Cricket McRae - Spin a Wicked Web

I felt numb, spaced-out, like I'd taken too much cold medicine. The specter of Ariel sprawled on the floor of the co-op haunted the darker recesses of my mind. My subconscious kept dropping a thick veil over my recent experience, making it seem like it had happened months or years ago. Then boom!-I'd remember the whole thing in vivid detail.

My attention veered to the sound of the key chain jangling in my hand. House keys, truck keys, co-op keys, and the key to Barr's house. If this became my home, that last one would be my house key: a painfully obvious yet unsettling thought. I'd continue to rent Meghan's basement as I did now, and work there nearly every day. Barr spent less time on the job than he used to since the addition of a second detective to the force, but he was still gone a lot. Even if I moved, I'd spend almost the same amount of time with Meghan and Erin that I did now.

At least that's what I kept telling myself. But would it work out that way, really? They were my family. The thought of leaving them made my throat ache. On the other hand, Barr and I had been talking about taking this next step for months now. I was the one who continued to drag my feet.

It wasn't that I didn't love him. I did. Not a single question about it.

But I was deeply content living with my best friend and her precocious child. It's different living with females, and the three of us had been together long enough that we'd pretty much worked out the bugs. If I moved in with Barr, I could still maintain the family unit I'd built up with Meghan and Erin. Couldn't I?

In the middle of Barr's living room, I turned in a full circle, taking in the contents and their arrangement with eyes tuned to how my own belongings might fit in. My attention snagged on the coffee table. Mine, a wrought-iron-and-tile affair, graced our living room at home; it fit there, and it didn't make sense to bring it over here. It wouldn't go with anything of Barr's anyway.

I sighed. None of my stuff would look good with his. I liked metal and bright colors. He liked wood, the chunkier the better, and muted browns and greens in horrible prints. The sofa was plaid, for heaven's sake.

Oh, but that coffee table would have to go. It was made out of some huge spool, like something a monstrous cable had once been wrapped around. Someone had attempted to sand it a little, but you still couldn't set a drink on it without balancing it between the grooves of the wood grain. And it had been shellacked, slathered with a thick coat of clear goo that had dried unevenly, so long ago that the areas where it had been applied the thickest were beginning to yellow.

Gross.

I'd asked him where he got it. He said a friend had given it to him. I asked if the friend lived nearby. He said no. I asked if he loved the table. I was, of course, being facetious.

But he said yes.

Which wasn't the answer I'd been hoping for, believe me. Not even as a dirt-poor college student would I have wanted such a piece.

I wandered through the rest of the house, trying to figure out if I could squeeze into the place. Thank goodness, I didn't have much. And I could leave most of it with Meghan, so she wouldn't have to get anything new just because I bailed on her. The thought left a sour taste behind. But no matter how little I might bring, this wee house would be awfully crowded.

Meghan's house was so nice. Four bedrooms, three levels, right downtown, so you could walk almost anywhere you needed to go. I pushed that thought aside. Barr owned this house. He wanted me to move in with him. If I did decide to make that leap, the two of us would have to make do in this tiny space. And really, how much time would we be spending here, I reminded myself for the umpteenth time. Maybe down the line we'd get a different place, a little bigger, a little closer to town.

Gawd. What a spoiled brat I was. It was a perfectly nice house. I passed by an open window and smelled the roses again. Opening the refrigerator, I studied the contents. Not much there. If I was going to make Barr dinner, a quick trip to the grocery store was in order.

Ariel would never eat again. The thought struck me like a snake, and I sank into a kitchen chair. I wondered what she'd eaten for her last meal.

Loud knocking jolted me out of my reverie. I hesitated, then rose and walked to the door. Opened it.

The woman waiting on the step blinked when she saw me. I'm sure I blinked, too.

It was like looking into a mirror. She had green eyes. Like mine. Blonde hair, exactly my shade. Only hers was still long and worn in a braid down her back. Her features reflected mine. She was my height. My build. She was a tad thinner. And a tad younger. And she possessed the ability to make clothes look good on her. I disliked her immediately.

All this happened in a split second. I smiled. She smiled.

"Hi," she said. "Is Barr home?"

"Um, no. Not right now. Can I help you?"

"Well, could you tell him Hannah stopped by? And that I'm staying at the Horse Acres Bed and Breakfast, on the south side of town?"

"I'll tell him. Will he know who you are?" Meaning, of course, that I wanted to know.

Hannah smirked. "Oh, I think he'll know. I'm his wife, after all."

I NEVER REALLY KNEW what feeling the term "thunderstruck" referred to until that moment. But it seemed to cover the stomachswooping, knee-buckling sensation those last words engendered.

Hannah responded to my silence with a perky, "Okay, then. Thanks."

Then she turned and walked down the narrow sidewalk to a nondescript economy rental car and got in. I stood stupidly in the doorway, and she waved at me as she pulled away. Of its own volition, my right hand lifted in response.

I remained rooted there for a hundred years or so, inhaling floral calm, thinking thorny thoughts, unwilling to turn around and go back inside. So I didn't. Ultimately, I walked the rest of the way out, locked the door behind me, and went to my own vehicle.

Doppelganger.

Wife?

Of course Barr would have a good explanation for all this. Maybe she was crazy. I'd picked up a stalker a few months back; maybe it was his turn.

A stalker who looked almost exactly like me, only… better.

Sure.

I thought about living in that little house with him. I thought again about leaving Meghan and Erin, Brodie, the chickens only recently housed in the backyard. The chicken project had been my baby. They'd only laid five eggs so far.

What was I thinking? I could leave all that to move in with… a married man? Hardly.

Meghan wasn't home. Erin wasn't home. There was no one to tell about Hannah except Brodie, and even he was occupied with his chicken guarding. So I did what I always do when I don't know what else to do: I worked.

As I mixed the dry ingredients for the bath fizzies a local woman had commissioned as favors for a large bridal shower, I waited for the storm. Perhaps I was in the eye. Soon the rain would begin to fall fast and furious.

It never did, though. The bone-crushing sadness and disappointment remained at bay.

Instead, I got spitting mad.

Barr would have a good explanation for Hannah? And what might that be? Was there such a thing as a good explanation for having your wife show up and leave a message with the woman you were trying to bamboozle into cohabitating with you?

Well, I'd like to know what it was, then.

I considered going to the police station and making a scene.

Nah. I'd only end up looking like an idiot.

My watch showed a few minutes before six o'clock. He'd be home in an hour or so. Why not meet him at the front door like a good little girlfriend? That had, after all, been my original plan. I'd be damned if I'd cook him dinner now, though.

Dusting the citric acid off my hands, I went upstairs to my bedroom. Changed into my favorite pair of jeans, the ones that made my butt look reasonably small. Put on a tank top with a low-cut neckline. A pair of beaded sandals that showed off my pretty red toenails. I sprayed and scrunched my hair into something that looked downright feisty. Then I spent another ten minutes calming it down; no reason to be so obvious.