Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
SATURDAY NIGHT, SEPTEMBER 9
I f Mary thought she’d have a comrade to tip cups with all evening, she was sorely mistaken. After I settled my meager belongings into her rickety dresser, I headed to the food store for provisions. She protested, saying she was fully stocked with groceries, but I insisted. Hadn’t my mother instilled in me proper manners? It was bad enough she’d be disappointed with me for showing up uninvited on Mary’s doorstep, duffel in hand. She’d never countenance me not pitching in for my own care and feeding.
In my car, arms stretched across the steering wheel, I took a moment to inhale deeply and hold my breath in my lungs before expelling it. After the food run, I’d park on the side street opposite and diagonal to my house, turn off the headlights, and watch my place. If anyone showed up, I’d call the cops to report the break-in.
But first, the food. I swung onto the main road that eventually swerved left, one lane splitting off into the parking lot of Great Grocer Food Store and Bee-Clean, an environmentally friendly dry-cleaning business.
Staring at the oversized line drawing of a bumblebee on the sign over the cleaners, I stepped out of my car and snagged a stray shopping cart abandoned in the center of a parking space. Once inside Great Grocer, I pushed through the wide aisles, selecting whatever items seemed appropriate for a last-minute guest to offer her host. I grabbed eggs, a carton of orange juice, a head of iceberg lettuce, comforted by the smooth glide of the cart’s wheels guiding my steps. If I kept my gaze locked far ahead of me, I could pretend I was pushing Emmy through the store.
I paused at an endcap separating the produce section from the cereal aisle, watching a man bent over a display of onions. As if sensing my stare, he glanced up and our eyes met. Jeffrey. I raised my hand to wave as a look of alarm crossed his face. My hand stalled in midair when he looked down, plucked a white onion out of the bin in front of him, and turned in the opposite direction.
What was that about? Didn’t he recognize me?
Abandoning my cart, I took off after him, watching his retreating back as he hurried toward the checkout section at the front of the store.
“Jeffrey,” I huffed, slightly out of breath as I stepped beside him at a self-check carousel.
“Hello,” he said, not looking at me.
“Hey, is something wrong?”
“No, not at all,” he said, finally glancing my way, but his voice was coldly polite. “I’m just in a hurry.”
“Oh, okay.” I watched him bag his groceries. “Have you heard anything about Annie?—”
“No, nothing.” His gaze locked with mine and in his eyes was a warning. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the same worn brown leather wallet he’d extracted at the diner. “Look, Caroline, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m late for an appointment.” He inserted his card into the slot on the machine in front of him.
Looking around, I wondered if someone was following him, but noticed nobody suspicious, just other shoppers ringing up their purchases all around us. No one even glanced our way.
Something was wrong, of course it was. Jeffrey had been cordial enough before. What had changed? Had he found Annie? Had she asked him not to tell anyone her whereabouts? Or, worse, had someone else gotten to him... and threatened him to stay away from her? Possibilities dashed through my mind even as Jeffrey scooped up his grocery bag and said goodbye.
I followed him, veering off to my own car, but keeping his retreating back in my line of vision. I started up my car as I watched him get into his. As he backed out of his parking spot, I was already rumbling along the pavement a few dozen yards behind.
Did he know I was following him? At the roundabout heading south, I let a red Kia in front of me so I could tail my quarry less conspicuously. No need to appear like the stalker I was.
He drove for miles, bypassing the turnoff for Deer Crossing, dodging onto unfamiliar streets in nearby neighborhoods. Eventually, he pulled into a convenience-store lot, quickly got out of his car, and rushed inside. I pulled up at the other end of the lot and parked, unsure what to do.
Maybe I’d buy a cup of coffee, casually approach Jeffrey and continue our conversation in the store. I grabbed my purse off the passenger seat and began rooting around, looking for loose change in the bottom of the bag, so engrossed in the task I didn’t notice the man standing outside the driver’s door. When he tapped my window I flinched and shot a look to my left, at Jeffrey’s red face. I rolled down the window.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Following you.”
“Why?” He sighed the way Tim always did.
“You left our discussion so open-ended. I’m afraid I couldn’t let it go.”
“I didn’t leave anything open-ended, Caroline. I don’t know what you saw in the window at Pine Hill Road, and I have no idea where Annie is, okay?”
“But you’re acting so?—”
“I’m not acting,” he cut in sharply. “I’m just busy. I have a life. And I can’t have you trailing me all over town.”
I looked into his wary eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He looked down and lowered his voice. “If I discover where Annie is, I’ll let you know.”
“Promise?” I lowered my chin, trying to get back into his line of vision.
“I promise,” he said, stepping back. Not making eye contact.
He’d lied to me. Why? I watched Jeffrey fold himself into his car. After he backed out and peeled away, I sat in my driver’s seat, thinking.
* * *
By the time I parked in the street opposite my house and turned off my headlights, all vestiges of twilight had vanished. I leaned forward and looked up through my windshield at the black canvas of sky above. The moonless night rendered the neighborhood a mass of blank space, a desolate landscape devoid of familiar shapes until my eyes adjusted to the lack of light. Slowly, the outline of my house materialized, like a cosmic magic trick. The front stoop’s harsh lines, and the stark cut of the asphalt driveway appeared more barren in the dusky hollows of the night.
The darkness wasn’t comforting. It merely cloaked the things I couldn’t face—like my uncertain presence in the flimsy, unsafe little ranch, unsure of what Tim’s next move would be. A choking pressure lodged in my throat as disjointed images banged into each other inside my brain, retreating as new ones edged them out: Tim’s angry face, mouth moving, eyes narrowed; the empty box dropping from my hand; Jeffrey’s retreating back; two teens gossiping behind the drugstore counter, their faces pressed up close, noses nearly touching; my mother’s mouth puckered in disapproval; the woman at the window, her hands grasping her throat. Her eyes pleading.
“Whatcha doing?” A voice shot through the shadows and into my left ear, making me jump. I whipped my chin left, seeing Mary bent close to the driver’s-side window, an inane smile across her lips.
“Jesus, Mary, you scared the shit out of me!” My breath spooled out as she laughed. “It’s not funny.”
“Sorry, Caroline. I saw your car’s headlamps just as the last of the lights in the neighborhood were blinking off. It’s extremely late, you know. I was getting worried about you.”
“Why would you be worried about me?” I snapped. “I’m a grown woman.”
Mary straightened, unperturbed, it seemed, by my tone. “You left for the food store nearly four hours ago.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, but as I looked around me, I realized Mary was right. Why hadn’t I equated the complete lack of light in the neighborhood with the late hour? “What time is it?”
“Nearly midnight.”
“No, how can it be...” I let my voice trail. How could I have let the night slip by without even noticing? How long had I been parked in front of the convenience store?
“No need to worry, Caroline. Nobody showed up at your place tonight. I was watching.”
Were my motives that transparent? Apparently.
“Come on now, we’ll get you inside.” Mary opened the driver’s-side door.
My pulse skittered. I was losing control. “No, I’ll pull into your driveway.”
She frowned, looking doubtful under the yellow glow trailing from the Honda’s overhead light.
I closed the door and started up the car. The headlights flashed into the shadows, illuminating my house in spotlight fashion. Without another glance at Mary, I shifted the car into drive, fighting a sudden, inexplicable urge to take off. Drive down the street and out of the neighborhood. I inhaled deeply, thought of Emmy, and turned the car toward Mary’s driveway.
When I was finally sitting in her tiny kitchen, she asked about the groceries I’d gone out for. I stared at her.
“Oh geez, I didn’t buy any.”
“No worries.” She smiled, looking oddly pleased. “How about a nightcap?”
I nodded. Booze would keep my mind from circling back to Jeffrey’s glare and Tim’s apathy.
I stared at Mary’s deeply scratched tabletop, but a flash of memory obscured it as I pictured my mother’s gray eyes, only inches away from mine.
You’ll get along in life if you just act nice.
That was true, wasn’t it? For her, I’d always tried, but I was not nice—hadn’t been for years, if ever. But not being nice wasn’t the same as being bad, right? Niceness was about nothing more than manners. Not as vital as kindness, which reflected genuine caring for others. I realized that now. Why hadn’t my mother ever stressed the distinction? I shook my head. Seemed I couldn’t stop thinking about Mother these days. Probably because of the dismal anniversary of her passing.
“This is just what you need,” Mary said, placing a rocks glass over the table gouges, dispelling my mom’s face. Bronze liquid rested in the bottom half of the glass.
My fingers encircled the cup. There was a reason Jeffrey had acted strangely, and it was connected to the terrified woman in the window. Had to be. I raised the glass and drained its contents. The sudden bitter warmth stung a trail down my throat, closing it up as if in reaction to an allergen. I coughed violently.
“You were supposed to sip that,” said Mary, uselessly smacking my back.
“May I have another?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. I needed sleep. Once I was rested, I’d be able to dissect Jeffrey’s apparent obfuscation. With rest would come the clarity and energy I’d need to shine the brightest light into the darkest corners of this thing and discover what had happened to the woman at 21 Pine Hill Road.