Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 105667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“Yes! It happened, right?”
“Of course it happened.” She tilts her head, a look of concern spreading across her face. “Are you okay?”
“No. I don’t know.” I begin pacing her patio. “I was at the gas station, and Louie didn’t know what I was talking about and it’s not in the paper and they said he wasn’t a detective and—”
“Slow down, honey,” she says, stepping out onto the covered patio with me. “I think you need to take a seat.”
I shake my head. I don’t have time to sit and chat with her. If she’s about to confirm that Saint does exist and Louie just has dementia, then I still have to contend with Saint coming over tonight, and I never even made it to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for the recipe Mari gave me to try.
“So he’s real, right? He’s a real detective. I’m not going insane.”
Mari’s eyes flicker from mine toward the driveway. The sound of an approaching vehicle becomes evident over the sound of rain hitting the roof. I turn around, and we both watch as Louie pulls into their driveway.
“Shit,” Mari says.
“He doesn’t remember,” I say, turning back to Mari. “Louie has no recollection of Saint ever coming to talk to you guys about what was happening that night.”
“He’s a . . . heavy sleeper. I may not have woken him up.” Mari smiles and pats my shoulder. “Okey dokey. You better get back. You’ve got company coming tonight.”
Louie has exited his truck and is making his way over to us. Mari looks nervous. It makes me instantly uneasy how she’s trying to dismiss me. Someone isn’t being honest.
“Mari?” I say to her.
“Mari!” Louie yells.
“Shit,” Mari mutters.
Louie is standing next to us now. He points at me while looking at Mari. “Did she ask you about it?”
“About what?” Mari says.
“The police chase.”
“Oh. Yes.”
“Mari remembers,” I say to Louie.
“Remembers what?” Louie says, his attention still on his wife.
Mari looks very uneasy. “It was nothing. Just some cops asking about an incident that happened a few weeks back.”
“Petra said someone died. And you didn’t think to tell me about it?”
“Mari, you told me that two cops came and spoke to you and Louie about it.”
Louie’s hands move to his hips, and he tilts his head at Mari. “What in the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?”
“Nothing,” she insists. Every single inch of her is screaming that she’s lying.
Louie throws up his hands as if he knows this too. “I don’t want to know. If there’s a body, I don’t want to know.”
“There wasn’t a body,” Mari says to him defensively. “Not a real one.”
Not a real one?
“Yes, there was,” I said. “You told me you saw it.”
Louie grabs the front door and opens it, but before he walks inside, he looks at Mari with a very serious expression. “I’m going in the house. I want no part of this. But whatever it is, you better tell this woman the truth, because we need that rental money and I am not getting sued over whatever wacko stunt you’re pulling.”
Stunt?
Sued?
“Louie, wait!” I say, pleading. But he disappears inside and slams the front door. Now I’m just out here with a very guilty-looking Mari.
I’m on the verge of tears. “Tell me whatever it is you aren’t telling me,” I say to Mari. “If you don’t, I’m calling the police, and I’ll ask them myself.”
“What would you even ask them?” Mari says. With that question, she takes a seat in one of the two rocking chairs that flank her front door. She looks up at me, and it’s as if her entire demeanor changes right in front of my face. “You going to ask them if the man you’re having an affair with actually exists?”
The way her response so easily spills out of her makes me shiver. “Mari, please. I feel very scared right now. Please just tell me what the hell is going on.”
Mari sighs, and then gestures toward the other rocking chair. “Sit. This might take a minute.”
“I don’t want to sit. I want you to speak.”
“Sit and I will.”
“Just fucking tell me!” I yell. I can’t take this another second!
Mari’s eyes widen in response to my outburst. “Fine,” she says. “Okay. Well . . .”
My body is trembling so much, I have to fold my arms over my chest to give myself some sort of anchor. But I’m not sitting down in this crazy woman’s chair until she tells me what the hell she knows.
“I apologize for what I’m about to tell you. I really do. But you have to understand how bored I get sometimes. Louie pulled me away from Los Angeles out here to the middle of nowhere, and nothing fun ever happens. I could sit in my chair for two solid weeks without speaking to another—”