She couldn’t figure it. Pretty much the only thing in her apartment that had anything to do with Nikki was: her ashes. If they were after the gun, well, she didn’t have that. It was still at Nikki’s place, sitting in her closet. The only other thing was… the laptop.
But she’d already looked through its folders and files, and there was nothing in it. The address book contained a dozen names beside Duran’s and her own, and none of them was of much interest: Ramon and the bank, a couple of takeouts. Jack’s vet. There were some other names that she didn’t remember, but all of them were transparent. A nail salon. Merry Maids. That kind of thing. There were no boyfriends who might be blamed for her suicide, or any listings to suggest membership in the Georgetown Militia or the Lady Snipers Association.
Still…
When she got back to the house, she saw that Duran had done the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. She heard the television in the other room—a bright voice delivering a line of dialogue, a responding surge of laughter—but when she went in, she found Duran asleep on the couch.
Carrying the laptop into the kitchen, she set it on the table, raised its screen and toggled the On-Off switch. Then she sat back, and waited for the machine to boot up.
It took a minute to go through its routine, and when it was done, she logged onto Nikki’s AOL account, letting the automated password routine do its work. Soon, she was in the “Mail Center,” looking at New Mail, Old Mail, Sent Mail… and, of course, there was nothing of interest. A couple of bulletins from Travelocity; some newsletters from the Jack Russell Terrier Society; come-ons from E*trade and a couple of e-tailers selling vitamins, makeup and nutritional supplements. But that was it.
Signing off, she returned to the Windows Desktop and clicked on the icon for Nikki’s accounting program, Quicken. She had the vague intention of “following the money,” but the program must have been bundled with Windows when Nikki bought it, because it had never been used.
There was a calendar in the Microsoft Outlook program, and if Nikki’s life had been anything like Adrienne’s, it would have been quite revealing. Her own calendar was crammed with appointments and reminders of every kind. It tracked her weight, and logged the distances she ran. It reminded her of birthdays, deadlines, and a lot more. But Nikki’s calendar was as stripped-down as her life. There were appointments—with Duran, the nail salon, the hairdresser, the vet. And every two weeks, the simple legend: A—here at 7, or A—her place at 8—reminders of the alternating venues for their dinners together (half of which, Adrienne realized, she had weaseled out of). But that was it. The calendar did not reveal Nikki to be a secret churchgoer, devil-worshiper, or art student. She had not attended a support group for the ritually abused. Neither had she taken marksmanship lessons.
All in all, the laptop’s files were a disappointment, but they were not a surprise. After Europe, Nikki’s life had been remarkably self-contained. She’d gone blading, walked Jack, and kept almost entirely to herself. Other than that, and her sessions with Duran, she hadn’t done much of anything except, perhaps, watch television. So the blandness of her calendar did not come as a shock.
But it did raise an obvious question: why did Nikki need a computer at all? She could have done as much with a pad of Post-its. So maybe it wasn’t the computer they were looking for when they turned her apartment upside down. Maybe it was something else. (Then again, maybe she’d overlooked something.)
Suppressing a yawn, Adrienne went through the calendar, month by month, looking for something—anything—that might be unusual. But there was nothing. A dental appointment in July, a trip to the kennel in October, a reminder to see Little Feat at Wolftrap.
Adrienne frowned. Kennel?
Returning to the October entries, she clicked on the 19th, and brought up a screen:
Subject: Jack to kennel.
Location: Arlington
Start time: Sun 10/07
End time: Fri 10/12
Adrienne sat back in her chair, and eyed the screen with a look of puzzlement. Nikki never went anywhere—so why would she put Jack in a kennel? She thought back to the month before. There were a couple of days—she remembered, now—when she’d tried to get in touch with Nikki, but couldn’t reach her by phone. What was that all about?
She remembered being concerned, concerned enough, at least, to send an e-mail—which Nikki ignored, just as she’d ignored the messages on her answering machine. Adrienne had been about to go over there, to see if she was all right, when Nikki finally got in touch, acting as if nothing had happened.
Where have you been?
Nowhere.
‘Nowhere’?
I was busy. I forgot to call you back.
Adrienne thought about the date. October. Beginning of October. Right about then. A surge of guilty pleasure ran through her, riding the realization that her sister had lied to her. It was right there on the computer, and in her own words: Jack to kennel / Where have you been? / Nowhere.
She shut off the computer, got to her feet, stretched and yawned. Nikki had had a secret life. Somewhere.
In the morning, she woke to the sound of rain—a lot of rain—and the muted roar of surf, the unfamiliar feel of a bare mattress under her skin, and a scratchy blanket.
The cottage didn’t come with linens and this had slipped her mind when she and Duran went to the outlet mall. There were a couple of tattered beach towels, though, so at least a shower would be possible. Her head hurt and she put her hand to its side, gingerly exploring the swelling above her ear, a swelling that seemed, if anything, more tender than it had the day before. Swinging her feet out of bed, she glanced at her watch and blinked with surprise: it was almost noon!
She dressed quickly, pulling on a T-shirt and running shorts, although her plans for a morning run seemed overruled by the rain. Duran had been up for hours. He sat on the couch, showered and shaven, the remote in his hand. When she entered the room, he pressed the Mute button.
“Hi,” he said.
“You watch a lot of television, don’t you?”
It was a rhetorical question, but the irony went right past him. He thought about it. Finally, he said, “Yeah. I do.”
Like it was a realization.
He snapped the TV off, and tossed the remote aside.
“You should have woken me,” she told him.
He shrugged. “Why? It’s pouring outside.”
“There are things to do—before we go to New York.”
“Like what?”
“Coffee first,” she replied and, turning, went into the kitchen to put the teakettle on the stove. There was a plastic Melitta cone and a box of filters on the counter. Putting a filter into the cone, she placed it atop a blue cup, and spooned a couple of tablespoons of coffee into it.
“Did Nikki ever go away that you know of?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Duran replied, joining her in the kitchen.
“I mean, did she ever go out of town—as far as you know?”
Duran frowned.
“It would have been in the beginning of October,” Adrienne continued. “About ten days before… “ The teakettle began to scream, and she let the sentence die as she poured the boiling water over the coffee grounds.
“She missed an appointment,” Duran told her. “Around that time.”
“Did she do that often?” Adrienne asked.
He shook his head. “No. Hardly ever.”
“Do you know where she went?”
Duran shrugged. “No, but… when she came back, she was tan. I remember kidding her about it. I asked her where she’d been.”
“And?”
“She said she’d gone to the beach.”
“Which one?” Adrienne asked.
“She didn’t say. And I didn’t press it.”