In her peripheral vision, she saw him set his pen down, then turn to her. “That doesn’t sound like you, Annie. Invading someone’s space.”
“It isn’t his space. It’s mine.” She hoped he didn’t state the obvious that Simon had paid for privacy. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t cry again.
“But . . .” John started to say, then went back to his pen and pad. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
That time, she was able to swallow. “Yes. In a way, I did.”
“In a way? What’s that supposed to mean?”
She folded her hands and looked down at her fingers. She did not have an engagement ring; they’d foregone that tradition, having chosen to save the expense for quality, handmade wedding bands that they hadn’t yet ordered. She blinked, then looked back at John.
“What?”
“I asked what you meant when you said you found what you’d been looking for ‘in a way.’”
She went back to studying the floor. “I thought he was familiar. You know how it happens when you see someone in person that you think you’ve met before but you can’t quite place them?” There went her mouth again, running, running, spouting words before she’d thought them through—because, if she waited until she did, she’d only get confused. “In the mid-nineties, Simon Anderson was a reporter for theGlobe. He interviewed me about Brian’s accident. Simon was in grad school and was working there as a summer intern. That’s why he looked familiar to me. Anyway, it brought up painful memories; I went into the trunk in my bedroom to see if I’d saved any clippings so I could read them again.” In spite of being in a mental fog, she decided not to tell John about Simon having changed his name. She knew she wasn’t done investigating whatever it was about him that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Yet. And she didn’t want John butting in.
She closed her eyes. “Are you almost finished? I really want to sit here and be quiet until someone can tell me something about Kevin.”
He raised his hand as if he wanted to reach out for her arm, her face, her hair. But he hesitated before making physical contact.
“One more thing for now,” he said. “Do you have any idea why Kevin showed up at the cottage with that damn gun?”
She shook her head. “Not unless he heard Simon shouting at me. I had startled Simon; he thought I was going through his things instead of mine. So he yelled. Maybe Kevin heard him and thought someone was trying to hurt me.” Yes, she thought, that actually made sense. She hadn’t been able to rationalize that until then.
“I didn’t know he was back,” John added.
“Me, either.”
“He still keeps that damn gun locked up in his truck?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“And his truck was on the property the whole time he was gone?”
Annie sighed. She was weary. Exhausted. She wanted to use the ladies room and submerge her face in a sink filled with cool water. “I guess. Please. Are we done now?”
He started to say something else when a pair of sneakered feet raced into the entrance and sped over to them.
“Annie!” Lucy cried. “Is it true? Has Kevin been shot?”
Behind her, Earl and Claire hoofed into the waiting room.
John put away his pad and pen and stood up to greet his family.
* * *
“Francine will be here shortly.” Earl was the first to speak to Annie after John told them what had happened and that Kevin was “fairly stable,” using that ambiguous term again. “She’ll be here after she’s given Mary Beth your message.”
Annie stood up. “Will you all please excuse me a minute? I need to use the restroom.”
Claire offered to go with her, but Annie said no thanks, that she really needed a few minutes alone. She hoped she hadn’t hurt Claire’s feelings.
Annie headed toward the restrooms, but halfway there, she veered off into the massive foyer at the hospital’s main entrance. It was, as always, a quiet place, soothing and restful. No one was there; she sat out of sight, on the opposite side of the sleek grand piano, in a spot where she could look out the vast windows and down the hill into Vineyard Haven Harbor. Much larger than both Edgartown and Oak Bluffs harbors, Vineyard Haven was the year-round port for the comings and goings of residents, in- and off-season visitors, and trucks, lots of trucks, that carried food and drink and medical supplies and building needs and furniture and packages and mail—and everything required to sustain a vibrant, healthy community.
She watched theIsland Home, her cabin lights aglow as she started her slow crawl out of the harbor, blasting her antique whistle. Annie checked her watch, it was the nine thirty boat, the last one out that night. The boats—“the lifeline of the island,” as they were called—were as much a part of daily living as high winds in winter and traffic in summer. She wondered which one Kevin had arrived on and why he hadn’t phoned to say he was coming home.
The weight of the past week pressed down on her. Kevin leaving. John breaking up with her. The secrets: Simon’s. Meghan’s. Even Brian’s. Especially Brian’s. The unfinished business about Simon—and Annie’s persistent need to know why he was there. Most mystery writers, like cops, investigators, and district attorneys, often sensed instinctively when there was “more to the story.” And there was more to Simon’s story. She would have bet on it.
