The Bone House (32 page)

    'I
don't really think about that,' Amy said.

    'No,
of course not, it comes naturally. I can see it in the grace with which you
move your body.'

    Amy
played with her curls and felt uncomfortable. 'Thanks.'

    Gary
stood up again. 'I was about to open a bottle of wine. Would you like a glass?
Our little secret.'

    'Um,
sure, I suppose. Not much, though, I still have to drive.'

    'I'll
be right back,' he told her. 'The TV is inside the big cabinet there. I've got
the DVD of the team performances in the machine. Check it out.'

    'Yeah,
OK.'

    Gary
retreated from the living room, and she heard his shoes on the hardwood floor
of the foyer. She hurried to the doorway. She heard Gary in the kitchen on the
other end of the hallway, behind a swinging door. On her left was a wide
winding staircase with a wrought-iron banister leading to the second floor. She
noticed a roll-top desk in the foyer with envelopes sticking out of cubbyholes,
and she pulled out several of the envelopes to see what they were. Most were
bills and bank statements. She wanted something, anything, to connect Gary to
Glory Fischer, but she didn't know where to look. Quickly, she yanked his
Verizon bill out of the open envelope, but before she could review the dialed numbers,
she heard the clink of crystal in the kitchen. She stuffed the bill and
envelope back into the slot and ran back into the living room. She could feel a
flush on her face, and she was breathing heavily.

    Gary
strolled into the room with two glasses of wine in his hands. 'You didn't turn
on the TV?' he asked.

    'I
couldn't find the remote,' Amy said.

    'It's
right on top of the cabinet,' he said, smiling.

    'Oh,
duh. Sure.'

    'You
OK?' he asked, noticing her jittery demeanor.

    'Yeah,
I'm fine.'

    He
opened the walnut doors of the cabinet, revealing a wide-screen television
inside. He clicked on the power and pushed the play button on the DVD machine.
Amy saw the arena at the Naples hotel and heard the chatter of the crowd in the
bleachers. On screen, girls from her Green Bay team were rehearsing before
their first event. She recognized herself, doing stretches on the mat, her legs
spread apart. Gary's camera seemed to focus on her body.

    Gary
handed her a glass of wine. 'Here you go.'

    'Thanks.'

    He
clinked her glass. 'To you, Amy.'

    She
drank a sip. The wine was cold and dry. 'This is great.'

    'I'm
glad you like it.'

    'That
was quite the week in Florida,' Amy said.

    'I
love Naples. Someday I'd love to get a condo down there.'

    'Yeah,
that would be great.' She drank more wine in a nervous gulp. 'Did you hear
about what happened on Saturday night? A Wisconsin girl got killed. Pretty
scary.'

    Gary
sat down in the old armchair again and swirled the wine in his glass. 'I did
hear about it. Terrible.'

    'She
was from Door County. That's not far away.'

    'No,
it's not.'

    'I
saw her picture in the paper. I think I saw the girl in the hotel.'

    'Really?
You saw her?'

    'Yeah,
what about you? Do you remember her?'

    Gary
shook his head. 'No.'

    'I
suppose when you're around a couple hundred teenage girls, they all start to
look alike.'

    'If
she was on one of the other teams, I'm sure I would have noticed her.'

    'Yeah,
probably. It makes you think, huh? Sounds like she was killed on the beach on
Saturday night. I was too keyed up to sleep, so I was just lying in bed. If
only I'd been looking out the window, you know? Maybe I would have seen
something.'

    'Well,
you can hardly blame yourself, Amy,' Gary told her.

    'Oh,
yeah, I know.' She added, 'I never sleep well at the end of a competition. What
about you?'

    'I'm
the same way. I toss and turn.'

    'Yeah,
my room was next to yours. I thought I heard you coming in late. I figured you
couldn't sleep either.'

    Gary
got an odd little smile on his face. 'You must have heard somebody else. I was
in my room all night.'

    'Really?
I was sure I heard your door open and close.'

    'I
left to get ice at one point. I forgot about that. That's probably what you
heard.'

    'Sure.'

    Gary's
eyes were steady; he stared back at her without blinking. His voice was calm,
not speeding up, not getting louder. He didn't show any outward signs of guilt
or suspicion. Even so, Amy was convinced he wasn't telling her the truth. His
explanations came too quickly and too easily. It was almost as if he'd been
anticipating her questions and had been practicing all the right answers to
deflect her concerns.

    With
each sip of wine, she found herself getting a headache. She didn't drink much,
and she put the glass down, not wanting to make it worse.

    'It
was a beautiful hotel,' she continued.

    'Gorgeous.
Very elegant.'

    'I
was in the pool so much I thought I was going to grow gills,' she said,
giggling. That was a lame joke. Why did she say that?

    'Yes,
I remember seeing you there. You look pretty damn good in a swimsuit.' He
smiled at her. His eyes glittered.

    'That
was my power bikini,' she said, laughing too loudly. 'Didn't I see you talking
to a girl by the pool on Saturday night?'

    'I
don't recall.'

    'It
wasn't one of the Green Bay girls, so that's why I noticed.'

    'If
you say so, Amy,' he told her, still smiling.

    'You
were wearing your white Phoenix T-shirt.'

    'Well,
lots of men wear white T-shirts down there.'

    'Yeah,
I guess.'

    Gary's
phone began ringing. He glanced at the caller ID. 'I'm sorry, I need to take
this call. It could take me a couple minutes, do you mind? Make yourself
comfortable.'

    Amy
waved a hand at him. 'No problemo. It's a great old house. Mind if I look
around?'

    'Go
ahead,' he said. 'Don't look at the dirty underwear on the floor, though.'

    He
answered his phone as he left the living room. As he had before, he exited through
the foyer and headed to the kitchen. Amy followed. She was angry with herself
for drinking, because she could feel the wine going to her head. The room spun,
and she shook herself in order to focus. She could hear Gary's voice on the
other side of the swinging door.

    Holding
the banister, she ran up the curving steps. She put her foot wrong twice and
had to steady herself to keep from falling. At the landing, she swayed. She
licked her lips, studying the rooms upstairs. To her left, through an open
doorway, she saw a large master bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it had
dark, grim decor, with deep red wallpaper and heavy curtains shutting out the
light. A Tiffany lamp by the bed cast a pale yellow glow around the room.

    Just
as Gary said, the room was messy. His clothes were in a pile near the closet.
He hadn't unpacked from the trip, and his suitcase was shoved against a wall.
It was open. She bent over it and slid to her knees. Her headache was worse.
She rubbed her forehead and realized she was sweating. She dug through the
items that had been dumped in the suitcase, pushing through dirty clothes. She
saw handwritten notes on the dance competition on a yellow pad. Two hardcover
books on sports. A camera. A pair of binoculars.

    When
she lifted up a pair of men's safari shorts, she noticed a fringe of pink lace
pushing out of a side pocket. She used the tip of one finger to extract what
was inside, and she discovered a pair of thong panties. They were flimsy and
sexy. As she dangled them on her finger, she also noticed the white T-shirt
that Gary had worn by the pool on Saturday night. She picked up the shirt and
put her nose close to it. It smelled of sun block and sweat, but more than
that, she also caught a strong briny aroma of salt water.

    'Amy?'

    It
was Gary, downstairs, calling up to her.

    'I'll
be right there.'

    She
froze with the clothing in her hands, wondering if she should steal it for the
police. Sooner or later, he would wash the shirt. The panties? He'd find them and
throw them away. She hung on to the clothes as she tried to decide what to do.
The gears in her brain weren't functioning. She felt the room spinning again,
and she grew dizzy as she got to her feet.

    'You
OK, Amy?'

    'Uh,
yeah,' she called. 'I have to use the bathroom.'

    She
returned to the hallway and saw an open door on the other side of the stairs
that led to a toilet. She went inside and closed the door behind her. She
nearly fell against the door as she did, and when she tried to twist the lock,
her fingers slipped. She winced as her head throbbed. She spotted a
floor-length linen closet, and without thinking, she opened the door and shoved
the thong and the T-shirt inside, hidden under a stack of clean towels.

    Amy
dug in her pocket for her phone.

    Hilary
sat at the kitchen table of Terri Duecker's condo in Fish Creek, with a mug of
blackberry tea steeping in front of her, sending up a warm cloud of steam. She
knew the rental cottage well. It was their winter residence on weekdays, when
the ferries didn't run late enough to take them home. Right now, it felt empty
and too quiet, and she was conscious of being alone. She knew she'd made a
mistake. An immature, impetuous mistake.

    She'd
driven to the ferry after meeting Peter Hoffman, but she'd watched it leave,
rather than driving on to the deck. Fifteen minutes later, she'd called and
lied to Mark and said she'd missed it. Cab Bolton was right. She never missed a
ferry. If she was anything in life, she was organized and efficient about her
schedule.

    Terri
had looked at her strangely when Hilary returned to Fish Creek, but she didn't
ask any questions. She'd simply said, 'Sure,' when Hilary asked if she could
stay in the condo for the night. Her face full of concern, she'd also asked if
Hilary needed anything, and Hilary had lied again and said no. In truth, she
needed her faith back. She needed Mark. She needed to know the truth.

    He'd
called twice, and she'd ignored the call both times. She didn't want to talk to
him until she knew what she was going to say. Now, in the silent apartment,
with the aroma of her tea wafting through the kitchen, she realized she was
ducking the hard path and hiding from what she had to do. She was also making a
mistake she'd long ago sworn never to make, by judging Mark based on what
someone else said, instead of relying on her own instincts.

    She
picked up her cell phone, which was lying next to the mug of tea in front of
her. She punched the speed dial for their home phone.

    'Hey,
I've been trying to reach you,' Mark said.

    'Yeah.
Sorry. I was picking up dinner at a restaurant, and then I was talking to
Terri. I couldn't grab the phone.'

    'No
problem. I miss you here.'

    'Me
too.'

    'Is
everything OK? You sound strange.'

    'No,
I'm fine,' she murmured, but she wasn't fine, and she didn't want him thinking
that she was. 'Actually, babes, it was a tough afternoon.'

    'How
so?'

    Hilary
steeled herself.
Say it.
That was how it was supposed to work between them.
No secrets, it looks like Cab Bolton has a witness. Someone who saw you on the
beach with Glory.'

    'Son
of a bitch,' Mark said. 'I was afraid of that.'

    'There's
more.'

    'What
do you mean?'

    'Well,
the witness saw you and Glory kissing.'