Chapter 5
I stopped in the parking lot, looking at the pho place. I loved pho. Had loved it since a cold afternoon in Seattle when Sybil had taken me to a tiny restaurant with foggy windows and plastic chairs.
We'd just started dating. I'd never had pho before and she'd ordered for me, watching my face as I took the first spoonful of that savory soup, the rice noodles slippery against my lips, the beef so soft it fell apart.
"I'm going to give you so many new things to try," she'd said.
She had kept her promise. Thai food, Ethiopian food, sushi, Indian, Korean barbecue. Nightclubs and wine tastings and casino trips I enjoyed at first before they grew tiresome. Twenty-two years of things I never would have done without her.
As bad as things got between us, at least she had shown me pho noodles. For that, I could be grateful to my ex-wife. I hoped the pho here would be good.
I walked into Charley's at two minutes to seven.
The inside was exactly what the outside promised: red vinyl booths, Formica counters, chrome stools at the bar, a pie case by the register showing what looked like coconut cream and cherry and something with whipped topping piled high.
The air smelled like frying oil and coffee and comfort.
Aimee was already there, in a booth by the window. She looked different outside of work. The same hair pinned back, but something easier about her. The store-counter alertness was replaced by a more relaxed feeling.
She had also changed clothes.
She was wearing something simple that fit her well, and she knew it fit her well. A thin cotton top in a deep blue that showed off her large chest. No bra. Her nipples poked through the fabric, easy to see even from across the room.
I felt my heartbeat speed up at the sight of her, knowing she had dressed this way for me. It had been a long time since a woman went to the trouble of looking nice for me. A very long time.
Aimee waved me over. I slid into the booth across from her. Before I had fully settled, a woman appeared at the table's edge. "Stella" was printed on her worn nametag.
Stella was somewhere in her sixties and had the tough authority of a woman who had worked a diner floor for decades. She probably had strong opinions about the right use of space and the correct way to hold a menu.
She looked at me with the judgment of someone who had seen every kind of person come through those doors. She looked at Aimee with the fond amusement of someone who had watched Aimee have dinner with different people over the years and saved final judgment on each of them.
"Brody's working the grill tonight," Stella announced. "Get the chicken fried steak. That's what he does best." She paused. "I'll give you a minute."
She said this as if it was a favor rather than normal practice, and disappeared toward the kitchen.
I looked after her, surprised at my welcome to Charley's Diner.
"I feel like I'm taking her order instead of the other way around."
Aimee laughed. "That's Stella. She's been working this diner for as long as anyone remembers. She knows everyone in Port Chasten, and everyone knows her."
"Looks like I don't have much choice about getting to know Stella as well. Since Charley's is the only diner in Port Chasten besides the pho place."
Aimee leaned her elbows on the table and looked at me in the same direct way she'd brought to the grocery store counter, except now there was no counter between us and the directness felt different. The way her arms pressed together showed off her breasts, and I didn't think that was an accident.
"Stella already knows you bought the James cabin.
" Aimee said this without apologizing. "This town has about nine hundred people in it in the off-season.
You're the most interesting thing to happen since February, when the Sandersons' boat broke loose from its rope and ended up on the rocks below the cove. "
"I didn't realize I was interesting."
"You're a single man who bought a remote cabin with cash and plans to live in it alone. In Port Chasten, that counts as really interesting." She tilted her head, studying me. "You working on a manifesto out there?"
I laughed. "Just insurance files."
"I only ask because most men who end up alone in remote Pacific Northwest cabins are either running from something or looking for something. Or both." She held my gaze. "I'd like to know which one applies."
"Probably both."
She seemed satisfied with this answer. She leaned back in the booth, settling in.
"So tell me about Port Chasten," I said. "You promised me local information."
She told me about the area with the ease of someone who had never lived anywhere else.
"Tourist season runs Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Town population triples. The cove gets full, the restaurants get busy, and the grocery store actually makes a profit.
" She shook her head, smiling at some memory.
"Last summer, I had these Russian tourists.
At least I think they were Russian. They kept coming into the store asking to buy marijuana.
Three days in a row. I kept telling them that it's only sold in special stores, not groceries.
They'd nod like they understood, then come back the next day asking again.
The third time, the big one with the gold chain just stared at me and said, very slowly, 'But you have snacks here.
Why not the marijuana to go with snacks?
' I almost couldn't argue with his logic. "
I laughed. "What happened?"
"I finally drew them a map to the dispensary over in Sequim. Never saw them again. I assume they're still over there, stoned and happy."
Aimee told me about the shore fishing, the kayaking, the coastal trail that ran north from the cove for eleven miles through state land. Then she leaned forward, her eyes bright with mischief.
"There's also a secret waterfall up in the cliffs above the cove. People go there to swim naked and have orgies." She let that hang for a moment. "Maybe I'll take you there sometime."
"I'll buy some new hiking boots right away. Is that proper attire for an orgy?"
She grinned. Then her face changed, growing serious.
"The tourists stop coming when the weather turns bad.
And the Peninsula gets serious weather in October.
If you have work to do on that cabin, you have about six months to do it before the storms make outdoor work really unpleasant.
I'm talking sideways rain for days. Wind that'll knock down trees. Power outages that last a week."
"I know about October storm season. I'm rushing to make sure the cabin will be ready." I met her eyes. "You're welcome to come visit the cabin. See the progress."
"You might be luring me out to the woods to do dirty things to me."
"Is that what you want to happen?"
She shrugged, her lips curving. "Maybe."
Stella appeared at the table's edge. I hadn't seen her approach.
"You want your usual?" she asked Aimee.
"Please."
Stella wrote on her pad. "Northwestern Steak Salad, medium well, blue cheese dressing." She turned to me. "And you?"
"Is the chicken fried steak really that good?"
"Yes, it is." Stella looked me over with a judging eye. "You look like a man who'd enjoy our chicken-fried steak dinner."
"Then I'll have the chicken-fried steak dinner."
She wrote it down. "Fries, baked potato, or onion rings?"
"Are the onion rings breaded or battered?"
"Battered. And delicious." She paused, glancing between Aimee and me. "Though onion rings might not be the best choice. Might make your breath smell." Another pause. "In case that matters."
I glanced at Aimee. She was shaking her head, smiling at the hint.
"I'll have fries instead. And a root beer."
"Good choice."
Stella disappeared. Aimee was still shaking her head.
"Now the whole town will know the new guy had dinner with me. Stella is the town gossip. Information center, really. Nothing mean about it. She just believes everyone's business is everyone's business."
"Is that a problem? Having dinner with me?"
"Not for me. I should warn you, though. I have a bit of a reputation for friendliness in Port Chasten."
"That doesn't seem so bad to me."
She liked that answer. I could see it in the way her shoulders relaxed, the way her smile deepened.
"So what do you actually do? You mentioned insurance files."
I explained the expert witness job. Building defect consulting, document review, deposition testimony. She listened with real attention, asking questions that were deeper than I'd expected. About the legal process, about how cases settled versus went to trial, about the money side of lawsuits.
"Do you testify in person?"
"Very rarely. Most depositions are remote now. Which is why I can work from home. I've got a satellite dish on my trailer. I'll set it up at the cabin permanently once I've got things settled."
She nodded, thinking about this. Then, casually, "Have you met Harlan Foster yet? Your neighbor alongside the James farm?"
"No."
"You will."
"Who is he?"
Aimee shrugged, her face clouding.
"Harlan Foster lives on sixty acres next door to Claire's farm.
He's the richest man in the area by a lot.
Old money. Nobody's totally sure where it came from originally.
Something to do with lumber, maybe, or real estate in Seattle back when real estate in Seattle was cheap.
But it's recent enough that his influence is felt in specific and practical ways. "
She counted them off on her fingers.
"The county commissioner returns his calls right away.
The planning department handles his permits with notable speed.
Local businesses depend on his goodwill in ways they don't always admit openly.
The diner here?" She pointed around. "Harlan helped refinance this diner when the owner retired.
The hardware store in Sequim gives him a contractor's discount even though he's not a contractor.
Little things like that. Favors that add up. "
"Sounds like a big fish in a small pond."
"That's exactly what he is. And Port Chasten has the complicated relationship with Harlan Foster that small towns always have with their richest residents. Gratitude and resentment in amounts that shift depending on who you ask and what they need from him."
I listened to all of this more carefully than I let on. I had already noticed problems in my property documents. A recorded easement that seemed questionable. An access agreement that mentioned boundaries I couldn't find on any survey. Strange issues connected to Harlan Foster's name.
I already knew from the real estate attorney that Harlan Foster had made an offer on the cabin and land that Claire had turned down. A generous offer, according to the attorney. The kind of offer most people would have accepted.
Claire hadn't.
I filed Aimee's description of the man alongside what I already knew and said nothing about either.
Stella arrived with big plates stacked with food. It was the kind of dish diners produce when they have been making the same chicken-fried steak for seventy years and have reached a unique perfection.
The steak was huge, golden-brown and crispy, covered in peppered cream gravy. Green beans that looked like they'd been cooked with bacon. A plate of fries that were thick and properly salted. A big glass of root beer with ice.
Aimee's salad was equally impressive. Top sirloin strips on field greens, blue cheese crumbles, toasted pecans, and grilled red onions. She picked up her fork and started eating with appetite and without self-consciousness.
I cut into the chicken-fried steak. It was excellent. The breading crunched under my knife, the meat tender inside, the gravy rich and peppery.
"Okay," I said. "Brody working the grill knows what he's doing."
"Stella told you so."
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Then Aimee set down her fork and looked at me with the directness she brought to everything.
"So what's your personal situation? Married, divorced, widowed... escaped from prison?"
"The usual. Married for a long time. Not anymore."
"Was it money problems?"
"There are always money problems. But that wasn't the main issue."
She nodded. "Bedroom problems?"
I looked at her. She looked back without blinking.
"That's a pretty direct question."
"I'm a pretty direct person. And in my experience, bedroom problems are usually the thing underneath the other things. The money fights, the arguments about nothing, the separate lives. Usually there's a dead bedroom underneath all of it."
I hesitated. But Aimee was so direct that I felt okay opening up to her. Plus, there was something exciting about how she was probing my sex life, her interest in me obvious and unashamed.
"The marriage had been over for a long time before it was officially over. And yes. The bedroom was part of the over."
She nodded as if I had confirmed something she suspected.
"I was married for eleven years," she said. "My ex-husband drank more than he should have. Earned less than he needed to. And failed to perform his husbandly duties with enough frequency or enthusiasm."
She said this last part with a directness that made it clear what she meant. Aimee spoke with an ease that suggested she had made peace with the whole situation and now saw it mainly as useful background information.
"I understand."
"I suspect you do. I've been single for three years, Thomas.
At thirty-eight, I have what I would describe as specific and unmet needs.
" She held my gaze. "I believe that two adults who are both neglected are an obvious solution to a shared problem.
The only question is whether both adults are practical enough to recognize it. "
She was looking at me with the settled patience of someone who had made a simple statement and was waiting for a simple response.
"I think I might be that practical."
She smiled. It was a genuine smile, warm and slightly wicked and totally without drama.
"I get off at six tomorrow. You should see Chasten Cove. The sunset from down there is something else."
Stella appeared with two pieces of cherry pie on small plates. The lattice crust was golden, the filling a deep ruby red that gleamed under the diner lights.
"On the house," she said, setting them down. "Welcome to the area."
She set the check down without being asked, directly in front of me. She looked at me with the stern expectation that the man would pay for the dinner.
I picked up the check. Aimee was grinning.
Stella disappeared toward the kitchen.
"I think she likes you," Aimee said.