Her Last Letter (15 page)

“He said you did, but …” I was going to say that I’d gotten a funny feeling about the way he knew about my house and the studio, but figured Caroline would think I was overreacting again.

“But what?”

“I wondered, that’s all. I wondered why he didn’t call and ask me.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“A while ago. He called.”

She stared at me. “Well, he did come over to the Wild River one night, just hanging out. In fact, it was the weekend you were in Denver. I probably did tell him about your house. Did he come over?”

“He wanted to, but no. Trevor wouldn’t want him there.”

“No, I wouldn’t think so.”

I dropped back and moved out of my track and into hers, as skiers were approaching up ahead on the left. A long easy downhill was coming up, and as soon as the skiers passed by, I came around in front of Caroline and crouched down, ready to try for more speed. It was fairly straight, so I didn’t worry about the tall evergreens on either side of the trail.

I coasted effortlessly down, the wind buffeting my face, hoping to put some distance between the two of us. When I stopped and stepped off the trail and looked back, Caroline was a small speck in the distance. I waited for her to catch up.

“Whew,” she said, finally stopping beside me on the trail. “You were flying.”

“I felt like it.”

“You’re not still mad at me, are you?”

“No.”

“Please don’t be. I only worry about you, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I promise I’m not going to do anything stupid. And I won’t turn into some kind of nutcase again. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I know.”

“I’m really okay. But he is having an affair. And it would be nice if my best friend believed me for once.”

“Oh, Gwyn,” she said, reaching for my arm. “I do believe you. I just don’t want it to be true, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” I said, “neither do I.”

We finished around two o’clock, having skied approximately ten kilometers.

“I wish you had the whole day off,” I said as we drove the remaining miles back into town.

“So do I. I’m going to be dead on my feet tonight. Happy, but dead.”

Caroline decided on Mexican food for lunch, so we stopped by one of our favorites, the Fiesta Guadalajara, just across the street from the Hotel Colorado. We walked in and took a seat by the window.

I ordered a margarita and Caroline ordered a cola. She rarely drank, having been exposed to the heavy drinking of her father, a retired railroad engineer. Unfortunately, a coherent thought was a rarity for him now, but when it came, Care said it was as if the sun had broken through the clouds. She visited him often, along with her mother, still in good health and Caroline’s father’s main source of care.

“To us,” said Caroline, and we clinked our glasses together.

“Yes, to us, and to a long winter with lots more skiing.”

We ate chips and salsa and guacamole dip, then ordered a bean burrito and fajitas as our main entrees. I was pleasantly high by the time I finished my second margarita.

“If you see Trevor in town,” I said, “keep on eye on who he’s with and let me know.”

“I doubt if I’ll see him, but I will.”

“Maybe you’ll hear something at the bar. People gossip.”

She took a sip of her cola. “Have you been working on anything since you got back from Denver?”

“Working on anything?”

“You know, your paintings.”

“Oh, sure, of course,” I said, though I had actually done very little.

“Got your Christmas tree up?”

“Do you have yours up?” I shot back at her.

“Yeah, the little fake one.”

“I put the tree up yesterday,” I said, though it was a lie. I hadn’t done a thing, not even my Christmas cards. “I bought a spruce, a really nice one, and spent all of yesterday morning decorating it. Any more questions?”

“No.”

I hailed the waiter and ordered another margarita, ignoring Caroline’s sad pensive expression.

“The holidays are hard on everyone,” she said, “very stressful.”

“Well, you don’t know everything.”

“What does that mean?”

I shrugged.

She continued to stare at me and it really bugged me.

“I’m doing fine, Caroline. Don’t worry about me, okay? Whatever happens with this, I’ll be fine.”

The waiter set the third margarita before me and I drank half of it down in two gulps. I waited for her to lecture me about it. But she didn’t.

I did let Caroline drive my Jeep home, and when I asked her if we could stop by the old house since we were in the area, she didn’t object.

The driveway was cleared of snow, but only because I’d made an arrangement for it to be plowed after each heavy downfall.

“How often do you come by here?” she asked as we stepped out.

“Whenever I feel like it, maybe once a week.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just sell it?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I unlocked the front door.

Even in my inebriated state, I knew immediately that something was wrong. I stopped in the doorway, blocking our entrance.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Things have moved.”

I walked slowly inside.

My father’s chair was farther forward, as if he had pushed it closer to the television set, and the throw rug was askew.

“What?” she asked.

I sniffed the air. “Do you smell that?”

“No, what?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never smelled it in here before.” I turned slowly in a circle. “Someone’s been here.”

I walked into the kitchen and turned on the water. It flowed smoothly, telling me that someone had used it recently, since yesterday, when I’d visited. “Someone’s been in the house.”

“Does anyone come over here besides you? What about the neighbors?”

“No. Linda is the only other person with a key. And I don’t think it was her. She doesn’t like coming over here.”

We checked the first floor, but could find no signs of a forced entry.

“These locks look old,” said Caroline. “I doubt if they’d give much of a problem to someone who knew what they were doing.”

I didn’t mention that the locks were the same ones that had always been here. I’d changed nothing after Kelly died, even though Linda had thought we should.

We inspected the second floor, and I thought I could discern the impression of a body on my parents’ bed, even though the bedspread was still neat.

“You might have a tenant you don’t know about,” Caroline said.

“I think you’re right.”

We walked back down the stairs and into the kitchen. The refrigerator was empty, but still, it smelled as if something, some type of food, might have recently been inside.

“Why do you keep the refrigerator on?” she asked.

“It’s either that or leave it open, and sometimes I keep a cold drink in there when I come over and clean stuff.”

“I think you should call the cops and have them take a look around. Keep an eye on the house. And you should definitely change these locks.”

Well, duh, I thought, feeling tired and increasingly annoyed at each of Caroline’s many suggestions. Hoping to taunt her, I said loudly, “Maybe we should check the basement, see if we can catch them.”

“No, I think we should leave-pronto.”

“No, I’ll check it. I’ll be right back.”

She grabbed the back of my coat. “Don’t you
dare.”

At that precise moment, glass shattered in the basement.

“My God,” she shrieked, pulling my arm.
“Come on!”

Caroline sat at the wheel of Jeep, now parked a block away, talking on her cell phone to the police. “Yes, it looks like we have a break-in.” She gave the address, which I had written down and held up for her to see. “We heard glass break in the basement as soon as we said aloud we were going down there.”

She ended the call, then turned to me. “It probably would have been better if you’d talked to them yourself.”

“No, they’d know I’ve been drinking and might not believe me.”

Caroline drove the Jeep to the head of the street and we waited for the police car to roll by. When it did, we followed it back to the house.

Lights whirling atop the squad car, two male cops emerged, slamming doors. We pulled beside them into the drive. One of the guys came over to the window of the Jeep and looked in.

“Thanks for getting here so quick,” said Caroline. “She owns the house.” She pointed at me.

“Best if you stay in your car while we make a search of the premises. Do you have a key?”

I handed it over and watched as the blue-eyed cop, fresh-faced and exceedingly cute, walked to the front door. “He was looking at you, Care.”

“No, he wasn’t.” But I saw the corners of her mouth twitch into a faint smile.

The other cop, an older guy, had already gone around to the back of the house. For ten minutes, the two men searched, first the house, then the garage and surrounding yard. Finally, after several short trips to our window and more questions, not all related to the break-in, the cute one leaned up against the Jeep. “No one in there now,” he said. “We found a glass jar, broken, down in the basement. We’ll take what’s left of that back and check it for prints. How long has this house been vacant?”

“About two years,” I said.

“Ever notice signs of anyone before?”

“No.”

“Who else is allowed in the house?”

“My sister, but she doesn’t come by, really. And my husband, but he never comes over here, well almost never, and my sister’s husband. He might have a key too.”

“I’d strongly suggest that you change the locks, get dead bolts, a better system. If the house has been empty this long, you might have a vagrant who thinks he’s found a rent-free place to stay. It doesn’t look as if the house has been disturbed too much. I’d also check to make sure one of your relatives wasn’t over here and didn’t tell you. You might want to think about renting the place or selling it too. Save yourself some grief. We will make a point to come by and check on things.” He smiled at Caroline, who had managed to flirt with him and find out his full name, Nathan Tobias. “And I wouldn’t advise coming here alone. Call us. We’ll swing by and give things a look first.”

He touched his cap, then both men got into their car and sped away.

“I’ve seen him before,” Caroline said as she drove toward her apartment. “I think he comes by the Laundromat I go to every once in a while, but not in a uniform.” She tapped her fingers to her lips. “God, the last time I was over there I looked like hell. I won’t anymore.” She turned to me. “You have to promise me you won’t go in that house alone anymore. Okay?”

“I promise.”

“And if you do have to go over there, for anything, make sure you call me first. Got that?”

I was sober now, and quietly hating myself for being angry at my best friend, who was certainly a better friend to me than I’d been to her recently.

The drive was plowed by the time I returned home. I drove immediately to the Christmas tree lot and purchased a tall spruce, dark green and full, then paid extra to have it delivered and set up within the hour. Usually Trevor helped me buy the tree, and he’d offered to before he’d left this weekend, but I figured I might as well get used to doing things alone. After all, I might be forced to fairly soon.

I was in the middle of dragging boxes of Christmas decorations from the basement when the phone rang. I dropped the box on the floor and grabbed the receiver.

“So where have you been all day?” my sister inquired.

“Oh, hi Linda. Caroline and I went cross-country skiing this morning, then lunch.”

“Good for you.”

“So what’s up?”

“Oh nothing-except I got a message from Mr. I Spy earlier today.”

“You did?”

“Yes, and he thinks he’ll have something for us early this week.”

“Did he give any details at all?” I asked, my heart picking up speed.

“No, but I’m sure there’ll be lots of those.”

I noticed an odd lilt to Linda’s voice, a happiness that shouldn’t be there, and wondered if she already knew something about the report. “So, he’ll call when it’s ready?”

“That’s the plan.”

I knew I should mention the possible break-in at the house, but I hesitated to do it since I knew how Linda would react-badly-but I couldn’t have her going over there unaware of the danger.

“Caroline and I stopped over to the house today.”

“Yes, and …?”

“We probably should put new locks on the doors, make the house more secure.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing exactly, but someone may have been in the house. Actually, I don’t think so, but Caroline thought we should have the police check the place out.”

“You had the cops over there? Come on, Gwyn, give me the whole story and quit tiptoeing around the truth.”

“I am telling the truth, but before we both start jumping to conclusions, I think we need to be certain there isn’t a simpler explanation. We need to be sure no one else has been in the house. Have you?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. “No, not recently.”

“But you have. When?”

“I don’t know, a few weeks ago, maybe not that long.”

“Why would you go over there?”

“I was trying to help you out. I was looking for those stupid boxes, the ones with Kelly’s journals. The problem is I think I may have thrown them out, before, by accident.”

“You what? You threw them out? How could you do that? You knew how important they were to me.”

“I found them in a damp spot in the basement. They were moldy, Gwyn. It was sickening. It was like it was her, all yuck and moldering in her grave. I think I may have tossed them when I was cleaning up. I didn’t mean to. I changed my mind about it, but I threw out a lot of stuff that day and they may have gotten mixed in.”

“But I
wanted
them,” I cried, feeling sick, my insides doubling over on themselves.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I really am. I guess I shouldn’t have told-”

I slammed the phone down, tears spilling onto my face. Thanks. Thanks a whole bunch, Linda. Thanks for always wrecking
everything
. You
meant
to do it. I know you did. You
hated
Kelly.