Cricket McRae - Spin a Wicked Web

I handed her the batt. "Good for you."

She stroked it a couple times, as if it were a baby animal, and returned it to the basket. "What would you like for breakfast?"

"Oh, no. Nothing for me. I can't impose on your wonderful hospitality anymore. Besides, I have to get back."

"Are you sure?" But she couldn't quite hide her relief.

"I'm sure." I stripped off the sweatshirt and handed it to her, then went over and leaned into the kitchen.

The twins sat at the table, slurping their orange juice and making play plans for their day. Beside them Rocky listened with a half-smile and sipped coffee from a mug advertising the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival from six years before.

"Goodbye," I said. "And thanks for everything."

"Bye!" the twins said in unison.

"You drive safe now, Sophie Mae," Rocky said. "And thank you for bringing up the pictures."

"I'm glad I could help. I'll be thinking about you."

He inclined his head in acknowledgment.

As I turned to pull the door closed behind me, I saw Gabi pop a couple of aspirin in her mouth and chase them with a swallow of coffee.

I wanted to go home, actually feeling a little homesick. Maybe it was silly to feel that way after just one night, but the atmosphere at the Kaminskis in the cold light of day made me miss my morning routine with Meghan and Erin. And if I missed it after one pleasant evening out of town, how much would I miss it if I moved? Would it be so bad, not moving in with Barr?

He'd understand.

Wouldn't he?

But homesick or not, I was starving, not to mention intensely curious. I stopped at the Calico Cupboard Bakery in La Conner, mouth watering the second I hit the doorway. A serving of their famous bread pudding and large cup of coffee in hand, I sat at a little table by the window and dug the handwritten book I'd found in Ariel's room out of my bag.

It smelled like old library books do, the ones in the back room that no one ever checks out. Musty and dusty. I took a bite of pudding and opened it to the first page.

I hadn't dared to hope, sure that would jinx it, but there it was, right in front of me. An honest-to-Pete diary. Ha! Elation hit my bloodstream at the same time as the caffeine, and I had to keep from grinning to myself so the locals wouldn't think they had a raving lunatic in their midst.

Ten pages later, I sighed. It was the most boring diary I'd ever seen. Oh sure, there were things in it that were telling. She recorded every single thing she ate, complete with calorie content. She also wrote down whenever anyone said anything about her weight, good or bad. I remembered wondering what her last meal had been before she was killed; now I tried and couldn't remember ever seeing her eat. Maybe she hadn't had a last meal at all.

She also kept track of things that the other students did and said at school, musing on the reactions they engendered in other people. It was as if she were creating a roadmap of behavior, with a particular effect as the goal. Her writing voice was cold, almost mercenary. As I read on I was struck by the lack of information about Ariel's own feelings, which I found odd given the usual teenaged girl's abundance of angst about everything from a broken fingernail to world hunger.

I munched and sipped and read on, skimming a lot of the content. But when I reached the final entry, I swallowed and slowly returned my cup to the table.

Today I lost a button on my shirt, and I caught Mr. Blankenship looking at the side of my boob. At first I was embar rassed, but then he seemed more embarrassed than me. So I let him do it some more. He didn't turn away. He kept looking. And that was when I realized that all those girls with the fancy clothes and snotty attitudes weren't going to get their way. They're too scary. But if you're not scary, if you smile and are nice to men, they start getting all stupid and let you do anything. I read once boys think about sex every seventeen seconds and that men think about it almost that much. When Mr. Blankenship was looking down my shirt I finally got it. And now I'm going to get whatever I want.

The rest of the pages in the book were torn out. A part of me was glad I couldn't read them. I sat and looked out the window at the tourist traffic beginning to parade down the street outside of the bakery. Sadness mingled with distaste as I digested what Ariel had written about the discovery of her sexual power.

It could be a dangerous thing, to intentionally manipulate with that power. I hoped it hadn't burned her, as she apparently brandished it, no doubt awkwardly, in her teen years.

And then later? As a young woman, somewhat more refined and practiced? Had it been the reason she'd been murdered?

THINGS HAD CERTAINLY BECOME complicated, I mused as I maneuvered along the country lanes leading back to the interstate. Had Ariel killed Scott Popper? I mean, she was the murder victim, right? It was ridiculous to think that she might have actually killed a policeman.

Even if she'd somehow caused his car crash, what good did knowing that do? As Gabi had pointed out, it hardly mattered what Ariel might have once done, now that she was dead.

Unless… did Chris Popper know more about her husband's death than she had let on? Did she think Ariel killed him? That could be a significantly stronger motive than an affair.

But no matter how strong the motive, Chris had an alibi. My brain hurt. Nothing was making any sense. Instead of having too little information, I suddenly had more than I could fit together, as if someone had added a few extra pieces from another box to the jigsaw puzzle.

I opened my window and inhaled the morning breeze. A high haze of cloud cover cast a veil between the sharp summer sunlight and the verdant greenery below. Soon it would burn off, and the ambient temperature would again begin to rise. Above, hawks circled and dove, hunting the small things that crept in the fields on either side of the county road.

Ahead, a sign warned that I was approaching a four-way stop. Bowers Road.

The road Ariel's high school friend lived on.

I sighed. Even if there were a few sections from another puzzle box thrown in, I obviously didn't have all the pieces of the original jigsaw, either. However much I wanted to return to my own happy home, how could I resist making this slight detour? I tossed a mental coin and turned west. Three miles later, I turned around and went back, crossing my original path and tried east. I had no idea what Lindsey Drucker's address was, or even whether her name was still the same; Gabi had said she was married. This was a stupid way to try and find her.

Almost ready to turn around again and give up, I saw it: Drucker & Sandstrom. The names were spelled out in reflective letters on the mailbox in front of a sprawling, single-level house painted dark green with wine-colored trim. A long, low barn surrounded by a series of paddocks and pasture indicated that they kept livestock, but I didn't see any horses or cows. Then the driveway curved, and I saw alpacas clustered and dotting one of the large fields. Recently sheared, they looked like teddy bears crossed with oversized poodles. There must have been a hundred of them, in shades varying from cream to brown, with a few gray and black ones thrown in.

The woman who answered the door had short red hair and wore navy shorts with a plain white cotton T-shirt. The expectant look on her smooth tan face invited me to introduce myself.

"Hi. Are you Lindsey Drucker?" I asked.

"Yes"

"I'm Sophie Mae Reynolds. I knew Ariel Skylark."

She tipped her head to one side, considering. "I see." Without another word she stepped back and opened the door for me.

Inside, sunlight streamed through the windows that made up the back wall of the main living space, and through a large skylight overhead. At least I thought it was the main living space, because it looked more like an artist's studio. A huge loom dominated one side of the room, with an elaborate rug in progress. The interlocking geometric design in red, cream and light brown was reminiscent of traditional Native American art, but somehow possessed a modern flair. Three easels took up the other half of the room, each displaying a landscape painting in a different stage of completion.