Page 33 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
In tones of doubt, Bergen admitted, “That’s what she said.”
“Then it’s unanimous.”
“I didn’t know that you… I thought you were… What does she…?” Kateri watched him struggle to think of an appropriate tactful response. He must have decided discretion was the better part of valor, for he sank down in the chair Lilith had just vacated. “No fingerprints for your apartment. Nothing unexpected. You. Rainbow. Stag. Someone came in and searched the place. Someone who was smart enough to wear gloves.”
“John Terrance is smart enough.”
“But why would he care? Seems as if he’d want us to know he’d been there.”
She and Bergen had arrived at similar conclusions. Which meant there was a pretty good chance it was a solid conclusion. “I’ll tell you what. Today we’ll get someone in there to clean up my place and I’ll move back in.”
“Not a good idea.”
“I think it might be.”
“Who do you think…?” He glanced out the door. “Yoursister?”
“It’s just a suspicion.”
“Why?”
Kateri tapped the pencil again. “Family heirloom.”
“You’ve got a family heirloom? How did you get it?”
“Our father sent it to me.”
“Ooh. You share a father. Makes sense.” Bergen stared into Kateri’s face, trying to see a hint of Anglo-Saxon.
“I’m tall,” she said. “I’ve got long arms. That’s what I got from him. My father. Neill Palmer. Hopefully that’s all I got from him.”
“And the family heirloom,” Bergen said helpfully. “Miss Palmer doesn’t seem the type to go in for breaking and entering.”
“She’s the type to believe she can get away with anything. And she’s usually right. I’ll go clean my stuff out of Rainbow’s house”—and look through the closets myself—“then let’s all keep an unofficial eye on Rainbow’s house and see if anything happens there in the way of unauthorized entry.”
Bergen contemplated Kateri. “I have a sister with a sense of entitlement… she’s a pain in the keister. But my grandma always said to remember this one piece of wisdom—there are no functional families.”
Kateri liked that. “Your grandmother sounds pretty smart.”
“Scary smart. That’s why my grandfather killed her.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Since that moment when Merida woke in the hospital to discover she no longer had a nose and all the bones in her face were broken… she had not slept well. She used to lay in the bed next to Nauplius and listen to him snuffle and snore, get up to pee and grumble about his prostate, watch the dawn arrive and wish that she were dead. Or he were.
He had finally obliged, toppling without warning into hell, and she was free, and although she was trying to regain the habit of slumber, she only achieved sleep in short bursts. In her periods of wakefulness the psychological cancers of the past gnawed at her, and so she had developed the habit of rising with the sun and going out for a run.
After Merida’s arrival in Washington, she had discovered that in June, the sun rose very early, and by Tuesday, she had settled into a routine. As the sun began to lighten the sky, she slipped out of bed, dressed in yoga pants and a ragged T-shirt and quietly (very quietly) made her way out of the Good Knight Manor Bed and Breakfast. She ran along the sidewalk broken by tree roots, past tall hedges and along the shadowy street.
The years of living with Nauplius had changed her, kept her at all times on the lookout for treachery. Every day she varied her route… and yet somehow, she always found herself racing along toward the sea, where glorious eternity greeted her. With each step she felt as if she could fly into the wind. There on the shore, her restless fears blew away.
Today she returned to the B and B—she had so far managed to avoiding meeting anyone other than Phoebe—and went to work. In the afternoon, she explored Virtue Falls and its small cache of restaurants and take-outs. She kept herself fed, she advanced her revenge and she avoided the difficulties of socializing with Phoebe’s other guests.
Or, God forbid, the Cipres. She’d seen no sign of them, but then, she’d been careful not to. Still, her isolation gave her hope…
Today she determined she would try a different adventure, and a trip to the grocery store with her new insulated grocery bag netted her a frozen dinner. Surely frozen dinners had improved since her college years…
Merida parked in her spot beside the Good Knight Manor Bed and Breakfast carriage house; through the windows, she caught a glimpse of someone moving around inside.
