The Killing Game(8)
“I thought we were clear on that property.”
“Ransom’s always sided with the Carreras,” he said. “This is what I mean, Andi. You have no business in the business. For all kinds of reasons.”
“So, is Emma coming?” Andi asked tightly.
He shook his head and brushed imaginary dirt from his slacks as he straightened. “Doesn’t look like it, does it?”
“Are you going to the office later?”
“I doubt it. Ransom isn’t the only person I have to see. Why?”
“Well, actually, I thought maybe we would meet Emma there later, then, but I guess not.”
“Just go home and we’ll take this up tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
They both went silent. She expected him to take off, but instead Carter yanked his cell phone from his pocket and, tight-lipped, stabbed out a number. After a series of rings, he pressed the Off button, and muttered tightly, “Emma’s ‘not available.’” There was a good chance he was right about Emma. Her drinking was escalating.
“I’ll see you, and damn well better see Emma, in the conference room tomorrow at ten,” Carter said, wrenching open his driver’s door. He drove away carefully, herding his baby over the rough gravel, before punching the accelerator once the BMW was safely on the blacktop two-lane county road that circled the lake.
Andi stayed rooted to the spot for long moments. Carter pissed her off, but he’d shaken her with his comments about her loss of focus. She thought about the prescription Dr. Knapp, her “guru shrink,” as Carter had called her, had given to her, the antidepressants she’d taken for a while but had let slide. Maybe she’d reacted to them. Maybe that was the problem. Except the conference room episode had been recent.
She yanked out her cell and called Dr. Knapp but learned she couldn’t get an appointment until the following week. Well, fine. She was moving this weekend anyway. She would tell the doctor about her pregnancy when she saw her, and she’d also tell her about the note left at her cabin.
You should tell the police.
And what would she say? Someone broke into my cabin and left a message that said Little birds need to fly? They would probably tell her it was a prank.
But by whom?
She bit her lip, then called Edie at Sirocco Realty but learned the agent was out of the office. When Edie’s voice mail came up, Andi said, “Hey, this is Andi Wren and I went to my cabin this morning and the front door was open. It looks like the latch is broken. I don’t remember it being that way before, but maybe. Anyway, someone was in there and left a note on the bed in the master for me. Give me a call and let’s talk.”
After that she got in the Tucson and took the north road on her return to her house in Laurelton. A whisper of apprehension slid down her spine as she drove along the hairpin turn where Greg had driven off the road. His Lexus hadn’t made the last bend and he’d broken through the guardrail and flown off the edge of the cliff that rimmed this, the highest point above Schultz Lake and one of the most dangerous spots on the road. The guardrail had been replaced, but Andi couldn’t help throwing a quick glance over the edge, the view of firs and pines blocking all but a scintilla of green water far below.
Ten minutes later she cruised past Lacey’s, checking the parking lot for Emma’s car, but of course it wasn’t there. Lacey’s wouldn’t be the kind of place Emma would choose for her drinking. Too low class. Andi thought about stopping in for a burger and fries herself, a craving she’d developed in the last few weeks—one she understood better now—but with nutrition high on her mind, she turned off the lake road and onto Sunset Highway toward a place near the Wren Development offices simply called The Café. She ordered a chicken salad sandwich on thick-sliced wheat bread and ate half of it at the bistro, taking the second halfback with her to her house, where she spent the next three hours packing up the last of her boxes.
She then whiled away the rest of the afternoon and evening reading her myriad of baby books, the ones she’d initially packed away but had now dragged from their boxes, dreaming about renovating the second bedroom of the cabin into a nursery. Edie texted her around four to say she’d sent someone to the cabin to check on the lock and that she would call her in the morning. Andi gingerly pulled the envelope with the note from her purse, then put it in the bag she used for her laptop. She ate the second half of her sandwich for dinner and then packed up the meager items left in her refrigerator, putting them in another empty cardboard box: ketchup, mustard, a small carton of half and half cream, and ajar of dill relish. The rest of the refrigerator detritus she tossed out, ready for the last collection of her garbage.
Lying in bed that night, she pushed thoughts of the disturbing note aside and concentrated on the joy of her pregnancy. She would go over everything with Dr. Knapp soon enough. Her thoughts turned to her friends and family, her brother Jarrett, her mother, Diana, who lived across the country in Boston, and of course, her closest friend, Trini, whom she was seeing the next day. She wondered when she should tell them about the baby. She almost didn’t want to say anything at all, worried that it would break the spell somehow.
With no clear answer in mind, she drifted off to sleep.
*
She was awakened by a summer storm and flung back the covers and crossed to the window, watching lightning streak across the sky before hearing the rumble of thunder. Electrical storms were rare in Oregon and thrilling. Fascinated, she eagerly waited for another flash.