Chapter 60
“So just a cleaning today?”
From the outside and in the waiting room, the dental clinic had seemed old-fashioned, but in the treatment room, the lights were bright and the AC was on full blast.
“Yes, thanks.” Anna smiled at the young woman who’d introduced herself as Victoria while inwardly crying at the loss of a hundred dollars of her meager savings spent on something she didn’t want.
“Did you fill in the new patient and insurance forms?”
“I’m self-pay. Only in town for a few days.” She took the chair and wondered how she was going to get Victoria chatting while she was stuck with her mouth wide-open, unable to talk much herself.
“No problem.” Victoria beamed a bright smile, her ruddy cheeks and solid figure suited for somewhere cold and hardy, not this hot and arid landscape.
She was the same age Bonnie would have been, and in the About Our Team section on the website, it said she had worked here since she was eighteen doing her training.
Of the two hygienists showing on the Butterflies Dental Clinic—the only dentist in Harper’s Creek—website, Anna had made sure to book Victoria, not her much older male colleague.
Victoria was the same age, was working in the same place, and—a look through the blessed yearbooks had shown—had been in the same class at school as Bonnie.
“What brings you to Harper’s Creek?” Victoria asked as Anna settled down. “We’re not exactly a vacation destination.”
“It’s a family thing. Anniversary of my cousin’s death.” Anna looked Victoria straight in the eye as she lied. “She used to work here, actually, but you wouldn’t have known her, it was a while back. Anyway, I thought I’d come and surprise my aunt. Take her mind off it.”
“You mean Bonnie Buchanan?” Victoria’s eyes widened. “Sure I knew her. I was here then too. Oh my gosh, this is something.”
“No way!” Anna matched her expression as if this were a complete surprise. Victoria was baited on her hook. Maybe the hundred dollars would be worth it. “I figured you’d have still been at high school then.”
“We’re the same age. We were in the same class. I mean, we weren’t, like, close at school, but we got closer working here.” She rolled her eyes. “Everyone else seemed so old and we were both working for our dental hygienist exams.”
“That’s amazing.” Anna sat up straighter in the chair.
The cleaning could wait. “I can’t believe it.
I know it’s been three years, but I miss her so much.
It’s great to meet someone who knew her.
Such an unexpected a gift.” She hoped she wasn’t overdoing it, but if she was, Victoria didn’t notice.
She was just bubbly to be talking about Bonnie.
“We used to hang out at lunch together. Go to the diner or that deli place that’s closed now that was on Schweitzer.
She was a good listener, you know? My dad got sick for a while, and she covered some of my shifts for me.
” She paused. “But then, she was always here. Especially in the last year before—well, before what happened. She stayed late to study. Said it was easier than going home, but, I don’t know, that seemed odd to me. ”
Anna’s heart thumped. Victoria was obviously itching to gossip. “She told me she had a boyfriend, but she swore me to secrecy.” Anna leaned in to her as if the walls had ears. “Got weird about it and then never mentioned it again.”
“Ooh, my.” Victoria’s eyes brightened as she leaned back against the counter.
“You know, there was a lot that didn’t make sense to me back then.
The way she stayed here late all the time.
Didn’t want me to study with her, either, said she wanted to be alone.
She’d do the locking up. Then she missed some morning shifts, which wasn’t like her.
Always turned up by lunchtime with some excuse, but she sure looked unwell toward the end.
She puked here once too. Made me wonder if she was drinking.
Thought maybe this guy she was seeing—and she didn’t tell me there was someone, but it was obvious—was giving her bad habits.
Like, she was somewhere between happy and miserable.
You know how it can be in a bad relationship? ”
Anna nodded. “So she didn’t tell you his name either?”
“Uh-huh. I guess maybe it was someone she didn’t want her folks finding out about. Not that I ever saw them. They used the dentist over at Bryarton. You know the one, where Bonnie’s uncle was a partner. He suggested Bonnie train up but wouldn’t let her do it in his clinic.”
“Oh, yeah,” Anna said. “Of course.” She leaned back in the chair again despite really wanting to keep Victoria talking longer. “I guess we’ll never know.” She couldn’t risk it, though. There’d eventually be questions that would give Anna’s ignorance away, like any talk of this uncle in Bryarton.
“I guess not.” Victoria glanced up at the clock. “And I’d better get this cleaning done and let you get on with your day.”
Anna barely felt the work being done, the AC cooling her tingling skin.
Victoria was clearly observant but equally naive.
Bonnie had been throwing up in the mornings.
Looking ill. She’d been happy but miserable.
One possibility seemed to stand out to Anna.
Bonnie might have been pregnant. That could be a motive for murder right there.
But, she countered, surely that would have come up when her body was examined.
And if—maybe—Bonnie was killed by a lover, like the sheriff had said, why would that same person have killed Lila? It wouldn’t make sense.
As the machines whined and jet-sprayed her mouth, she thought of Grandma and the dead girls in her head. Ghosts. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy. If Bonnie had been pregnant when she was murdered, then that would stop her resting. A child murdered as well as the two women.
The cold air of the AC became an icy shroud around Anna as she wondered if the unborn baby had been a girl too.