Shadows of Lancaster County (38 page)

He stepped outside, softly closing the door behind him, to continue his conversation in private. As he did, I asked Lydia if she had a copy of today’s newspaper.

“
Yah.
’Tis right there in front of you.”

I realized she had spread the paper on the table to catch the mess from the potato peelings. I pushed some of those peelings aside to get a look at the front page. Just as I had suspected, the photo of Reed and me in his car was front and center. It wasn’t bad as photos go. In fact, the photographer had caught us in such an intimate gaze that I didn’t blame his girlfriend for being angry. In this paper, at least, the lead story focused more on us than on Bobby’s disappearance or Doug’s death. Then again, this was an
old familiar tale around here, and if Reed and I were somehow an item, that was just the type of juicy tidbit that sold newspapers. The headline said “Old Flame Rekindled As Search Intensifies?” At least they put a question mark at the end. In the old days, we wouldn’t even have been offered that courtesy.

Reed came back inside, but this time he didn’t sit down. Instead, he said he was going to deliver Isaac’s blood samples to the Clinic for Special Children, change into a suit at the hotel, and then he would be back to pick me up for the drive to Doug’s wake in Hidden Springs.

“What about Heather? Didn’t you just get in trouble for hanging out with me?”

“Heather’s fine. It’s the paparazzi she can’t stand.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” I replied as I walked him to the door.

“By the way, that’s for you,” Reed told me, gesturing toward a white shopping bag sitting on the floor under the coat pegs. “See you in a bit.”

Before I had even picked up the bag, he was gone.

I finished helping Lydia with the soup, and then I carried the bag upstairs, where I looked inside and pulled out what felt like fabric wrapped in tissue paper. Gently tearing off the paper, I unfolded a beautiful black sweater dress. It was gorgeous, long-sleeved and knee length, with a tag that identified it as a Nicole Miller. I had no idea what it had cost, but it had to be several hundred dollars at least. There were two more items in the bag as well, and I took them out each in turn to discover a classic gold-plated chunky necklace and a lovely pair of black pumps with a modest gold buckle at each toe.

I sat on the side of the bed, stunned. In his kindness, Reed had taken the time to go shopping for me, to buy me something more appropriate for a January wake than a summer dress and strappy sandals. If I wasn’t so tired of being embarrassed, not to mention cold, I would have refused such a generous gift. As it was, I needed this dress more than I had wanted to admit. Maybe I would accept it but insist on reimbursing him for it later. It was a size smaller than I usually wore, but when I tried it on it fit just fine, and the necklace and shoes would be the perfect addition.

I brushed my hair and fixed my makeup as quickly as possible, so
that I would have time to look at the file I hadn’t yet seen, the one marked “Jensen” that I had stolen today from the lab. Pulling the papers out from under the mattress, I put the Schumann files aside and held my breath as I opened the Jensen one, hoping to learn the truth about Isaac.

Instead, my heart skipped at beat at what I saw. There, printed clearly across the label, wasn’t Isaac’s name at all.

It was my own name: Annalise Bailey Jensen.

In Reed’s car, driving toward the wake, I was so upset and distracted

I could hardly breathe. He knew something was wrong but didn’t press me to talk, and I was glad. As we sped through the patchwork-quilt hills of Lancaster County, I couldn’t stop thinking about the file, about the words I had read over and over, terms I didn’t understand like “protease,” “DNase,” and “chelation.”

More than anything, I wanted to tell Reed about it and have him explain it all to me, but I remained silent. It wasn’t just that I had stolen the files and committed a crime. It was that I truly didn’t want him to know if I was some sort of genetic freak, that my body had apparently been genetically tampered with at some point in the past.

I couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing me as damaged goods.

As I was wrestling with these things in my mind, Reed’s phone rang, and I was glad when he answered it and talked for a while. I didn’t even listen to his half of the conversation. I just stared out the window and asked God to give me some clarity and direction in this moment.

I was so lost, so utterly scared and confused. Closing my eyes, I couldn’t help but picture Bobby, who was also very likely lost and scared and confused. Silently, I prayed for God to protect and guide him as well.

Once Reed finally hung up the phone, he tried to lighten the mood by telling me about his life in DC, his work, his girlfriend. I feigned an
interest in her, and though part of me didn’t want to hear, another part of me needed to hear.

Reed explained that he and Heather had met last year at a dinner party and had begun dating soon after that. Heather was a lobbyist for the banking industry, brilliant, graduated magna cum laude from Princeton. As he talked, I got the feeling they didn’t see each other all that much, even though their relationship was exclusive. I thought of his comment the other day, that he probably worked too much, and I wondered if maybe she did too. That couldn’t be good for any relationship.

“We’re at that point where she’s pushing me to meet her parents,” he said, flashing me a grin. “I know what that means. She says I keep finding excuses not to.”

“Do you?”

He drove for a while, considering my question. As soon as we passed the welcome sign for Hidden Springs, I knew we were close. Reed made a left turn and drove to the end of the block.

“I suppose I have been wondering if I have a problem with commitment,” he finally replied, slowing to turn again, this time into the parking lot of the funeral home. “Now I’m starting to wonder if it’s commitment that I have a problem with…or just commitment to her.”

With that, he pulled into the first available space and turned off the car. Across the street from the funeral home, I could see several yellow sawhorses lined up in a row, a police barricade, forming to keep the press at bay.

As we got out of the car and headed up the wide front steps toward the door, I thought about what Reed had just said. I kept wondering exactly when he had begun to ask himself that question about commitment. Had he been rethinking their relationship before coming here? Or had those questions started only after he had spent time with me? I may still love him, and I may still think we belonged together, but the last thing on earth I wanted to do was break up his relationship with someone else.

The press was out in full force, but with a heavy police presence there, the best they could do was snap photos from afar and shout questions to us that we didn’t answer. Reed and I both ignored the hoopla, and as we
stepped into the hushed dignity of the funeral home, I was relieved to know we had at least crossed the first hurdle unscathed. Glancing at my watch, I saw we were a few minutes early, which was probably a good thing. I still hadn’t seen Haley since coming to town, and I had hoped to have a quiet moment with her before the crowd grew too big.

At a rack near the door, Reed helped me off with my coat, and I realized that I hadn’t yet thanked him for the outfit. I did so now, apologizing that I had been too distracted to mention it before. “You’ll have to let me pay you back, though,” I added.

His response surprised me by its gravity.

“Please don’t, Anna. When I woke up this morning, it struck me that our attendance at Doug’s wake is going to be all over the news, probably for days to come. I know how much you hate seeing yourself in the media, so at the very least I thought you should feel confident with how you’re dressed.”

“But it must have cost—”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I had a few spare minutes and my hotel is right near the outlet mall and I just wanted to do this, one friend for another. Okay?”

Looking into his handsome blue eyes, I could tell it was important to him that I accept his kindness as a gift, no reimbursement allowed.

“Okay,” I said, sliding my coat onto a hanger and placing it on the rack. “For what it’s worth, I needed this more than you could imagine. Thank you.”

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Reed replied in a soft voice as he placed his coat on the rack beside mine, “you look quite incredible, if I do say so myself.”

Smiling shyly at the compliment, I turned my attention back to the reason why we were here.

Moving toward the closed casket at the front of the room, I spotted Haley when I was halfway there. Her arms flew open when I was still a good ten feet away, and I moved quickly into her hug. She smelled vaguely of Scotch, but at least she seemed sober for now.

“Wow, California must suit you, Anna. You’re so tanned and healthy looking,” she said as we pulled apart.

I wanted to give her a compliment in return, but the truth was that she looked terrible. Of course, she was here for her husband’s funeral, so I hadn’t expected her to look great. But I was still taken aback by her appearance. At just twenty-nine, there were already lines around her mouth and beside her eyes. Always petite, now she was positively skeletal. The skin-and-bones look did not become her, not even dressed up in couture clothes and an expensive haircut.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I said finally. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”

She nodded, though it was obvious this hadn’t been the best week of her life. More people began coming in, and after she and Reed greeted each other with a hug, I told her we would get out of the way.

“We’ll talk later,” she whispered to me just before she was descended upon by a pack of blubbering relatives.

Reed and I respectfully filed past the coffin and then made our way to Mr. Wynn, who was standing at the other side, talking with a small cluster of people. Still robust and handsome in his sixties, when Mr. Wynn realized that the tall blonde waiting to speak to him was his daughter’s old best friend, his eyes filled with tears.

“Annalise Jensen, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. What are you, a fashion model now? Look at you!”

“Thank you. You look great too, sir.”

I gave him a warm hug, remembering as I did the conversation Reed and I had had just yesterday, when I suggested that Mr. Wynn could have killed Doug. I knew now I didn’t believe it, not for a minute. He was rich and powerful, yes, but he was not a killer, not even close. He was more like a well-dressed, well-heeled teddy bear.

“Reed, how are you, son?” he said, shaking Reed’s hand and patting him on the shoulder. They chatted like the old friends they were, and I remembered how very present Mr. Wynn had been after the fire and through all our trials. Because he had recruited and hired the three interns, he had seemed to feel personally responsible in a way, and he had even offered to pay the legal expenses of any of us who couldn’t afford to cover our own.

It had been his fancy lawyer who convinced the police to drop charges against Lydia, and as far as I knew he had funded most of Doug’s defense team. My parents had refused to accept his help, probably out of sheer pride, but I had always thought it awfully decent of him to offer.

As more people lined up behind us, we finished conversing with him and stepped out of the way. Next stop was Haley’s mom, Melody, who looked a little lost. She was standing near the back of the room, clad in a filmy blue-and-green dress, her blond hair clipped up on one side with a pearl clasp. When we reached her, after hugs and hellos, she kept hold of my hand for a while. Inwardly smiling, I thought of my old nickname for Melody: The Floater. It certainly seemed as if she was about to float away now, and that she was clinging to me like a helium balloon fighting against its own string.

“Are you okay?” I finally asked, and she shook her head.

“Haley doesn’t want me to stand with her, so I went and stood over there. But then Orin wanted to stand there, so I came over here. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be. I feel so stupid.”