“Clint’s family does not miss me,” said Cindy, hastily, “they were tremendously relieved when I got out of town.”
“Forget about them, they’re sick people,” Ann said, sharply. “Besides, they didn’t know what they were saying or doing, they’d just suffered a huge loss.”
The taxi hit a bump in the rode then, that tossing Cindy and Ann up in the air, interrupting the conversation. Then, in a little while the taxi made a sharp turn and drove down the long, familiar, deserted road, right up to the end. Cindy’s clapboard beach house sat right there, where it had always been.
They got out, paid the driver, took their luggage and went to the door. As Ann had predicted, the deli had left several bags of food in front. Ann, laughing, picking up the bags cheerfully, as if she were moving back into her own home.
“Everything we need is right here,” said Ann, opening the front door.
Once inside the house, Cindy felt momentarily overcome. Just being there brought everything back, the marriage, the murder, the nightmare that followed.
Cindy walked into the living room. The photographs of her and Clint together were still hanging on the walls. They were smiling, laughing, holding hands. It was as if nothing had ever happened, as if time stood still.
“I thought you’d taken these photos down,” Ann said, looking around, distressed.
“I couldn’t,” replied Cindy.
Ann went inside the kitchen to unpack the groceries, as she had done so many times. Before long, Cindy smelled the familiar odor of freshly brewed coffee that Ann loved to make.
“Come on, in. Sit down,” Ann called from the kitchen.
Cindy walked into the kitchen and sat at the table that was still placed near the window, in the sun. It was still covered with her favorite red checkered tablecloth. Cindy ran her fingers over it. She and Clint had picked it out together.
Ann poured fresh coffee for them in two hand-painted mugs. Those mugs had been engagement presents from Cindy’s old friends. Somehow she hadn’t returned them. She’d returned almost all the other gifts though.
“This feels like a trip backwards through memory lane,” said Cindy softly.
“But it isn’t,” Ann bristled. “It’s a trip into a brand new era. There’s a reason you’re home now, Cindy, and I want to hear it.”
Ann always felt there was a reason for everything. But life wasn’t as black and white as Ann made it out to be. It wasn’t always possible to pinpoint the cause for whatever happened, although Cindy also used to believe that it was. She’d been a research assistant at a top newspaper in the city, loved tracking down little known facts. Now that she’d been working as a private detective, solving real life crimes, Cindy knew the facts didn’t always add up to anything that mattered. You had to go deeper, trust your intuition, tune into a gut feeling that couldn’t be explained. Whenever Cindy did that, something important happened. That’s why she had trusted her instincts so deeply yesterday, when Mattheus had spoken to her the way he did. Something inside insisted that she get out.
“Okay, Cindy,” Ann said then, eager to hear more. “Let’s have it. What happened in Grenada? Why the sudden flight home?”
Cindy wasn’t used to being questioned about her own life. These days she was the one questioning others, looking into dark corners.
“I needed a break,” Cindy started.
Ann grimaced and shook her head. She wasn’t buying it.
“Just like that? If you just needed a break, you would have let me know in plenty of time that you were coming home. You didn’t. It was the last minute. Your voice sounded troubled.”
Cindy smiled. “You’re in the wrong profession, Ann. You’re a better detective than me.”
Ann wasn’t budging, or smiling. “It’s common sense. You got into some kind of trouble? Something weird happened with that guy? I never had a good feeling when you talked about him. There were always too many unanswered questions, too many holes in his life.”
Cindy didn’t like hearing Ann call Mattheus that guy.
“I didn’t get into any kind of trouble,” Cindy said. “Actually, I was about to move in with Mattheus - and then I thought better of it.”
“What?” Ann gasped. “Move in with him? In Grenada? That’s where you two met, right?”
“Yes, we worked together on the first case I ever had. He was on the police force at the time.”
Ann’s face turned white. “You’re not actually telling me that you were planning to live with him permanently in the Caribbean?”
“It’s not all that far away, Ann,” Cindy became defensive. “Planes go back and forth all the time. It’s only a couple of hours longer than visiting you in Wisconsin.”
“That’s not the point,” said Ann.
“What is the point?”
“People who move to the Caribbean are always running away from something.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Cindy.
“Or they’re types that just want to hang out on the beach all day long.”