There was a silence on the other end of the line. “Mrs. Gottlieb?”
“Um, how did you know Annabelle?” she asked finally.
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “That’s why I wanted to talk to Erin. You see, I’m doing some research on my family tree-a master’s thesis on genealogy, actually. There’s a chance I could be related to Annabelle. I was hoping Erin might be able to give me some information about the Schlessingers.”
“I don’t think she could tell you much. Erin and Annabelle really weren’t friends for very long.”
“Anything would be helpful, Mrs. Gottlieb.”
“Well, I suppose you could phone her at work. You can reach her at the Pampered Pup.”
It was a doggie daycare and grooming place located in a strip mall near Willamette University. George had decided he’d get more information out of Erin if they talked face-to-face.
Apparently Erin had been expecting him, one way or another. When he told the Pampered Pup receptionist he was looking for Erin, the heavyset, terminally bored-looking young woman came around the lobby desk, then escorted him to the back. She opened a door that must have been soundproof, because the sudden din of yelps and barking startled him. She led him to an alcove, where about two dozen small-and medium-sized dogs were in cages, stacked one on top of the other.
“Hey, Erin,” the receptionist yelled over the racket. “You’ve got a visitor.” Then she wandered back toward the front office.
Erin was thin with straight, dark-blond hair, glasses, and a pierced nostril. She stood at a long steel sink, washing a slightly hyper Jack Russell terrier. She wore a dark-blue work apron over her black sweater and jeans. She nodded instead of shaking his hand. She had on yellow rubber gloves, and worked a portable shower nozzle over the soapy dog.
“Hi, I’m George,” he said. “Sorry to bother you here at work.”
“It’s okay. My mom called to tell me you might be calling or coming by.” Erin gave him a wry grin. She had to talk loudly over the continuous barking. “All these alarms probably went off when you told her you were related to Annabelle Schlessinger. Mom always thought Annabelle was a terrible influence on me. So, what did you want to know?”
“Well, I read that story in the Statesman Journal about the fire, and what you said about Annabelle.” George leaned against the dry end of the long sink. “It was an interesting quote, very poetic…”
“Oh, that force of nature speech,” she said, chuckling. “I got so much shit from my other friends about that. But I honestly couldn’t think of anything nice to say. Annabelle and I were officially avoiding each other weeks before the fire. But I guess I knew her better than anyone else, so I had to come up with something for that stupid reporter.”
“Your mom indicated that you and Annabelle weren’t friends for very long,” George said.
Washing under the dog’s tail, she nodded. “Yeah, she was just a little too clingy and possessive. Can I be totally honest with you? I mean, you didn’t know her, right? You don’t want me blowing smoke up your ass, right?”
“No, I’d appreciate your honesty. Really, it won’t offend me at all.”
“Well, it’s funny. All the guys were hot for Annabelle, because she was pretty and had big boobs. But she just used them. It didn’t take long for me to realize she was a manipulative bitch, and you can throw crazy into that soup, too.”
“Crazy, how?”
“Well, I guess this goes with the clingy, possessive part of her character. But she wanted us to work out our own secret language, so we could write and talk to each other, and no one else would understand. She even wanted us to dress alike at school. I mean, how queer is that? Oh, and she claimed she could read my thoughts. That was another thing. Annabelle said she was telepathic. I remember laughing at her and saying she was tele-pathetic, and she got really pissed off at me. I think that was the beginning of the end for us.”
She picked up the terrier and moved it farther down the steel sink. “Better back up,” she said.
But George didn’t hear her past all the barking and yelping. He was thinking about the matching clothes, a secret language, and some telepathic connection. Was Annabelle hoping Erin would take the place of the twin she’d lost?
“Hey,” Erin said loudly. “Unless you want to get doused, better stand back. He’s gonna shake it off.”
George backed up toward the cages, and watched the dog shake off the excess water. Erin started working a towel over him.
“Did Annabelle ever mention to you that she had a twin sister?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, Andrea.” Erin said, nodding. “She told me Andrea was abducted by some pervert neighbor when the kid was four, and he raped and killed her. I mean, talk about creepy and tragic, right? And then I talked to another girl in my class, Deborah Wothers. Annabelle tried to be Deborah’s friend for a while, because Deborah’s so nice and everybody loves her. But Deborah was smart enough to keep her distance. Anyway, she told Deborah that her twin sister, Alicia, slipped and fell in the tub and drowned or some bullshit like that. So, you’re telling me she really did have a twin?”
George just nodded. He knew both stories were fabrications, of course. But he wondered if there was a sliver of truth to the abduction incident.
Erin had stopped drying the dog. She stared at George. “So, this twin, how did she really die?”
“She didn’t. She’s alive, and her name’s Amelia,” he explained. “The Schlessingers put her up for adoption when she was four. I’m trying to find out why. Amelia doesn’t know anything about her birth family. I was hoping you could fill in a lot of blanks for me, Erin. Did Annabelle ever talk about her mother?”
With a dumbfounded look, Erin shook her head.
“Nothing?” he pressed.
“Well, I heard she offed herself when Annabelle was just a kid. She hanged herself in the basement or something. Annabelle was supposed to have found her. I never had the guts to ask her for details.”
“What about the father?”
She shrugged. “I used to see him at church, that’s it.”
“Didn’t you ever see him at Annabelle’s house?”
“I never went there. I don’t think anyone in the class did, either.” Erin wrapped the dog in the towel, then carried him to a cage, and set him inside. With a sigh, she pulled off her gloves. “Anyway, I never set foot in the place,” she said. “Annabelle always came over to my house. She pretty much hated living out there at that ranch in the middle of nowhere.”
“Did Annabelle ever talk about her Uncle Duane?” George asked.
Erin pried a stick of Juicy Fruit out of her pants pocket, then unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. “Nope, sorry.”
She put her work gloves back on, opened another cage, and pulled out a miniature schnauzer. “C’mon, bath time, you mangy son of a bitch,” she muttered. She set the dog in the steel tub, then stopped and turned to George. “You know who you should talk to? Mrs. Cadwell, our homeroom teacher sophomore year. Caroline Cadwell, she was practically a friend of the family. I think she even knew Mrs. Schlessinger. She could tell you a lot.”
“Caroline Cadwell,” George repeated. Along with Erin, she’d been quoted in the newspaper account about the fire.
Stroking the dog’s head, Erin paused to glance at George. “As far as the Schlessingers go, Mrs. Cadwell knows more than anybody else, and she’s seen more than anybody else. She can tell you all about the fire, too.”
“Really?” George asked.
“Oh, yeah,” she replied, nodding. “Mrs. Cadwell’s the one who identified the bodies.”
Salem, Oregon-July 2004
It was 8:50 P.M., and still light out-still pretty hot, too. But she felt a soft, cool evening wind against her bare legs.
Eighteen-year-old Sandra Hartman cut across the deserted baseball field. Her shoulder-length black hair was freshly washed, and she wore a blue blouse, khaki shorts, and sandals. She warily eyed the empty bleachers. The place kind of ga
ve her the creeps at night, even with the late sunset.
She was on her way to meet some friends at Lancaster Mall. They planned to see Dodgeball, of all things. The only reason for going was because a bunch of guys she knew were supposed to show up.
Sandra lived eight blocks from the mall. It wasn’t very pedestrian-friendly right around there. Ordinarily, she would have driven over. But her parents had taken the car for some business dinner her dad had. When she’d mentioned she might go to the movies, he’d insisted she grab a ride from a friend or stay home.
Everyone was still in a panic over the disappearance of Gina Fernetti just ten days before. The story was on TV and in the newspapers. Regina Marie Fernetti was twenty, a journalism major at the University of Colorado, and home for summer break. She and two girlfriends had gone to the Walker Pool on a busy Saturday afternoon. Gina had driven. They’d just claimed a spot on the grass, and laid out their blankets when Gina announced she wanted to get a certain tape cassette out of the car for her Walkman. She left her purse and blanket behind, and went off toward the parking lot with her car keys. When she didn’t return fifteen minutes later, her friends checked the lot. Gina’s car was still there, still locked. They searched the pool area, and had her paged over the public address system. The lifeguards even made everyone get out of the pool for ten minutes just to make sure Gina hadn’t missed the announcement. Gina’s girlfriends finally called Mr. and Mrs. Fernetti who, in turn, called the police.
No one had seen Gina Fernetti since. She’d just vanished.
So Sandra’s father was being a bit crazy-overprotective. To appease him, Sandra had tried to get one of her friends to pick her up at the last minute, but with no luck. They were carpooling over to the mall, and it was already crammed. Sandra figured she could get a ride home later from one of the guys, and her dad would be none the wiser about her walking to the mall alone.
She had about twenty minutes until the movie started, and figured she’d be at the mall in ten. Sandra noticed the street-lights go on as she made her way across the baseball field. She slipped through an opening in the fence, and started down a residential street. She didn’t see anyone else around. It was a bit eerie and unsettling. On a warm night like this, more people should have been out. Was what had happened to Gina keeping people inside with their doors locked?
Sandra picked up her pace, but then suddenly balked when a shadow swept in front of her. She realized a car was pulling up behind her with its headlights on. She glanced over her shoulder: a silver SUV.
Strange, five minutes ago, she’d noticed a silver SUV coming up the road toward her before she’d cut through the baseball field. Was this the same one?
The vehicle slowed down and pulled over to the curb in front of her.
“Shit,” Sandra murmured. A little alarm went off inside her. She quickly crossed the street, and watched the SUV slowly creep over toward her. She walked as fast as she could without breaking into a sprint. She told herself not to run. As long as she pretended not to notice them, they wouldn’t know she was scared and they wouldn’t start chasing her-not just yet. Somehow, maybe it would buy her time. She could be overreacting too. Would someone really try anything in a residential neighborhood, where people could hear her screaming? Plus, it was still kind of light out, for God’s sake.
Then again, the light hadn’t protected Gina Fernetti. She’d vanished in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and no one had heard her scream.
The silver SUV crawled down the street, keeping pace with her. Sandra’s stomach was in knots. Could it be some friend of hers, playing a joke? Well, it wasn’t funny, damn it. On her left, Sandra saw a two-story white stucco house with a car in the driveway and lights on in the front windows. She thought about running up the walkway and pounding on the door.
She casually glanced to her right at that silver SUV. The driver’s window went down. “Hey, Sandra! Are you going to the mall? Do you need a ride?”
It took Sandra a few moments to recognize the driver, and when she did, she let out a weak chuckle. “Oh, my God, you scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry,” said the girl behind the wheel, smiling. “I wasn’t really sure if it was you or not. I’m headed to the mall. Do you need a lift?”
Sandra hesitated. If she accepted the ride, she’d feel obligated to invite her along to the movie. It was the polite thing to do. But she really didn’t like this girl very much. In fact she hardly knew her. She was a sophomore, two years behind her. It was weird how the girl had called out to her from the car window like they were good friends. The only other time they’d ever talked was in the school cafeteria two months before. The sophomore had approached Sandra while she’d been eating lunch with her friends.
“You must be Sandra Hartman,” she’d said. “You wouldn’t believe how many times people mistake me for you.”
“Oh, really?” Sandra had said, with a baffled smile.
“Yeah, I can totally see the resemblance now. We’re almost like twins.”
“Well, huh, maybe. Anyway, nice meeting you,” Sandra had said. Then she’d turned away. Her friends at the table had started teasing her. “Who the hell was that?” Sandra had whispered. And then one of her friends had told her.
That had been the only other time she’d talked to Annabelle Schlessinger.
“Sandra? Are you headed to the mall?” Annabelle asked from the driver’s seat of the SUV.
She worked up a smile and nodded. She figured her dad was probably right. In the wake of Gina Fernetti’s disappearance, it wasn’t smart to walk around alone at night. And it was starting to get dark. She’d be better off riding the rest of the way. So what if Annabelle ended up tagging along to the movie with her? There was no reason to be snobby toward her. In fact, Sandra realized as she stepped closer to the SUV and locked eyes with Annabelle that there was indeed a resemblance between them. “I’m meeting some friends to see Dodgeball. Do you want to join us?”
Her mouth open, Annabelle stared back at her and blinked. Stopping, Sandra saw tears well up in Annabelle’s eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I–I really wish I could go to the movie with you guys, more than anything,” Annabelle murmured. Then she cleared her throat, and straightened up behind the wheel. “Thanks anyway, but I can’t,” she said, more control in her tone. She gazed at the road in front of her. “I’m headed to the mall to run an errand for my father. Hurry up, get in.”
Sandra walked around the front of the car, a bit puzzled by Annabelle’s strange reaction to such a casual invitation. At the same time, everything was coming out all right for her. She had a ride to the mall with no strings attached. She didn’t have to spend the rest of the night with Annabelle clinging to her.
“Oh, you’ve got the air-conditioning on in here,” Sandra said, sliding into the front seat. “Feels like heaven.”
Annabelle said nothing. She stared straight ahead.
Once Sandra shut the passenger door and buckled her seatbelt, the SUV started to inch forward. After a few moments, Sandra glanced at the speedometer: 10 mph. “What, are you afraid of getting a ticket?” she asked. “Why are you going so slowly?”
Annabelle didn’t answer. The SUV crawled past the end of the block toward a turnaround area by some woods. The headlights and interior lights went off, and suddenly they were swallowed up in darkness. “What the hell’s going on?” Sandra asked.
The car stopped. Hands on the wheel, Annabelle wouldn’t look at her. Instead, she glanced up at the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, Sandra,” she muttered listlessly. “I guess you haven’t met my father.”
“What?” Sandra checked the rearview mirror, and saw a shadowy figure suddenly spring up from the floor. She gasped.
All at once, he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. It happened so fast, she couldn’t fight him off. He slapped a wet cloth over her mouth. It must have been soaked with some chemical, because it burned her face. Sandra’s eyes watered up. She tried not to br
eathe in, and desperately clawed at his hand.
But he wouldn’t let go. Almost unwillingly, she gasped for air, and then realized it was too late. Sandra had never experienced this sensation before. She wasn’t passing out, or falling asleep, or even fainting. No, this was something different.
Sandra Hartman felt herself surrendering to something very close to death.
Seattle-three years later
“Nope, sorry, I still haven’t seen hide nor hair of Amelia,” Jessie said into the phone. In front of her on the McMillans’ kitchen table, was a pile of laundry, still warm from the dryer. “No calls either, except from Karen, checking up on me about a half hour ago.”
“Okay, Jessie, thanks,” George said on the other end of the line. “Jody should be home from school in about an hour. Could you take him with you when you go to pick up Steffie at Rainbow Junction Daycare?”
“You asked me that this morning, and I will,” Jessie said. “Now, can I tell you something? That cleaning woman of yours isn’t worth the powder to blow her to hell. There are dust balls behind your sofa and under the cushions, I found three old French fries, a plastic barrette, some popcorn and forty-seven cents in change.”
“Well, you can keep the barrette, but I want the forty-seven cents,” George said. “You sure everything’s okay there?”
“Peachy,” Jessie assured him. “I’m folding laundry, and after this I’m taking out your recycling. Pretty exciting, huh?”
“Well, take a break, for God’s sake,” George replied. “I’ll talk to you later, Jess.”
She hung up the phone, and finished folding the clothes. Then Jessie got the recycling bin out of the pantry, and carried it out the kitchen door. She lumbered up to the edge of the driveway and let out a groan as she set the bin on the front curb.
Jessie paused to take a look down the block. She spotted a black car parked about four houses down on the other side of the street. But it wasn’t Karen’s Jetta, and that was the one she was supposed to be on the lookout for.
This car was just a beat-up old Cadillac.
With a sigh, Jessie turned and headed back for the house.
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