“Do you think you got the wrong address?” Amy peered at the blackened lot, filled with trash.
“I think she gave this address for a reason. Mostly because it couldn’t be traced to her.” I studied the street and noticed a group of young men on a porch up the road. We could stop, ask if they knew Jennifer, and keep following the clues. Or we could be safe and just go to dinner. Greg would be investigating this. No need to be the stupid girl who opens the door to the killer in the slasher movies. I put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. “Where do you want to eat?”
Amy suggested seafood, and I drove us to the place where Greg and I had our first date. “Best food in town.”
After a dinner of fish, clams, and scallops, Amy and I were on our way back to South Cove. Stopping at a light, Amy pointed to a couple of working girls standing on the corner and giggled. “There’s your redhead.”
I turned to look and did a double take. She was right. The woman’s hair was long and curly and just the shade of red I’d seen with Kent. But with all the women he had on the line, why would he hire a “professional”? A horn beeped behind me and I realized the light had changed. By the time I reacted, the woman on the street had gotten into a car and left. Now the driver behind me laid on his horn and I reluctantly left the corner.
“What if that was the woman?” I asked Amy who had leaned back, her eyes closed in some sort of food coma.
“Kent wouldn’t hire it out. It would make him feel like less of a man.” Amy yawned. “I’m going to go right to bed after this. I can’t believe I’m such a lightweight. I used to party all night, weekday or weekend.”
“We’re all getting older.” I sped around a car whose driver had never seen the ocean before.
“Speak for yourself.” Amy laid her seat back as far as it would go and put on her shades. “Wake me when we get to South Cove, okay?”
For the next fifteen minutes, with the car interior completely quiet, I thought about the paradox of Kent and the hooker. Finally I gave up. The only way he’d be with a prostitute was if he didn’t know what they really were. The realization hit me so hard, I spoke the thought aloud. “Someone else bought her for him.”
When I got home, I pulled all the pieces together under one name: Anne. She had motive, opportunity, and a burning desire to make Kent pay, even though she claimed she still loved him.
I wrote it all out and put my notebook into my purse. I’d stop by the station tomorrow after work—being sure to leave out the part about driving to Jennifer’s false address.
Greg wasn’t in his office the next day when I got off work. Esmeralda was at the reception desk, studying her tarot cards, when I arrived.
“You should have called. You just missed him.”
“When will he be back?” I peeked at her cards, wondering why she’d bring them into the office.
“Not until Friday. He’s got meetings in Bakerstown today and tomorrow. I thought he would have told you this.” Esmeralda’s eyes sparkled with humor.
Laughing, I shrugged. “I guess he did. I mean, I thought it was just Thursday.”
“Confusion happens.” She caught me looking at the cards. “The switchboard’s a little slow today, especially with Greg and the mayor out. Do you want me to throw your cards?”
Besides totally not believing, it always made me a little uneasy to consider having my future read. What if I was told I would die in a year? Would my disbelief protect me from an early demise? Or would I change my life, which would cause the prediction to change, only I wouldn’t know it had changed? See, this was why I didn’t believe. It twisted my head into a confused mess.
“I don’t know . . .” I stepped back. “Maybe I should just go home.”
I guess I didn’t move far enough away because Esmeralda caught my arm in a death grip, her bloodred nails digging a little into my skin. If I hadn’t been freaked before, I was now. “Come sit with me and I’ll walk you through the cards. Something’s telling me you need to be read.”
And something’s telling me you’re as looney as a parakeet. I sat down in the chair next to her deciding to humor her. Which seemed to work, as she released my arm. People thought the fortune-teller was a bit odd, but like most folks in South Cove, I knew she was just trying to get by. I didn’t believe she had an open line to the other world, but the woman was amazing at reading people. And that was a skill I needed. She gathered the cards together and had me shuffle them three times. The cards were made of heavy cardboard and not easy to mix together, but I managed. I pushed the deck toward her. But she didn’t touch them.
“Now cut the deck.”