On Mystic Lake

“Are you okay, Annie?”

Nick’s voice pulled her back from the dark edge gathering on her horizon. Forcing a smile, she turned into his arms. “I’m fine. ”

He stared down at her a long, long time. For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her, and she pushed onto her toes to meet his lips. But he just stood there, gazing down at her face as if he were memorizing everything about this moment. “It’s not going to be long enough. ”

Chapter 21

As Blake drove down the rutted pavement of Mystic’s main street, he remembered how much he’d always disliked this shabby little logging town. It reminded him of the town he’d grown up in, a dingy, forgotten farming community in Iowa—a place he’d worked hard to forget.

He pulled the rented Cadillac into a gas station and parked. Flipping up the collar of his overcoat—who in the hell wanted to live in a place where you needed an overcoat in late May?—he strode through the pouring rain toward the phone booth. Rain thumped overhead, so loud he could barely hear himself think.

It took him a minute to remember Hank’s number. He hadn’t dialed his own calls in years. Dropping a quarter in the slot, he punched out the number and listened to the ring.

On the third ring, Hank answered. “Hello?”

“Hi, Hank. It’s me, Blake . . . again. I wanted to speak to my wi—to Annie. ”

“Did you? That wasn’t my understanding. ”

Blake sighed. “Just put her on the line, Hank. ”

“She isn’t here. She’s never here during the day. ”

“What do you mean?”

“I gave you a number the other day. You can reach her there. ”

“Where is she, Hank?”

“She’s out visiting . . . friends at the old Beauregard place. ”

“The old Beauregard place. Now, that certainly pinpoints it for me. ”

“You remember the old house at the end of the lake road? An old friend of hers lives out there now. ”

Blake got a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What’s going on, Hank?”

There was a pause, then Hank said, “You’ll have to figure things out for yourself, Blake. Good luck. ”

Good luck. What the hell did that mean?

By the time Blake had asked directions to the lake road and got back in his car, he was irritated as hell. Something was not right here.

But then, things hadn’t been right in a long time.

He’d first realized that something was wrong about a month ago; he’d stopped being able to concentrate. His work had begun to suffer.

And it was little things, nothing really. Like the tie he was wearing today. It was wrong.

It was a stupid, nonsensical thing, and certainly no one would notice, but he knew. When Annie had bought him the two-thousand-dollar black Armani suit, she’d chosen a monogrammed white shirt and a silk tie of tiny gray and white and red stripes to go with it. It was a set, and he always wore them together. He’d realized a few weeks ago that he couldn’t find the tie. He’d torn the bedroom apart looking for it.

“I hope you’re going to pick all that shit up” was what Suzannah had said when she’d seen the mess.

“I can’t find the tie that goes with this suit. ”

She’d eyed him over the rim of her coffee cup. “I’ll alert the press corps. ”

She thought it was funny that the tie was missing, and that he needed it so much. It had occurred to him that maybe it was at the cleaner’s somewhere, his favorite tie, his necessary tie.