Anna didn’t answer. It seemed like everything I said got under her skin.
“Did you hear me, Anna? I need you to do this for me.”
“Yes, I heard you. Fine. I’ll get someone else to look after the dog. What else do you want, Shelby? Why are you here? I’m cold. I want to go back inside.”
“You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
I told her about the shuttlecock and the Mittel Pines Resort and Jeremiah. She tried to pretend that the news meant nothing to her, but this time, I was the tornado, and Anna could hardly stay standing. When I was done, she shoved her hands in her pockets and ground her boot into the snow. She covered her hurt badly.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked her.
“What is there to say?”
“Jeremiah was your friend.”
“Yeah, well, finding an old badminton birdie doesn’t bring him back, does it?”
“That’s true, but we have another chance to figure out what really happened to him. He didn’t fly to that resort, Anna. It’s thirty miles from where he disappeared. Somebody grabbed him off that road and took him here.” I added after a pause, “And it wasn’t the Ursulina.”
“Yeah. I get that. I’m not a kid anymore, Shelby.”
“I never said you were.”
“Okay, so somebody took him. It sucks, but there are a lot of crappy people in the world.”
“I know.”
“What do you want with Will, anyway? He didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Have you and he talked about it?”
“No, but I know him. He’s not what you think.”
“You know him now. Or you think you do. Will and Vince were both hard cases, Anna. They were drug dealers. The only thing that put them out of business was the explosion. Ten years ago, they were out on that road selling meth to Adrian. They passed right by where we found Jeremiah’s bike. It’s not a big leap to think they grabbed him.”
“Will wouldn’t do that.”
“The resort is only a couple of miles from this house. That’s a big coincidence.”
“So what? Everybody knows about the resort. I’ve known about it since I was a kid.”
“What about Jeremiah? Did he know about it?”
Anna shrugged. “Sure.”
“How?”
“I took him there.”
“You did? Did his parents know?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. It was just one time.”
“When was this?”
“It was the year before he disappeared. Summer. Mom came out to Witch Tree to meet Breezy for lunch at the bar. I had to go along, because Dad was on the road. That sounded boring, so I asked if Jeremiah could come with and we brought our bikes. When we got here, he and I went off to explore the resort. I’d heard it was a spooky place. I figured it would scare him. And it did.”
She smiled at the memory, but then she wiped the smile from her face and looked upset.
“Did he have his badminton racket with him? Could he have lost the shuttlecock back then?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Did anything unusual happen while you were there?”
“No. I told Jeremiah it looked like the kind of place where the Ursulina would hide. I said if he was really brave, he ought to spend the night and see if it showed up.”
“You said that?”
“It was a joke, Shelby. It’s not like he was going to do it.”
“Did he talk about the resort after that? Did he ever tell you that he went back there with anyone?”
“No.”
“What about you? Did you go back there?”
“Sure. Lots of times. Will and I went out there last summer. We pitched a tent.”
“Why?”
“Will said it was haunted. He said maybe we would see some ghosts. He believes in crap like that, same as you. But we didn’t see anything. Now are we done, Shelby? It’s freezing out here.”
“Yes, we’re done, but remember what I told you. Be home tonight.”
“I heard you the first time.”
Anna headed for Will’s front door. The Doberman stirred as she did and began to growl at me again. I turned away, but when I reached the cruiser, I stopped and called to Anna before she went inside.
“Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Why Will?”
“What do you mean?”
“Anna, look at yourself. You’re a beautiful girl. Why hang out with Will Gruder? Do you love him?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Then why?”
“Everybody hates him,” Anna replied. “I like that.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I was at my wit’s end about Anna, and I needed to talk to somebody. Or I needed a drink. Or both. As I neared Witch Tree, I saw the lights on inside Breezy’s trailer. On impulse, I turned into the matted-down snow of her yard and parked behind her beat-up Dodge Durango, which had replaced Dudley. The yard was otherwise empty, so I hoped that meant Breezy was alone and not entertaining. She’d gotten older like the rest of us, but her reputation as Easy Breezy hadn’t changed.
She answered immediately when I knocked. Her face showed surprise that it was me on the steps. “Shel.”
“Hey, Breezy.”
“Everything okay? You don’t usually stop in here.”
“I was passing by and saw the light. I thought I’d say hi. I don’t want to get in your way if you’re busy.”
“No, it’s fine, come in. The only thing you’re interrupting is laundry.”
She waved me inside. Pop music played on a cheap old boom box. The interior of the mobile home was compact and cluttered. I saw dishes stacked in the kitchenette sink and clean clothes folded in piles on the dinette table and reclining chair. She cleared a spot for me to sit down in the built-in booth. I spotted a couple of old photographs hung on the wall over the sink, including one of the Striker girls after our volleyball victory. We had our arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. We looked very young.
“I’ve got a couple beers in the fridge. You want one?”
“No thanks, but you go ahead.”
“I can afford beer, Shel. Really.”
“Well, okay. Sure. Why not?”
Breezy grabbed two cans of Miller Lite from her small refrigerator. She popped both cans and put one in front of me. Then she grabbed a folding chair and sat down, propping her bare feet on the table and leaning back until the chair balanced against the door of the stove. Everything inside the trailer was a tight squeeze.
She wore shorts and a pink spaghetti-strap top. A toe ring with fake jewels shined on her left foot, and a tattoo snaked up her ankle. She wore her hair long and straight the way she always had, but she’d stopped using highlights a while back and let it stay her natural brown. It was loose around her shoulders. Her pockmarked face was winter-pale. She took a swig of beer and then grabbed a remote control and turned down the volume on the boom box so that the music was soft in the background.
We drank together for a few minutes, and Breezy did most of the talking. The air in the trailer was warm, and so was the beer. I hummed along in my head to the song that was playing, “Iris,” which had always been one of my favorites. When a T-shirt slipped off Breezy’s pile of clean clothes, I folded it and put it back.
“Anything going on with you, Shel?” she asked after a while, because I hadn’t said more than two words while we were sitting there.
“I’m just tired.”
“Well, you must have had a hell of a day. This whole thing with Jeremiah is something else, huh? After all this time?”
“Yeah.”