by Nora Roberts
along with what Linda-gail identified for her as a couple of whopping cutthroat trout. They all stared out into the bar with what Reece thought of as a little shock, a little annoyance.
The paneling, with its lower section of logs, looked as it it had soaked up a generation of smoke and beer fumes.
The floors were scuffed and scarred and had probably been hit with kegs of spilled beer over time. Part of the area, just in front of a low stage. was sectioned off for dancing.
The bar itself was big and black, and lorded over by Michael Clancy, who'd come to Wyoming straight from County Cork some twelve years before. He'd married a woman who claimed to be a quarter Cherokee and called herself Rainy. Clancy looked like what he was, a big, bluff Irishman who ran a bar. Rainy tossed nachos and potato skins, and whatever else she might be in the mood for, in the kitchen.
The bar stools were worn down on the seat and shiny from a dozen years of asses. There was Bud and Guinness on draft, and in long-necks a few local brews including something called Buttface Amber, which Reece had declined. Other options were Harp by the bottle, or if you were female—or a pansy in Clancy's opinion—Bud Light. The crowded display of liquor behind the bar leaned heavily to whiskeys.
The wine Clancy poured from a box, Linda-gail had warned Reece, was cheap and tasted like warm piss.
There were a couple of pool tables in another section, and the sound of balls clacking earned through the music piped through speakers.
"How's the head?" Linda-gail asked her.
"Still on my shoulders, and probably feeling a lot better than Pete's hand."
"Seven stitches. Ouchie. But he loved how you fussed over him when he came back in. Making him sit down, serving him that fried trout yourself."
"He's a sweet guy."
"Yeah, he is. And speaking of guys, now that I'm plying you with alcohol, spill. Just how hot is Brody?"
If she was going to have a girlfriend, Reece decided, she was going to act like one herself. She leaned in. "Combustible."
"I knew it!" Linda-gail banged a fist on the table. "You can just tell. The eyes, the mouth. I mean, there's the build and the rest of him, but the mouth especially. Biteable."
"It is, I must admit, it is."
"What other parts of him have you bitten?"
"That's it. I'm thinking about the rest."
Mouth open, eyes wide. Linda-gail sat back. "You have superhuman control. Is it learned or inherited?"
"It's what you call a by-product of abject fear. You've got the story on me by now."
To give them both a minute. Linda-gail sipped at her beer. "Does that bother you?"
"I don't know. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it's a relief."
"I didn't know whether to say anything about it or not. Especially after Joanie…" She trailed off and took a sudden, keen interest in her beer.
"Joanie what?"
"I wasn't supposed to say she'd said. But since I already have, sort of, she gave the bunch of us the what-for when Juanita started chattering about it. Juanita doesn't mean anything by it; she just can't keep her mouth shut. Or her skirt down, come to that."
Linda-gail took another sip of beer. "Anyway. Joanie pinned her ears back good about it. And she made it plain and clear that none of us were to poke at you about it. But since you kind of brought it up . .
"It's all right." And wasn't it, well, amazing, to have the inimitable Joanie Parks standing as her champion? "It's just not something I like to talk about."
"I don't blame you." Linda-gail reached out, squeezed a hand over Reece's. "Not one bit. If I'd been through something like that, I'd still be curled up in the corner crying for my mama."
"No, you wouldn't, but thanks."
"So, we'll just talk about men and sex and food and shoes. The usual."
"Works for me." Reece reached for another nacho. "As for food, you know what's gunked on here has absolutely no relationship with actual cheese."
"It's orange." Linda-gail dug in, scooped the loaded chip through something pretending to be guacamole. "Close enough. Just so we'll be on level ground, men-wise, I'm going to marry Lo."
"Oh, oh, my God!" Reece dropped the loaded chip on her plate with a plop. "This is great. I had no idea."
"Neither does he." Linda-gail crunched into her nacho. "And I figure its going to take some more time and ettort to refine him into anything worth marrying. But I'm really good at projects."
"Ah. Um, so you're in love with him."
Her pretty face softened, and the dimple deepened. "I've loved him all my life. Well, since I was ten, and that's a long time. He loves me, too, but his way of dealing with that is to run in the opposite direction and bang every female within reach so he won't think about me. I'm letting him get it out of his system—time's about up."
"Well, huh. That's a unique and broad-minded system you have there. Linda-gail."
"It's getting a little more narrow-minded these days."
"He and I never… in case you wonder."
"I know. I wouldn't hold it against you if you had. Or I wouldn't very much. Juanita and I get on fine, and he was lighting her up like Christmas a while back. Then again, who hasn't? "She chortled out a laugh. "But I probably wouldn't buy you a beer it he'd nailed you. We were together, Lo and me, when we were sixteen, but we weren't ready. Who is at sixteen?"
"Now you are."
"Yeah, now I am. He's just got to cacth up. Brody hasn't dated anyone in the Fist, in case you wonder. Word was he was seeing some lawyer type in Jackson on and off for a while, and there's been a couple of suspected oners with tourist types, but nobody right local."
"I guess that's good to know. I'm not sure what's between us, really. Except some heat."
"Heat's a good place to start. Being a cook and all, you should know that."
"It's been a while." Idly Reece toyed with the ends of her hair as she studied Linda-gail's do. "Where do you get your hair done?"
"When I'm in a hurry or when I want to splurge?"
"I'm mulling the splurge."
"Reece, Reece, you can't mull the splurge. You just, by definition, take the splurge. I know just the place. We can finagle Joanie into giving us both the same day off next week and go for it."
"Okay, but I should tell you that the last time I tried to keep a salon date, I ran like a rabbit."
"No problem." Linda-gail sucked orange goo off her thumb and grinned. "I'll bring some rope."
As Reece broke into a grin, one of the local cowboys sauntered up toward the little stage. He was a lean six feet in cowhide boots, faded jeans. The white circle worn into the back pocket came, Reece had learned, from carrying a can of snuff.
"Live entertainment?" Reece asked as he picked up a microphone.
"Depends on how you measure entertainment. Karaoke." Linda-gail lifted her drink toward the stage. "Every night in Clancy's. That's Reuben Gates, works out at the Circle K with Lo."
"Coffee black, eggs up on toast, bacon and home fries, Sunday morning regular."
"You got it. He's pretty good."
He had a deep, strong baritone, and was an obvious favorite with the crowd that whistled and clapped as he broke into his rendition of "Ruby."
As she listened to him sing about a faithless woman, she tried to imagine him standing by the banks of the Snake River in a black jacket and orange hunter's cap.
It could be him, she thought. His hands would be strong, and there was a stillness about him now as he stood, as he sang.
It could be this one, a man she'd fried eggs and potatoes for on Sunday mornings. Or it could be any of the men hunched at the bar or scattered at the tables. Any one of them could be a killer. Any one, she thought again as panic tickled slyly at her throat.
Music tinkled out, and the deep baritone cruised through it. Conversations continued, muted now out of respect for the performance. Glasses clinked on wood, chairs scraped the floor.
And the tickling panic began to close into a fist to block her air.
She saw Linda-gail's face, saw her friend's mouth moving, but anxiety had stuffed cotton in her ears. She forced a breath out, forced another in. "What? Sorry, I didn't hear…"
"You okay? You've gone pretty pale. Does your head hurt?"
"No. No, I'm all right." Reece made herself look back at the stage. "I still have some trouble in crowds, I guess."
"You want to get out? We don't have to stay."
And every time she ran, it was a step back. Just one more retreat. "No, no, I'm okay. Um. Do you ever do that?"
Linda-gail skipped a glance toward the stage as Reuben ended to enthusiastic applause. "Sure. You want to?"
"Not for a million dollars. Well, a half a million." Another man headed for the stage, and since this one carried about two-sixty on a five-eight frame, Reece decided she could eliminate him from her list.
He surprised her with a sweet, if thready, tenor on a ballad. "I don't recognize him," Reece commented.
"T. B. Unger. Teaches in the high school. T.B. for Teddy Bear. And that's his wife, Arlene, sitting there—the brunette in the white shirt? They don't come into Joanie's much, homebodies with two kids. But they come into Clancy's so he can sing, once a week. Arlene works at the school, too, in the cafeteria. They're sweethearts."
Literally, Reece thought as she watched the teddy bear sing his love song straight into his wife's eyes.
There was sweetness in the world, she reminded herself. And love, and kindness. It was good to be part of that again, to feel that again.
And to laugh when the next performer, a blonde with a tin ear and a lot of self-deprecating humor, butchered a Dolly Parton classic.
She made it a full hour, and considered the evening an enormous success.
Walking back to her apartment through the quiet streets, she felt almost safe, almost easy. As close to both, she concluded, as she had felt in a very long time.
And when she let herself in the door, she felt almost home.
After locking the door, checking the knob, bracing the back of a chair under it, she went to wash.
In the doorway of her little bathroom, she froze. None of her toiletries were on the narrow shelf by the sink. She squeezed her eyes shut, but when she reopened them, the shelf was still empty. She yanked open the mirrored medicine cabinet where she stored her medication, her toothpaste. It, too, was empty.
With a whimper of distress she spun around to scan the room. Her bed was neatly made, as she'd left it that morning. The kettle sat shining on the stove. But the hooded sweatshirt she knew she'd left hanging on the coatrack was missing.
And at the foot of the bed, rather than under it, sat her duffel.
Her legs trembled as she crossed to it, and the whimper became a muffled cry as she yanked the zipper and found her clothes neatly packed inside.
Everything she'd come with, she saw as she pawed through the bag. All her things, carefully folded and stored. Ready to go.
Who would do such a thing?
Giving in to her unsteady legs, she lowered herself to the side of the bed. And faced the truth. No one could. No one could, not with the new lock.
She'd done it herself. She must have done it. Some internal instinct, some remnants from the worst of her breakdown kicking in. Telling her to run, to go, to move on.
Why couldn't she remember?
Not the first time, she reminded herself, and dropped her head in her hands. Not nearly the first time she'd lost time, or couldn't quite recall doing something.
But it had been months since she'd had these kinds of episodes.
Almost home, she thought, fighting despair. She'd actually let herself believe she was almost home. When some deep-seated part of her knew she wasn't even close.
Maybe she should take a hint. Pick up the duffel and go down, toss it in her car and drive. To anywhere.
And if she did, anywhere would just be another place where she'd cease to be. She had a place here, if she dug in. She'd had a date, she'd had a beer with a friend. She had a job and an apartment. She had, if she held on to it, an identity here.
She put all her stuff away—the clothes, the toothbrush, the bottles, the shoes. Though her stomach was raw, she set up her laptop again. Wrapped in a blanket to try to battle a cold that came from inside, she sat down to write.
I didn't run. I cooked today, and earned my pay. Pete gashed his hand while washing dishes, and the blood shook me. I fainted, but I didn't run.
After work, I went to Clancy's for a beer with Linda-gail. We talked about men, about hair, about normal things women talk about. There's karaoke at Clancy's, and the walls are crowded with the heads of dead animals, Ek and moose and deer, even bear. People sing, mostly country, with varying degrees of talent. There was the onset of a panic attack, but I didn't run, and it got better. I have a friend in the Fist. More than one, really, but there's nothing quite like a girlfriend.
Sometime today I must have packed my things, but I don't remember doing it. Maybe I did it on my break after Pete hurt himself. Maybe. The blood, seeing the blood shot me right hack to Maneo's. So it was, for a minute, Ginny's blood, not Pete's.
But I've unpacked it all, and put everything away. Tomorrow I'm going to see Doc Wallace to describe, as best I can, the man and woman I saw along the river. Because I did see them. I saw what he did to her.
I didn't run today. And I'm not going to run tomorrow.
* * *
Chapter 13
DOC WALLACE set out tea and coffee, each in lovely old stoneware pots, and sugar cookies on a pale green Depression glass plate. He served it all among the framed family photographs and fussy throw pillows of his pretty parlor with the finesse of an elderly aunt entertaining her weekly book club.
If he'd troubled with the fussy touches to relax Reece. he'd succeeded. She found herself charmed instead of anxious while they sat in front of the low glow of the fire with the scent of gardenia potpourri scenting the air.
Her first impression was of comfort and ease, and her second: This was a man who'd been well trained.
No wall of animal heads here, she thought, no wagon wheel lights or thick, Indian-style blankets. Though she knew he fished, there was no stuffed trout over the mantel, but a lovely oval mirror in a cherry-wood frame.
Her grandmother would have very much approved.
In fact, she thought the room could easily have been found in a home on Boston's Beacon Hill, and said so.
"It was my Susan's favorite room in the house." Doc passed her the tea he'd poured himself. "She used to love to sit and read in here. She was a great reader. I've kept it as she liked it."
He smiled a little, handed Brody a cup of to. "Figure she'd haunt me otherwise. And fact is…" He paused a moment, and behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes were kind and shrewd. "I can sit down here after a long day and talk things over with her. Now, some people might think that's a little crazy, a man talking to his dead wife. I think it's just human. A lot of things some might think are a little crazy are just human."
"Being a little crazy's just human." Brody commented as he helped himself to a cookie.
"I'd be human then. And look," Reece began, "I appreciate you trying to put me at ease. I do, and you have. But I know I'm a simmering stew of neuroses with chunky bits of phobias, seasoned heavily with paranoia."
"It's good to know yourself." Brody bit into the cookie. "Most people don't know they're nuts, which is annoying to the rest of us."