“I’ll open some red.” He disappeared, coming back a few minutes later with a bottle of 2006 Betz Syrah. “If you’re going to get drunk, let’s at least do it properly.”
Taking two burgundy glasses from the cabinet, he poured them both a glass. Before he handed one to her, he asked, “Before I give this to you, why don’t you tell me why we’re getting drunk tonight?”
She looked to the ceiling and then to his eyes that peered at her with an unflinching scrutiny. “We buried Otis today.”
“I know. Of course I know.”
“Then where were you?”
“I couldn’t come.”
“Why?”
“I just couldn’t.”
“That’s bullshit. I thought you’d come for me, at least. Knowing… everything.”
He sighed, kicking off his shoes. “Listen, I tried. Why do you think I’m wearing black on a day like today? I’m sorry I let you down. I wanted to be there for you. Truly.”
She took a sip of wine, still hurt, unreasonably so, she understood, but the alcohol made her irrational. Just let it go. “I think Marco had something to do with it.”
He sat up, his face surprised, then concerned. “Why do you think that?”
“A gut instinct.” She ran her index finger around the rim of the glass. “That’s all. Just my gut. And I can’t stop feeling guilty. Why did my screwed up life have to hurt someone innocent?”
“You don’t know if this has anything to do with you or not. The guy was homeless and schizophrenic. Surely there’s a chance he could have run into some trouble all on his own.” He looked up at the ceiling, tugging on his ear. “As a matter of fact, your theory makes no sense at all.”
Could he be right? It was true that Otis had lived on the streets and in the woods. He could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time. “It could’ve been meth related,” she said out loud. “Those people are crazy. He might have accidentally stumbled into something they didn’t want him to see.”
“Exactly.” He drank from his glass, reclining into the couch. “So stop feeling guilty when it’s not your fault.”
She didn’t say anything, just continued to sip her wine, watching the shadows in the corner of the room.
“You’re not responsible for everything that goes wrong, you know,” he said.
“I know.”
She reached in her pocket and pulled out the note from Marco and handed it to him. “I thought I saw him today at the funeral. And Tommy found this.”
His face went white as he read it. “I should’ve been there.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. He vanished into thin air. Just left this hideous note.”
He sat up, placing his glass and the note on the coffee table. “I’ll take this to Fred in the morning.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.”
“He’s going to keep hunting me until I slip up somehow.”
“No. That’s not how this is going to end. We’re going to catch the bastard.” He watched her carefully for a moment. “Did you eat today?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“Dammit. And now you’re drinking on an empty stomach. Smart.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will when you’re puking later.” He stood, grabbing the bottle of wine from the table and gesturing towards the kitchen. “Come on. I’m going to heat up one of the meals in the freezer for you.”
She followed him reluctantly. It had been so nice on the couch with his blue eyes across from her. “I’m not hungry.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re eating.”
Just then the front door slammed. Bella? Where had she been?
“What are we drinking?” asked Bella from the kitchen doorway, looking at the glasses in their hands. “And is there anything to eat?”
Drake, shaking his head as if in disgust, motioned for her to sit at the counter next to Annie. “Pour yourself some Betz. I’m heating something for Annie.” He took a package out of the freezer.
“Is that lasagna? I’ll have some. I mean, if there’s enough,” said Bella, pouring a generous amount of wine into the glass Drake had set on the counter.
“Where have you been?” asked Annie, squinting. Everything was a little fuzzy.
“I went out. To the bar at Riversong. Holy God, Tommy’s so hot.”
Annie giggled. “Everyone thinks so but me. I can’t think of him that way.” She shuddered. “He’s like my long-lost brother or something.”
“How was it?” asked Drake, almost carefully, like he didn’t want to spook Bella. “Any men?”
Bella sighed. “Are you kidding? I now know why Annie’s single. There’s not a single decent available man here. Not that I’m looking, mind you.”
“You should be. I mean, looking for someone decent,” said Drake.
“Do you have to dig at me all the time?” Bella went from sounding resigned to angry in a flash. “I’m here, aren’t I? Trying to get over him.”
Drake shrugged. “I guess. Have you called him?”
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t. And I’ve heard nothing from him. I guess it’s finally over.” She tipped back her glass, drinking at least a quarter of the wine in one gulp.
“Take it easy. This is Betz. To be savored, not drunk like cheap beer at a frat party,” said Drake.
“Stop bossing me around,” said Bella.
Annie started to giggle. These two were like children sometimes.
“What’s so funny?” asked Bella.
“You guys are,” said Annie. “Always fighting over the dumbest stuff.”
“Well, it’s not me,” said Bella, crossing one leg over the other. “He picks at me all the time.”
Drake poured the rest of the bottle into his glass. “I don’t. You’re just over-sensitive.”
“Whatever.” She downed the rest of her wine. “Can we open another bottle?”
“Go get it,” said Drake, taking the food out of the microwave.
“No more for me,” said Annie. Was she slurring her words?
Bella wriggled her eyebrows and pulled on one of Annie’s curls. “Our girl’s drunk.”
“I had a bad day,” said Annie. “A really, really bad day.”
Bella hugged her. “Sorry about your friend.”
“I just hope he’s at peace now.”
“He is. Of course he is,” said Bella.
“You don’t know that,” said Drake.
“Yes, I do.” Bella moved towards the doorway. “And you used to know that, too.”
Know what? That there was a better place after life on earth? Why didn’t he know that now? Not that she was sure herself. Was there really a heaven? If so, how did one get there?
While Bella was out of the room, he served the lasagna on two plates. Then he filled a water glass for Annie. “Drink this.”
She obeyed, mostly because she knew he was right. The room was starting to tilt slightly. No more wine. Water. And food. She gazed over at Drake, trying to focus, but her vision was blurry.
“Eat,” he commanded.
She took a bite; it tasted like nothing.
He watched her, leaning on the counter with his elbows. “Keep going.”
“Okay, okay.” She was finding it hard to talk now. “You are kind of bossy.”
“I don’t care. Someone has to keep you girls from causing yourselves harm.”
Bella was back then, holding a bottle of JM Cellars in her hands. “Love this wine. Remember when we went on the tour when I came up that time? John Bigelow, the owner, is the best tour giver ever, Annie.” She turned to Drake. “Remember how Esther kept talking about how I should have my wedding there?”
“Bella. Don’t.” Drake’s voice was a growl.
“Why? Can’t I talk about her? Ever? I can’t pretend like she never existed. Or that I didn’t love her.”
He slammed his glass down hard on the counter, snapping the stem in half, the bulb of the glass shattering. “
Because I cannot hear it, that’s why,” he shouted. Red wine mixed with glass was the shape of Texas on the counter.
“This is crap, you know that. It’s been three years. I’ve cut you a lot of slack but I will not have you tell me what I can and cannot talk about,” Bella shouted back at him, her voice breaking.
“How like you to make this about you.” Drake slammed his hand on the counter.
“I’m not making this about me. God, that’s so typical. You need to get to a damn shrink.”
Drake’s face distorted and turned red; his voice was loud and hoarse. “You know how long I did that. Don’t pull the shrink card on me like I didn’t do my work. What I went through is not something you get over, Bella. How you don’t know that is beyond me.”
Rage, Annie thought. Pure rage. Be careful of the glass. Annie slid from her stool, holding onto the side of the counter for support, the tears coming. Her stomach lurched with the fear that came in waves. She wanted to beg them to stop but no words came. Get out. Leave them to it. The room swayed. Just put one foot in front of the other. Hold onto the wall if you have to, she told herself.
Both Bella and Drake turned to look at her, their angry faces turning crestfallen at the sight of her. “Jesus, we’re scaring her,” said Drake. “Annie, it’s all right. We’ll stop.”
She nodded, still holding onto the counter. “It’s fine. I just have to go to bed.”
Bella put her arm around her shoulders. “Come on. I’ll help you.”
“No,” said Drake. “I’ll do it.”
“I can’t walk by myself,” Annie mumbled.
“It’s all right. I’ll carry you,” he said, gently.
Carry her? That would require touching.
“Put your arms around my neck.”
She did so as he scooped her into his arms. Her head, so heavy, plopped onto his chest. How good he smelled. Yes, she could still smell him, despite her drunkenness. Still want him. He carried her down the hall and to her room, setting her on the bed. She rolled to her side, trying to focus on a spot on the wall so the spinning would stop. Drake was beside her now, asking her to sit up and drink from the glass of water in his hand. “And take these,” he said, handing her two pink pills. “Advil.”
After she swallowed them, she lay on her back and closed her eyes. “Everything’s spinning.”
“How much did you drink before I came home?”
“Two glasses.”
“And then another of the Betz. Three glasses total. Sweetheart, you cannot hold your liquor.”
“Never have been able to.”
“You feel sick?”
“No. Just when you were fighting. I hate fighting.”
“We scared you?”
“Yeah. Marco turned purple and then he would hit me, over and over.”
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Bella and I fight hard like that. We get over it though.”
“You carried me,” she whispered.
“You needed me.”
Her eyes fluttered open. There were his blue eyes watching her. “I do. All the time now.”
“Close your eyes. Go to sleep.”
“Stay with me?”
“Of course.”
And then she was out cold.
Chapter 17
A week later, Drake was on the phone when Annie walked through the front room. As she passed through she heard him say, “Come down next week. We can scope it out together, but I’m telling you it can work.”
Annie was sipping her coffee when he came into the kitchen, his face lit up like he was excited about something.
“Something amazing just happened,” he said. “My buddy in Seattle just called me. He’s a VP at Hylink, in charge of customer care all over the world. And they’re looking for a location for their new call center. Someplace cheap where there are lots of folks needing work.”
“Like here?” she asked, feeling excited.
“Yes. Like here.” He rubbed his hands together. There was a glint in his eyes she hadn’t seen before.
“And they could train people to do this work easily?”
“Yes. All they do is manage the support functions and route their field engineers to where they’re needed. Anyone could do it.”
“What’s Hylink?”
“They make chips. Custom programmable chips.”
She smiled, shrugging. “Okay. Well, that sounds good. I guess.”
He chuckled. “Bella never understands any of it either. Says it’s all mumbo jumbo. I’ll just say this. They make products that help run a lot of things.”
“Do you know what this could mean for us here?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. You must have put something in my food at Riversong because I’m starting to feel the bug. The minute Ben called I thought it was meant to be or something. He’s going to come out next week and take a look, but I know he’ll think River Valley is perfect.”
“I cannot wait for you to tell Mike. He’s going to be beside himself.”
A week later, Annie watched from the deck as Benjamin Fleck arrived at Drake’s home, driving a red Porsche. Ben, as he told Annie to call him when Drake introduced them, was in his mid-thirties, of medium height and lean, with dark blond hair cut short and light green eyes, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt. When he shook her hand, he looked directly in her eyes, smiling broadly. His eyes twinkled, like something was about to make him laugh. “Good to meet you, Annie. Drake told me I can look forward to some good meals while I’m here. I like nothing better than food.”
She smiled back at him. “Then we’re going to get along very well.”
“Come inside,” Drake said. “Annie, I invited your gang over for dinner. I know it’s Monday and your day off so if you’d rather order pizza we certainly can.”
“What?” she asked, startled.
He shrugged and opened the door for them. “Figured it would be good to have them all out to meet Ben in person. And I promised Sharon I’d have her out.”
For a recluse, he was acting very social.
“No pizza. I’ll cook,” she said.
“You sure?”
Knowing how hard it must have been for him to invite the entire gaggle out, it was the least she could do for him. “Yes. I’d love nothing better.”
That evening, Annie was setting the table in the dining room when Bella came in, wearing nothing but her pink bikini, flip-flops, and a straw hat. “Hey, girlie,” she said to Annie. “What’s going on? Wait a minute.” She indicated the table with a surprised expression on her face. “Are we having people for dinner?”
“We are. Your brother’s buddy’s here, remember?”
“Oh, right. The high tech drone.”
“Drone? You haven’t met him, obviously,” said Annie, chuckling. “He’s the opposite of a drone.”
“I don’t need to. They’re all the same, these tech types. Will bore us all to tears by the end of the night.”
Annie smiled, straightening a knife. “No, he’s very nice. Charming and handsome, as a matter of fact.”
“What’s the product again?” asked Bella. “Not that I really care.”
“Some kind of chip that you can program to do things. He wants to put in a call center out here.”
“Why the hell would they put it here?”
“Because it’s inexpensive to build here and there are a lot of people out of work.” She felt a rising irritation. “You’d know that if you bothered to look around. There are real people in this town with real problems.” She set a plate down on the table a little too hard. “And it wouldn’t hurt you to show a little respect.”
“Jeez, sorry. You sound like my brother.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She looked up at Bella, shaking her head and smiling, despite her irritation. There was something so harmless about this thoughtless girl you couldn’t help but like her. “And you might want to get cleaned up and put some clothes on. The whole gang’s coming out for dinner.”
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“Oh, hell no. I’m not sitting through some boring ass dinner where everyone talks business the entire night.”
She sighed, slipping a napkin into a ring and placing it on top of one of the plates. “It would be nice for Drake, Bella, to have you here. Anyway, you might change your mind when you meet Ben. He’s seriously dreamy.”
“Dreamy? Where do you get this stuff?” Bella laughed.
Just then, Annie turned and saw Drake and Ben standing in the doorway. Had they heard them talking? She knew the answer was yes, given the way Drake was glaring at his sister. Ben, however, looked amused. Annie glanced over at Bella. The girl didn’t have the decency to look even the least chagrined.
“Annie, so kind of you to refer to me as dreamy,” said Ben. “And you’re not so bad yourself.”
Annie felt herself go red. Did she have to call him dreamy? Really? Why couldn’t she learn to keep her mouth shut?
Ben walked over to Bella and held out his hand. She shook it, staring at him with a defiant look on her sassy little face. “No one told me it was pool attire this afternoon,” he said to her, his eyes running down the length of her body. “Let me guess. Cost you two hundred dollars for about twelve inches of fabric?”
“It’s Tory Burch,” Bella said, with a haughty lift of her chin.
“I have no idea what that means,” said Ben, his face serious now. “But us drones are kind of out of the loop on the superficial.”
Bella raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her trim hips. “Superficial? I thought you were a businessman? Surely you understand about the billion dollar industry called high fashion?”
“I surely do,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I care.”
Annie caught Drake’s eye. She couldn’t read his expression but if she were to guess, she figured it was somewhere between annoyed and appalled.
Annie tugged on the strap of her sundress. “So dinner’s in an hour. Would anyone like a cocktail?”
Bella smiled, turning towards her. “That’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard all day.” She turned back to Ben. “I think I’ll take mine on the deck so I can catch a few more rays.” She stopped, her body inches from him. “Care to join me? I’m sure Drake has an extra pair of shorts for you.”
The River Valley Series Page 43
