Lee Mckenzie - His Best Friend's Wife

Paul reached for the folder. “I’ll see her now, then I’ll take a break.” One thing about being in a small town, he could leave the clinic and be anyplace in five minutes.

“Thanks. I’ll get her set up in an examining room.”

He glanced at the file, recognized the name immediately.

Rose Daniels.

* * *

ANNIE WENT THROUGH the motions of preparing lunch without giving a lot of thought to what she was doing. Then again, why would she need to? She had made hundreds, no, more like thousands, of lunches. She had been making lunches for as long as she could remember. So while she put on a pot of freshly gathered eggs to boil and sliced thick slabs of home-baked wheat bread, her mind was elsewhere and her emotions were not in keeping with her role as maker of family lunches.

Her reaction to seeing Paul had been nothing short of inappropriate. He was her husband’s best friend! She had been surprised to see him, and happy, of course, but not that kind of happy. It was easy enough to explain her reaction. She had been terrified that something might be terribly wrong with Isaac, angry with CJ for letting Isaac fall, impatient with the admissions clerk. Had her emotions been irrational? Of course they had. They had been out-of-character for her, and that meant all of her other actions and reactions had been equally over-the-top.

The timer buzzed. Annie removed the pot from the stove and transferred the eggs to a bowl of ice water. While they cooled, she finely diced a couple of celery stalks, minced several green onions and chopped a bunch of fresh parsley.

Paul wasn’t just Eric’s friend. He was her friend, too. Of course she was happy to see him and relieved to know that he would be taking care of her son. She hadn’t been able to rely on anyone but herself for a long time and it had been a relief to let someone else step in.

If she was being honest, she had at times resented Eric’s carefree life. While he had gone off to college and earned a degree, Annie had stayed in Riverton and cared for her family. After they were married, she had stayed at home and baked bread while Eric had stayed after school and coached the senior boys’ basketball team all the way to the state championship. While she washed, folded and put away a mountain of laundry, he took a group of students on a ski trip. In all fairness to her husband, he had never demanded any of those things of her. He only had to ask, and she was all over it. She had willingly taken on all of the responsibility. She always had.

And you probably always will.

One by one, she plucked the chilled eggs from the bowl of water, gave them a gentle smack against the cutting board and peeled the shells.

Annie had been only six years old when her mother left. Even in the early days before her mother walked out on them, Annie had vague recollections of being the caregiver, fetching her mother a glass of water from the kitchen and the bottle of pills from the bureau drawer because Mommy had a headache. Keeping her younger sisters entertained because Mommy needed to rest. Making lunch for her siblings because Mommy wasn’t feeling well that day. Looking back, life had actually become a little easier after their mother abandoned them because there had been one less person to look after.

Her father had ended up in a wheelchair after a stint in Iraq. The details of that event had always been sketchy because he had sheltered his daughters from the horrific details. He had been the one person in her life who had truly needed looking after and yet she had very few memories of ever actually doing anything for him.

She dumped the peeled eggs into a crockery bowl and mashed them with her pastry blender, which was much more efficient than a fork, then tossed in the chopped vegetables, sprinkled on salt and pepper, scooped in some mayonnaise and stirred.

By the time she started high school, Annie had been everyone’s go-to gal when it came to getting things done. She had organized bake sales and car washes, served on decorating committees, volunteered in the school library and served on student council. She had been a going concern and so had Eric. The difference had been that she created posters for the car wash to raise money for the boys’ basketball team and made arrangements to hold it at Gabe’s Gas ’n’ Go, while Eric showed up in board shorts and dazzled all the girls by stripping off his T-shirt. And no one had been more dazzled than she. She always had to hand it to him, though. No matter how many girls flirted with him, he was always quick to point out that he was Annie’s guy, strictly off-limits. She would have done anything for him, and he had never hesitated to ask.

Annie slathered butter onto slices of bread, spread them with scoops of egg salad, added leaves of fresh lettuce, cut the sandwiches in half and arranged them on a large white platter. There. Another day, another lunch. Time to call her father, Isaac and CJ. As she set out plates, glasses, napkins and a pitcher of milk, she found herself wondering what Paul was having for lunch. And then resisted the urge to pick up her phone and call him.

* * *

PAUL HAD HEARD an earful about Rose Daniels from his long-time friend, Jack Evans. She was from Chicago, twenty years old, the daughter of a street person who’d been murdered in the spring. Jack, still with the Chicago PD at the time, had been the lead investigator in the serial murders of three women, one of whom had been Rose’s mother. In one of those bizarre, small-world coincidences, it turned out Rose’s mother, Scarlett, a drug addict, was also Annie Finnegan’s mother.

Scarlett had left her family in Riverton when her daughters were too young to remember. After Scarlett died, Rose had found out about her mother’s abandoned family and had surreptitiously come to Riverton to check them out. Annie, being Annie, had taken the young woman under her wing and welcomed her into the Finnegan fold.

Jack had talked about the case at length because, being engaged to Annie’s sister, Emily, he had a vested interest in it. Paul remembered him saying that, as a child, Rose had been in and out of foster homes. Now, with Annie’s help, she had moved here and landed a waitressing job at the Riverton Bar & Grill. From what Jack had told him, Paul also knew the young woman had a serious drinking problem and the attitude that went along with it. Understandable for someone who’d grown up with none of the advantages, but his sympathy was overridden by his concern for Annie, who clearly had enough on her plate already. According to Jack, Emily had been devastated by the news of what had happened to their mother and still hadn’t warmed up to her half sister, Rose. CJ wasn’t a fan, either. Annie, however, had become the young woman’s champion.

Paul closed the chart, rapped lightly on the door of the examining room.

A throaty “Come in” was followed by a phlegmy coughing fit.

He opened the door and paused. He had expected to see a fresh-faced young woman with intelligent eyes and a ready smile—she was one of the Finnegan sisters. Sort of. Yet, aside from the eyes, nothing about Rose’s appearance hinted at a connection to the Finnegans. She was thin to the point of being gaunt and her face had a sickly pallor. Black liner emphasized the dark circles under her eyes. Her side-swept bangs were disproportionately long compared to the rest of her sleek, dark, short-cropped hair. She sat on the edge of the examining table wearing one of the clinic’s faded blue gowns over tattered blue jeans and scuffed, black combat boots.

“Hi, Rose. I’m Dr. Paul Woodward. That’s a nasty-sounding cough.”

She nodded, clearing her throat.

Paul selected a tongue depressor from a glass jar and tore off the paper wrapper. “Open up and let’s have a look at that throat.”