“Will that be it?” I ask her as I sip my coffee. “Or will you have to feed again?”
“Don’t know,” she says, rising to set the jar in the sink, fill it with soapy water. “Hard to say when I don’t know who it is yet. But he’s close.” She turns to me, gaze down. “I can feel him nearby,dull and ever present, like a sound that’s always been there but you’re only just becoming aware of. The daffodil won’t be enough on its own anyway. I need to visit my stores one more time, make a couple of adjustments, eat more.”
“I hope he comes soon,” I tell her, a shiver tickling through me. I don’t like seeing her this way.
“So do I,” she says. “So do I.”
WHENIMAKEit to the café, I find Ed inside reading theAdirondack Daily Enterprisewhile he eats Cheerios out of the box, stooping to feed one to Bart every now and again. I walk over and pat Bart’s head, giving him a good scratch around the ears. “No dogs in the café,” I tell Ed with a warning tone. “You know how Myrtle feels.”
“Isn’t anybody here,” he complains. “He’s a good boy. You know he is!”
I give Ed the side-eye, fighting back a smile, and park myself behind the counter, getting a pot out for oatmeal. “It’s Myrtle’s place, so it’s Myrtle’s rules. But I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Rules,” he grumbles, folding his paper up as he approaches one of the barstools. “Where she at anyway?”
“Just a little stiff this morning,” I tell him as I fill the pot with water. “She’ll be in soon.”
“Well,” he says begrudgingly, “I gotta clear some downed limbs from that last storm. She’s been after me to take care of them for weeks.”
“Okay.” I turn and give him a bright smile. Ed is a lot like his dog. He doesn’t always mind, and he can be a bit smelly—and Myrtle’s right about his drinking too much, though he tries to hide it—but something about him grows on you. I can’t imagine the motel and café without him. He’s a fixture, and I’m grateful he’s been here for Myrtle over the years when no one else has. If I thought he’d like a scratch behind the ear as much as Bart, I’d probably give him one. “Will I see you later?”
“Gotta get my dinner from somewhere, don’t I?” He lifts asmall resealable baggie from his front overalls pocket and waves it at me. “Hope you don’t mind. I made myself the lunch special to go.”
“What are we serving?” Yesterday’s foraging trip seems to have thrown me off schedule. I can’t remember what Myrtle had in store, even if I did run the last trip for groceries.
“Ham and cheese,” he tells me, waddling to the door. “With mayo!Mm-mmm!”
I watch him leave, Bart prancing beside the stains on Ed’s denim overalls, before turning back to the stove to get the water boiling. I like the café when it’s quiet. If it weren’t for all those tables, I could pretend it was my own little hut in the woods. But a prickling sensation lingers behind my skin, like ants on the inside, and I can’t get comfortable. The door sounds and I assume Ed has forgotten something important. Most days he wanders off without his keys or glasses. He’s left his phone behind for whole afternoons.
“What did you forget this time?” I call out, stirring the oats into the water with a knowing smile. “Huh, Ed?”
When he doesn’t respond, the baby hairs at the nape of my neck begin to rise. “Ed?” I turn just as the door sounds again. The café is empty, the front clear of anything but spotted grass and a few paved parking places outside, the clear morning sky. Whoever came in has left.
I grab a kitchen knife, feeling suddenly naked. The weight of it in my hand—the dry wooden handle sanded smooth, the cold lip of tang—is something to hold on to. I should walk to the front, check outside, see if a guest needs help. But I just stand there while the oatmeal congeals, wishing I weighed a hundred pounds more, that I was foot taller, that I’d taken up martial arts as a hobby a decade ago.
Not only is the Saranac Strangler circling—circlingmeif Myrtle is to be believed—but another mark is coming, any day, any minute now. Someone who has tortured children and would feel nothing about hurting me. I think of Azalea in her platform heels andcat-eye sunglasses and understand her bravado. This life requires an iron spine, the ability to look death in the face again and again without flinching. Not only theirs but yours.
It takes me a long time to turn back around. By then, the oatmeal has clumped together, sticking to the bottom in an umber crust. I have to scrape it out with a metal spatula and start over. I’m just getting my second pot going when the door sounds again. My skin lights as if it’s electric, every pore tingling. I hold my breath, but like before, there’s no cheerful greeting, no heavy footfalls. Only that noiseless knowing that I am not alone.
I reach for the knife I’d set down between the burners so I could stir. Holding it stiff before me, I spin around, nearly slicing Regis open from one oblique to another.
“Shit!” He jumps away before the blade can make contact.
Something ejects from my mouth like a scream, but there’s no sound to it. I stand there gaping as if I expect it to arrive late, unable to draw a breath.
He reaches out and plucks the knife from my hand, clattering it on the counter. “You trying to gut somebody?”
Oxygen finds me all at once, and I suck in a pitchy, terrified breath as if it will be my last. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” I squeeze out. “Not with that maniac running around, choking women.”
He leans down, elbows on the counter, and blows out. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I wanted to see you, is all. You left so quickly the other day, after…”
I glance toward the oatmeal, the heat of our exchange “the other day” riding up my legs, filling my belly like warm honey. I don’t know where to put my eyes. It all happened so unexpectedly, the rush of want and the press of skin on skin, a desire I didn’t know I could still feel. And then it was over, and I was scrambling to pull my clothes on, unable to look at him on the drive back to my car. I didn’t think aboutafter—the uselessness of words when bodies have been joined, the pretense that there is nothing more between us than investigator and witness, the utility of sex withoutcommitment. A soft pop sounds and I look down to see the oatmeal forming opaque bubbles that burst into creamy craters. I grab the spoon.
“Are you sorry that we—” he starts to ask.
I stick the spoon in the gruel and turn to him. “It’s not that.”
Relief plays across his lips, causing them to curl like pencil shavings, a little unruly. “I was afraid maybe you didn’t like it.” The words jam together on their way out of his mouth, so that I have to decipher them.
