Chapter 1 #2
Groaning, she returned to the kitchen to pick up her tea, which had now steeped, then wandered around the garden for a little bit, trying to shake off the horrible feeling in her gut.
She worried about returning to work tomorrow, knowing everybody would pester her with questions—questions she couldn’t even begin to answer.
If Debbie quit, would she show up or not show up for her required notice period? Eden didn’t know.
And, if Debbie didn’t show, it would put even more pressure on the rest of them to get the job done, until Debbie was replaced.
That was just one more thing Eden was having a hard time coming to terms with about this whole mess.
Was Debbie this selfish? Would she care, when she came out of the trance of it all?
Maybe.
How far would she take it?
That’s debatable.
Until right now, Eden hadn’t realized just how little Debbie would care, how she was completely willing to let everybody else pay the piper, just so she could do whatever in this new relationship.
Eden shook her head. It had all just been too much, too damn fast.
She cried out, “Why? Why so fast? Why not take a moment and savor the growing relationship? Why jump like a crazy woman into this chaotic mess?”
Eden didn’t know.
There just didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, and that, as much as anything, scared her. She wanted to pull out her phone to see if Debbie had texted her, but no way she would, not after all that craziness. Debbie was dug in and good.
Honest to God, Eden wouldn’t even know what to say to Debbie now anyway. What her friend had done seemed to be such a foreign concept, including the way she had treated Eden. She wasn’t entirely sure that she could ever go back to the way they were.
So many things had been said—awful things, nasty things, insulting to the core.
How did one move past all that? I mean, it was easy for people to say, Oh, she wasn’t in her right mind, but, if Debbie wasn’t in her right mind, whose mind was she in?
Because it was an unbelievable display of meanness.
Some of the stuff Debbie had said was downright cruel.
Sipping her tea, Eden felt the tears collecting in the corner of her eyes.
When her phone rang, she looked at it and snorted because, of course, it was Debbie.
Eden shook her head at that and didn’t answer.
She was still too hurt, still in far-too-much pain from all Debbie had said.
At this point, the call seemed like adding salt to the wound.
It was impossible for Eden to even imagine exposing herself to such an irrational and unpredictable person right now.
Debbie phoned one more time a few hours later, but Eden didn’t answer.
She’d done her laundry and got ready for work the next day but hadn’t done anything related to this horrid weekend or to her misguided friend.
Eden was still very, very upset. She crawled into bed and, after a very difficult time, eventually crashed.
She woke up early in the morning to a phone call. Groggy, she answered it without thinking. “Hello?” A crackle came first on the phone, followed by a man who said, “Hello, is this Eden Landon?”
“Yes,” she said, shifting into a more upright position, trying to wipe the sleep out of her eyes as she gazed at her phone, not understanding the time, even as it glared right back at her.
“My name is Detective Eric Kent. We have your number from a friend of yours, a Debbie Kingston.”
“Yes,” Eden replied, her tone hardening. “What about her?”
Then came an odd silence, before he said, “Are you two friends?”
“Well, we were until this weekend,” she stated, “but yes.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Why? What’s the matter?”
“I need some information before I can say anything.”
She stared down at the phone, not comprehending. Who was this person, and why was he asking questions about Debbie?
“I need to know what happened this weekend.”
“Well, that’s nice,” she said. “I would like to know what happened too.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “I need to come speak with you.”
She groaned. “It’s six o’clock in the morning.”
“I know. My apologies.”
“You want to tell me what this is about?”
He read off her address over the phone, and she confirmed, “Yes, that’s me.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he noted and hung up.
She stared down at her phone in shock. Would this mess ever be over with? She had to be at work all too soon, without an unexpected visitor to tend with.
She didn’t even want to think about work, but she got up and managed a very quick shower, as much to wake herself up as anything, and had just got the coffee on when her doorbell rang.
Glaring, she walked over and opened the door to the detective standing in front of her. He held up his badge, and she looked at it and said, “Eric Kent? Police?”
“Yes. I’m a detective,” he clarified, with a nod.
She frowned, not sure what this was all about. “What can I do for you, Detective Kent?”
He motioned at the door. “May I come in?”
She hesitated and then shrugged. “I guess.” She let him in and added, “I just made some coffee. Would you like some?”
“I would love a cup,” he said quietly.
She tossed a glance back in his direction, not exactly sure if he was being facetious or not.
Such an odd tone filled his voice. He followed her into the kitchen, but his gaze was searching, looking around constantly.
“Look. I’m not sure why you’re here,” she said. “Maybe you could explain that first.”
He hesitated, looked over at her, and asked, “How long have you known Deborah?”
She frowned, thinking it over. “Known her? Probably close to twenty years. Been friends with her for fifteen, and that just ended.”
He was in the process of lifting his cup, when he looked at her in surprise. “Can you tell me what happened yesterday?”
Eden shrugged. “I mean, for a lot of people, it would probably be very normal,” she said, “but, for me, it wasn’t normal at all.”
He stared at her and just waited.
She sighed. “We went to this retreat to take a break from all the chaos. Work has been extremely stressful lately, and I was feeling overwhelmed and just needed to get away.”
“So, this retreat, what was it about?”
“A pretty standard off-grid kind of thing. Not unplugged but limited slots. The leader was a well-known meditation expert, a kind of self-help guru,” she said, trying hard to hide her distaste. “I just needed a break.”
He remained silent, letting her vent.
“I was going alone. Then Debbie decided to come with me, and now I wish to God she hadn’t.”
He stared at her, one eyebrow raised.
She shrugged, frowned, and added, “She fell for him … really badly.”
“Him, being—”
“The meditation guru and, from one minute to the next, he was her whole life. He was everything to her. Nothing else would be in her world but him—way over the top. I couldn’t believe it.
She gave notice on her lease and quit her job via text, without proper notice apparently,” she shared, raising her hands, “even though she knows we’re completely swamped. ”
“Are you saying you two work together?”
“Yes, different jobs but at the same place,” she said, groaning. “Anyway, yesterday, when I heard all that, I was trying to get her to slow down a bit, but she completely went off on me, saying a lot of horrible things. I ended up leaving early.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, I left her there, even though we drove together, and it was …” She frowned as she stared down at her coffee. Then she sniffled. She looked up at him in horror because the threat of tears was coming again. “I will not cry. Just … gimme a minute.”
He nodded but again his gaze was odd.
Rubbing the tears from her eyes, she continued. “Anyway, she was being so ugly and so mean that I just came home. And I don’t really know what happened to make her act that way, but apparently we’re no longer friends,” she said. “There it is, the whole story. Does that answer your questions?”
He frowned.
She frowned back at him and nodded. “Clearly it doesn’t, but that’s okay because none of this makes any sense to me either.”
“You mean, her relationship with the new man?”
“Yeah, her relationship with him for one thing,” she said, taking a sip.
“Honestly, she’s always tended to go crazy over men, especially whenever her relationship is new, but not like this.
Usually when she meets a new guy, she gets overly excited about it, but she’s never been like this, never turned … mean,” she added.
“So, she plays it kind of loose?”
“Always, as long as I have known her. She meets a guy and is immediately smitten, over the moon, but usually, within a short time, like one month to six weeks, she’s back to herself, acting as if nothing ever happened, except that her heart has been broken all over again,” she explained.
“So, I don’t know what to tell you, and I really don’t know why you care. ”
When he looked directly at her, something churned in her gut.
“Because she’s dead.”