your place of employment and weirdness—but I won’t.”
I made a face at him. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
I didn’t want him to get on the subject of Felicity—he had been one of the people who strongly suspected she’d had a hand in her sister’s death. It was a sore subject for him, and I was too close to Liss by now to suffer his prejudices lightly. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”
The tension between us was back, and he was eyeing his beer with a renewed interest. If I wanted to keep him within my sphere of influence, and I did, then I needed to steer us back onto neutral ground. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to argue. I think it might be better for both of us if we agreed not to mention Felicity for the time being. Obviously we have different viewpoints where she is concerned—”
He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like Got that right.
“—so avoiding the subject altogether seems the best decision, in my book,” I finished, plowing right ahead and pretending I didn’t hear him. I meant to give him a charming smile, but I was pretty sure all I managed was a twisted challenge. “What do you say?”
He remained silent a moment, assessing me over the top of his beer bottle. Then he smiled at me. It wasn’t a perfect smile—it reached his eyes as admiration, but only just—but for the time being, it was enough. “Right. Yeah. Agreed. Sounds like the best plan.”
I smiled back, trying to make it a real one. “Good.”
We fell silent, each absorbed in our own thoughts, while raucous music and tipsy laughter ebbed and flowed around us. My attention drifted, touching upon the other visitors to the tavern. The large woman at the bar in droopy jeans and an oversized denim shirt who sagged blearily over her near-empty glass. The old man in a scruffy John Deere baseball cap and faded flannel, who was challenging a younger man of the same general dress to a game of darts. The sports junkies who congregated around the muted TV, howling over the scoreboards. The bikers and their babes holding court around the pool tables, who might have looked a little scary but were mostly harmless when left to their own devices. A familiar face at the bar, his usual ramrod posture yielding to the bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on the bar in front of him—Randy Cutter, I noted with some surprise. He didn’t seem quite the type, but I guess everyone needs an outlet on occasion.
Most of the other people in the bar proved to be more of the same. One seemed familiar, a pretty young woman in the corner—except I couldn’t figure out why. The guy she was with had his back to me, but he looked like your typical mid-twenties badass. In fact, he looked a little like Marcus from behind, minus the tied-back hair. Tousled hair curling around his nape and ears, tight T-shirt clinging to his biceps, holey jeans. She looked a little out of his league, actually . . . not that that was any of my business. His interest in her was undeniable—I was pretty sure it had something to do with the tight little body she displayed to the hilt in a flirty dress of baby doll pink. The young woman rose to her feet, bending low over the table to lay a warm kiss on the guy’s lips. As I watched, he toyed with the neck-line of her dress, an openly suggestive touch. She laughed and playfully batted his hand away, then sashayed toward the corner where the restrooms were located.
I racked my brain. I knew her from somewhere. But where?
As she walked past the bar, Randy Cutter’s head pivoted to follow her path.
Men.
“I’m gonna get going.”
The voice nudged at my consciousness. “Hmm?”
Across the table, Tom rose to his feet. “Got an early day tomorrow. Better hit it.”
I looked up at him, my concentration broken entirely. Disappointment hit a sour note in my stomach. “Oh. I see. Well, I suppose if you have to.”
“’Fraid so.” He scrubbed his palm against his jeans, then held his hand out to me. “Good to see you again, Maggie. Take care of yourself.”
He released my hand almost immediately, which disappointed me even more, then grabbed his leather jacket, and turned to go.
“Good to see you again, too,” I echoed faintly as he strode out the main entrance without even a backward glance. Something told me I wouldn’t be seeing him again. Not in a dating capacity, anyway, and not at his request. It seemed obvious that our relationship had ended before it had a chance to get started. And somehow I found the thought too depressing for words. I guess I had seen him as someone with a stronger character than that.
The reality of the bar came sifting back in on me, whatever glamour it had held earlier completely worn off. Now it just looked dirty, a little seamy, engulfed in shadow. The people, who earlier had appeared to be everyday people blowing off a little steam, now seemed nothing more than out-of-control drunks and incessant partiers who couldn’t deal with life in the real world, a world that had admittedly wandered off course and couldn’t seem to find its way back. I wanted to leave, but Marcus still hadn’t returned to the table, and I didn’t know where he’d disappeared to.
I sat for a moment, staring into my still half-full glass before my thoughts returned to the young woman in the pink dress. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself leaving my dark corner and following the way she’d gone, toward the ladies’ (term applied loosely) restroom.
Another nondecision that transitioned to action, as though my subconscious had taken control of my body.
There is something unsavory about a tavern restroom, and this one was no different. Three stalls stood on the far wall, each painted a bilious green, a color that must have been on sale at the hardware store at some point in time because it covered every bare surface in the room, including the ceiling. The first stall door was latched, so per the usual bathroom protocol, I skipped the middle one and quietly entered the far stall on the left. Trying to ignore the grime, the sticky floor, and the decades’ worth of messages etched through the thickest paint layers, I sat down on the closed toilet.
I could hear the blips and beeps of a cell phone emerging from the far stall. It was her, all right. If I glanced beneath the partial stall wall, I could see her feet, delicately shod in whimsical silver sandals. No one else in the bar tonight would have been wearing silver sandals, I guarantee. The young woman swore softly, and then I heard her dial the seven digits of a local number. I held my breath. I didn’t quite know why I was eavesdropping, but that didn’t stop me.
“It’s me,” she said to whomever had picked up on the other end. “I got your text message. Don’t worry, I’m out with Jason at the Little Nipper. Yeah, I know you don’t like it. I don’t see why not, though. Amanda’s gone. Nothing I can do will help that. But I don’t see why that should change things with Jason. I mean . . .Aw, come on, Lily. Don’t cry.”
Amanda. For the last three days Amanda Roberson had been on everyone’s lips. But this was different. The word “friend” floated into my head, and I knew instinctively that the connection was right.
“I know. I know! Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. Jason wouldn’t hurt me or anyone else. He’s really, really nice to me, you know that. And I like him. And besides, we don’t know what happened to Amanda, right? I mean, it could have been an accident, couldn’t it, just like they’re saying. Just plain, dumb bad luck? I mean, I know we both wondered if she was seeing other guys and all, but that doesn’t mean . . .”
That rolling sound that made her stop talking? It came from my stall. I must have leaned too far to the left in an effort to hear better. The plunger rolled out of my reach and under the next stall.
“Listen, I have to go. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Talk to you later.”
Almost immediately I heard the rattle of the latch, light footsteps on the plain concrete floor, a squeak of reluctant taps, and then water as it gushed down an open drain. The water went on for a few minutes, longer than seemed necessary. Finally the squeak came again as the water was turned off.
Any minute now . . .
I’m not sure when I became aware that she was waiting for me to come out. Eventually it became obvious she wasn’t leaving the restroom until I made an appearance, so I cleared my throat self-consciously and made a few ineffectual tugs on the lopsided toilet paper roll that some thrifty soul had squashed to make it harder to unravel. Inspiration struck—I lifted the lid of the feminine product disposal bin, tossed the toilet paper bits in, and let the lid drop with a bang. It was a sound every woman could identify that could explain anyone’s lengthy sojourn in the ladies’ toilet.
I flushed for good measure. When I could delay no longer, I unlatched the door.
She looked over her shoulder at me in the mirror as she applied powder from a compact—and paled. I didn’t imagine it. Abruptly she closed the compact with a snick and dropped it into a little silver mesh bag. Her dark hair fell over her cheek, hiding her face from me, but it didn’t matter. In a series of mental flashes, I realized where I knew her from.
One, Enchantments. Two, mantel clock. Three, Amanda’s friend.
Bingo.
She looked different tonight, her hair a mass of sultry, chin-length curls, tucked back here and there with some sparkling little clips. Expertly applied makeup that gave her a seven- or eight-year edge on her actual seventeen. The pink babydoll dress matched her overall appearance to a T. Youthful, but seductive. A man’s fantasy come to life.
Without further ado, she stuffed the rest of her makeup back into her purse. She’d just turned to escape when I stopped her.
“Excuse me. You’re Amanda’s friend, aren’t you?”
Slowly she pivoted back to me. Uncertainty flickered like a shadow in the depths of her eyes. “Um . . . yes?”
Her hand came up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her nervousness was palpable in the air between us, making it vibrate.
I tried a smile. “You came into the store I work in the other day, remember? Enchantments?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“I’m so sorry about poor Amanda. Such a terrible, terrible tragedy. The whole town is praying for her family. Were you very good friends with her?”
The girl just stared at me.
I held my hand out to her. “I’m Maggie O’Neill, by the way.”
She hesitated only a moment before she took my hand, I’m sure, because she’d been taught it was rude to refuse and she was still too young to realize that was more a guideline than a rule. “Candace Knightley. Yes, we were good friends.” She reached for a tissue and began to dab at her eyes.
“It’s hard to lose a friend, especially someone so young.” My idea of a subtle prompt. “I understand the school has arranged for some special counselors, to help kids who knew her come to terms with it all.”
“Yes. No one really knew her, though. Not really. She was a pretty private person.”
“But you two were close?”
“As close as anyone could be. I don’t think she really trusted anyone, as far as that goes.” She shrugged.