In a few minutes I heard a knock at the door. “Yes?” I called out. “I'm in the shower.”
I poked my head out between the shower curtains and saw Bob peeking around the door. “Louisa, Ambrose is here. He was able to get the tape already. I was planning to run into that town for coffee, but maybe I should wait to play the tape for you.” He stepped into the bathroom and pulled the door mostly shut.
“Ambrose didn’t bring coffee?”
“No, and he did apologize. He’s waiting on the porch until you’re dressed. He suggested that we go for provisions. Do you want us to wait so you can come along? Or shall we bring back stuff for breakfast?”
“If you don’t mind I'll stay here and wallow in the shower for a bit,” I told him. “But are you sure you have to go out of my sight? The last time we had a conversation like this you ended up getting kidnapped.”
“True. Maybe we could talk Ambrose into going and I could stay here and watch you shower. When I go into fits of caffeine withdrawal you could leap out of the tub to revive me.” He waggled his eyebrows again.
“Perhaps you had better go along to town. My first aid skills are rudimentary at best.”
“Practice could help them.”
“Just watch out for the bad guys, would you? I’m not up for any more forays into the woods.”
“I'll be careful,” he promised. “It shouldn’t take long. Ambrose knows the place so we won’t waste any time.”
“Okay.”
“I'll take Jack along for the ride. What about Emily Ann?”
“You can leave her with me, but hurry back.”
“Oh, I will definitely hurry back.” He came closer and leaned toward me to give my wet lips a quick kiss, and another lingering one. Finally he turned and left the room.
I looked at the door he’d disappeared through, then pulled my head back inside the shower curtains. I'd never seen the brand of shampoo in the shower before, but it was thick and amber colored and smelled wonderful. I piled my sudsy hair as high as its short length would allow, and let hot water rain on my shoulders and back while I drifted off in thoughts of Bob, his warmth and kindness and prickly whiskers.
When at last I felt sufficiently parboiled I peeked out to make sure no boy scout troops were hiking past the window. I had showered long enough for steam to cloud the glass, giving an other-worldly fog to the forest beyond.
I climbed out, wrapped up in one of the large, luxurious bath towels, and started to towel my hair. In my distraction I had neglected to rinse out the shampoo. Back into the tub to rinse, out again to dry and dress.
Orange juice was next on my agenda, but in the kitchen area, I saw the tape lying on the counter. The box was neatly lettered in Bob’s hand, “Ian Walsh—Copy.” The cassette, when I tipped out, had an identical label. I hadn’t noticed a television last night, but now I looked around. An armoire sat at an angle in the corner, between the windows on the front and side of the cabin. I walked over and opened the cabinet, and found a TV with a built-in VCR. I pushed in the tape, picked up the remote control, and walked back over to the kitchen area.
I pried out the can of orange juice welded by frost to the freezer. A cut glass pitcher was in a cabinet next to a row of crystal tumblers. I felt a goofy smile on my face as I stirred and thought about Bob. Soon that first lovely swallow trickled across my tongue and down my throat. Coffee could never be as good as this.
I set down the tumbler, picked up the remote and clicked to start the tape. A certain amount of fumbling was required before I could figure out how to turn up the sound. Bob was not in the picture but as the volume came up I heard his voice talking in a soothing tone.
“—a session with Ian Walsh. We have had three previous sessions. Ian is working toward hypnotic anesthesia for dental surgery. Today we will be testing the depth of his trance with temporal regressions.”
I took another sip of juice. On the screen I saw a young man, compactly built, with blonde hair and a slightly darker mustache and small beard that had the effect of making him look younger than his nineteen years. He was stretched out on a leather-upholstered chaise. His eyes were closed and he looked very relaxed. I studied his face, and liked what I saw. I felt a stab of hot anger that he was dead.
I turned to throw away the empty can, and heard a car outside. Emily Ann jumped off the love seat and ran over to the door. “That didn’t take them long,” I remarked. “I wonder if Bob or Ambrose forgot something.”
I meant to click the stop button on the remote but managed to hit the pause instead. Ian’s image froze on the screen, eyes closed but evidently speaking, his lips forming a word. I left it, hurrying across the room to throw open the door.
I expected to see Kay’s sleek red Mitsubishi that we had borrowed last night for the drive up here, or perhaps Ambrose’s Infiniti. Instead I saw a gray Mercedes.
The driver’s door opened.
The woman in red got out.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
My breath whooshed out in an audible gasp. The passenger door opened and my cousin emerged. She saw me in the open doorway and waved. “Lou, don’t panic, it’s okay,” she yelled.
Then the back passenger-side door opened and Ed Johnson, Willow Falls Chief of Police, crawled out, blinking. I stared at the car, half expecting more people to come tumbling out as though this were a clown car in a circus. Ed scowled as he flexed his shoulders and stretched. He looked at his wrist, but wasn’t wearing a watch, and that made him scowl more. Kay turned and said something I couldn’t hear across the top of the car to the other woman. Emily Ann started out the door. I grabbed her collar and held on as the three approached the porch.
“Geez, what a dump,” Ed said.
Kay paused to glare at him. “There you go, judging things by what they look like.”
He threw up his hands and growled, “Sorry! What it looks like is all I have to go on so far.”
She turned her back on him and led the way up the creaking steps and across the porch. I held my breath that the quaking structure would not collapse with the three of them standing on it. I backed into the room, still gripping Emily Ann’s collar. Kay and the other woman entered. Ed clumped in after a final disbelieving glare at the front of the cabin.
The blonde woman had on the same jeans and red plaid shirt she’d worn when she drove away in my car. She still possessed the beauty I'd first seen across a rain-swept parking lot, but up close her face was older than I expected, and she looked tired and worried. Faint dark smudges stained the skin under her deep blue eyes, and her lips were held in a thin line.
I looked from her to Kay. “What are you all doing here?” I demanded. “Did Ed arrest this woman?”
No one answered me. Kay had stopped two steps into the room, and the other two bunched awkwardly behind her. Kay’s eyes took in all the details of the cabin’s interior. Her gaze alighted on the still-tumbled sheets and covers on the enormous bed. She looked back at me with one eyebrow slightly raised.
“See, I was right, it is better inside than out,” she said, looking from me to Ed. My hand itched to give her a good smack, but I knew she would only laugh.
Ed grunted in reply. He crossed the room and sat on the arm of one of the chairs. He looked annoyed enough to assist me in anything I might want to do to Kay. He was very rumpled; his jeans and shirt appeared to have come directly from the bottom of a closet, his hair hadn’t seen a comb, and if he’d shaved in recent memory, it hadn’t been this morning. If he’d looked this angry the day they broke up, I suspected Kay had been lucky to get off with only a ticket for littering.
“What are you doing here?” I asked again. I couldn’t help how rude it sounded.