Okay my darlings. This may be the last update for a little while. I promise not to leave you in months of suspense this time, though. :)
Thank you for all the awesome reviews and encouragement and amazingly nice things you've all said (written)! It's always nice to know people don't think you suck. Dance, dance, y'all.
The oak double doors to the Haven Public Library open and Alice White breezes through, stopping most of the activity within the ancient building while its occupants take a moment to stop and stare. She smiles at Phyllis McCaan, the head librarian, before making her way through the first floor stacks to the Employees Only door in the back. The wood and glass door is partially hidden by a bookshelf full of town histories, but she knows exactly where she's going. She's come here, to the library, every Thursday evening since she was five years old. The antique door with its gold leaf lettering is ingrained in her mind, so much so that she occasionally sees it in her sleep.
She turns the brass knob and enters the spacious room beyond it, is immediately greeted by a heady wall of peppermint, jasmine, honey, and black tea. Eleven women, all shapes and ages and sizes, sit in arm chairs placed around the room. There is a quiet din of conversation within the room, which ceases almost immediately upon her arrival.
"You're late," Rose Pinkerton says from an armchair in the back of the room.
Alice takes off her coat, hangs it on the standing coat rack near the door. "My apologies. I had an errand to run." She picks up the now lukewarm teapot, pours herself a cup of strong black tea.
"They've found Gerald." This from Adelaide Green, the organist for the Rev's church.
"And the Smythe girl," Rose adds.
The eyes on Alice narrow, the expressions wary. She busies herself with her tea, ignores the eleven unhappy faces staring at her.
"No one knows or suspects anything," she says eventually. "As far as the police are concerned, Gerald and Jenna both drowned in the Atlantic."
"Lucy Ripley is involved," Margaret Hunt says, speaking for the first time since her arrival an hour earlier. She'd been the first to enter the room, was often the first. She is the oldest of the women, quickly approaching her ninetieth birthday, and she commands the most respect from the others. She is also Alice's grandmother, a fact neither of them admits to in mixed company. "Or perhaps you've forgotten just how tenacious that woman can be. " She sips her tea, stares with unwavering green eyes at her granddaughter. "Her name may have changed, but she's still the same woman."
Alice lifts the teacup to her mouth, her lips curving into a feline smile above the rim. In the haze of steam rising up off the dark liquid, her green eyes glow unnaturally.
"I'm taking care of it," she says.
The noise level rises immediately. "Without us?" a chorus of voices asks, each louder than the other.
"There's no need to get involved, sisters," she says, smiling serenely. Only the yellow-green flash of her eyes betrays any kind of emotion. "Everything is going quite according to plan."
Audrey thought keeping Nathan in the dark was difficult – the right idea, but difficult. Now, as he stares at her with a slack jaw and wide eyes after having been told the sordid details of her recent insomnia problems, Audrey decides she'd rather go back to that moment in time twenty minutes earlier when he didn't know anything other than what she was serving for dinner.
"Wow…" he says.
"I know."
"Just...wow..."
She takes a long pull of her beer. True to her word, she'd downed one earlier, before he'd arrived, and was working on her second. They hadn't even eaten yet. At this rate, she'd be passed out before the full embarrassment of the situation could fully set in.
"So you were…"
"Yeah."
"And we were…"
"Uh-huh."
"And I was doing…"
"Yup."
Nathan's eyes remain wide and he takes a drink. An awkward silence settles over them and Audrey stares at the floor. After a few minutes, Nathan's hand reaches out and settles on her shoulder. She looks up and the relief she feels by the expression on her face is immense. He's smiling, not smirking like she knows Duke would if it were him instead of Nathan, but actually smiling.
She rolls her eyes, reaches across the table and smacks his cheek, a little harder than necessary.
"Ow! What was that for?"
She thinks of her dream, of how lovingly he'd looked at her – at Alice – and she feels that ugly jealousy from earlier rear its ugly head again.
"It wasn't me," she says.
"What do you mean?" he asks, rubbing his cheek where she smacked him.
"In the dream. It wasn't actually me that you were…doing that to."
She wonders if it's at all possible to die of embarrassment and, if so, does she have time to write a meager will leaving her Twilight novels to Duke as punishment for all his misdeeds?
To Nathan's credit, he's actually trying to wrap his head around it. "So if it wasn't you, then who was it?"
"You called me 'Alice'."
"Alice?" She nods, waits for him to understand what she's implying. "Alice." It takes him just another second or so. "Holy shit, Alice."
"Bingo."
He wipes his hand over his face and leans back on the couch. Audrey takes a moment to look at him, to consider him as part of her space, and she hates to admit to herself just how good he looks within her apartment. It would be easy – so goddamn easy – to just let whatever might be waiting there between them happen.
It's the after that worries her.
"I wish Eleanor was still around," he says suddenly, his face tilted towards the ceiling.
Audrey cocks her head to the side, confused. "Why?"
He looks away from the ceiling, looks at her. "Because I feel like I'm missing a memory, like there's something about all of this that should make sense. She'd know, or at the very least she'd have an idea."
"I've got a couple boxes of Eleanor's old files," she says. "Julia's been bringing them to me, a little bit at a time."
"You've been holding out on me? Seriously?"
She jumps up from the chair and hurries into her office space. When she returns, she's carrying two boxes covered in dust and grime. She places them on the coffee table and they both stare at them, apprehensive.
"That's a lot of files," he says eventually.
"Yup." She rolls her shoulders. "Good thing there's food. This might take all night."
His eyebrow goes up and a smirk – a dirty smirk – flashes and disappears so quickly Audrey's not even sure it's real. "You're being kind of presumptuous."
She looks at him. "Huh?"
"Asking me to spend the night?"
"What? No!"
"Because I can."
She's mortified; absolutely, positively mortified. "Nathan…"
"Don't worry, though. I'll just sneak out when the sun comes up…"
"You're an ass…"
"…make sure I don't wake you."
"I hate you."
"And then I'll avoid you for most of the day…"
She glares at him. "You done?"
This time, the smirk sticks. "Yup."
"Good." She smacks him in the chest with a particularly large file folder, fights a smile of her own. "Get cracking."