As You Were (25 page)

30

SHE HAD STEPPED OUT OF THE SHOWER AND ENTERED the living room wearing the white robe, and while drying her hair with a towel, she was stilled by a flash of
déjà
vu
. Brittany waited for the image to come full-blown into her mind...

She felt herself standing in a robe and drying her hair, one hand on the wall...feeling unsteady...and then saw Tru sitting on the couch, which now faced the fireplace as it had been in the image she was experiencing. It was becoming clear why she had felt the urge to rearrange the furniture. She knew, then, that not only had the furnishings been arranged like she had them now, but also what Tru’s expression had looked like that night when she stepped out of the shower with Travis. Any lingering doubts she held of Tru’s version of the story were now expunged.

Brittany held the robe together at the front as she leaned down to stoke the fire, remorse crawling up her throat. She sat on the stone ledge with the poker still in her hand, her back warmed by the revived flames.
There’s something else,
her reanimated memory told her.
Something else about that night
...
and Travis...something he had told me outside the shower. He was wearing only a towel. He said...

In a dizzying deluge, his words flashed through her brain. He had confessed love for her, but his attitude toward Tru afterward was derisive, condescending. She heard the callous, cocky way he spoke to Tru...

She recalled the altercation when Tru hit him, and then struck him with the fireplace shovel...
another sensation swept over her, and she recognized it as the same sensation she had had the night he told her the lies, when she had stepped out of the shower. She felt again, the total degradation and sorrow...
the sense that she had sought revenge for a crime that had never been committed...
neither with Travis, nor with Liz.

She recalled the way she felt that night... dizzy...
muddled...
too much wine?

Brittany’s anger grew as she let her mind continue to work through this puzzle that had mystified her and tortured Tru. Travis had been the catalyst. Travis had been the one to drive a wedge between them. Only days ago, he had returned to stir the coals he had brought to life himself. A cloned lie. He knew Brittany did not remember, so he added another round to the game by telling her again that Tru had been with Liz, and that was why she and Brittany parted ways. She recalled again his demeanor, how he tortured Tru with sarcastic comments intended to wound her as deeply as possible.

Brittany turned around and stared into the blue-hot embers for long moments, then she drove the poker into a log on the grate. “You prick! I should have let her nail you to the wall while she had the chance!”

Brittany got dressed and went to the kitchen to refill her wine, considering the revelations that her mind had finally divulged to her. It had been Travis all along. He had played the game like a master, and won.
And we lost.

She took her wine to the sofa and sat, picking up the copy of
Rubyfruit Jungle
and holding it against her. Tru would be returning in another few days, and she looked forward to filling her in on what she had remembered. Out the living room window, she saw the medley of snowflakes flittering past the pane. There was nothing she could do, now, but wait until Tru returned. Nothing, she thought, except read the rest of the novel Tru raved about. She held the book out and looked at the odd, purple flower printed on the cover, thinking that it was somehow important that she finish it, now.

Brittany took a long, calming drink of her wine, found the bookmark and began the second half.

A sudden noise jerked Brittany from a dream about her parents; the awful news that they had been killed in the accident on their way home from vacation. She looked down at the book in her lap, glad that she had read the last page of it before she dozed off, enveloped by the warmth of the fire. She was about to get up and add a log to the stack, when the sound that had awakened her startled her again.

Knuckles. Knocking on the kitchen door.

Frightened, her heart pounding, she got up to investigate. Her steps halted abruptly when she saw his renascent expression outside the window of the kitchen door. Angry that she had been startled from her sleep, she approached and glared at him through the multi-paned window. “Go away, Max! I told you I’m not interested!” she shouted at him.

His lips curled in a grin. “Open the door,” he mouthed through the fogging glass.

“No! I said go away!”

He raised his voice. “Do you want me to freeze to death out here? I’m not going to try anything, I want to warm up for a minute.”

She stepped closer to the glass. “Go get back in your car and warm up on the way home. I’m not feeling well, okay?”

His shoulders drooped as he cocked his head at her pleadingly. “I have a flat tire, and I don’t have a spare. Come on, Brittany. Open the door.”

Brittany thought of the weather, and how far away from help he was. “I’ll call a tow truck or something for you—”

“No!” he shouted, then he touched the back of his hand to his nose and said more softly, his breath fogging the pane in the kitchen door, “I want to come in and warm up first. I’ll call the auto club. Let me in.” He tried the doorknob, but found it locked.

Something on his face frightened her, something in his measured tone that told her more about his intentions than she wanted to know first-hand, alone up here on this mountain. “Max, I said no, and I mean no!”

Max’s face went rigid and he struck the door violently with his fist. “Open the goddamn door!”

Brittany took a few involuntary steps backward at his outburst. “If you don’t go away, I’ll call the sheriff!” she warned.

He continued to stand there, his face red, the snowflakes melting in his hair.

“I’m calling the sheriff, now,” she announced, going to the wall phone by the doorway into the living room. She picked up the receiver and glanced back at him, hoping to find him gone. He stood in the same place, with a blank expression. She lifted the receiver to her ear, and heard

nothing. Alarmed, she punched the answer button twice and listened again to nothingness. The phone was dead.
Damn this weather!
she accused silently. Tru had mentioned that the ice sometimes built up on the phone lines and caused problems. She sighed, intending to tell him again to go away. As she turned around, what she saw there, chilled her as thoroughly as the winter cold.

Max still waited at the window; he lifted one hand and slapped a large hunting knife against the window pane. His grin was malevolent. She realized in a sharp surge of adrenaline, that he must have disabled or cut the phone wires.

She shrieked, her eyes going immediately to the deadbolt. It was locked with a key, from inside as well as outside, and she hadn’t paid much attention to it until now. Now, when she needed to know in a rapid fashion, how to keep him out.

Before she could make it to the deadbolt, he used the handle of his knife to shatter one pane of glass. His hand snaked in, searching for the deadbolt on the inside. She lunged forward, turned it to the locked position and pulled the key out, as he grabbed her arm through the small broken window. She jabbed him in the arm with the key, and he yelped, and let go. She sprinted to the front door, praying that deadbolt would take the same key.

When she thrust the key into the slot, it wouldn’t turn.
Wrong key! Where was the front door key?
She glanced around frantically, and remembered it was on a small indention in the fireplace ledge, off to the side. Another detail she had not registered fully in her brain until the moment when it most mattered.

She snatched it from its resting place and leaped to the front door to engage the deadbolt, hearing him banging on the outside in frustration, guessing correctly that the next place he would go would be the front entrance. She put the first key in her left pocket, the second in her right.

When she crept back to the kitchen, her knees wobbling, her heart battering her chest, he was back at the kitchen door, holding the knife and, grinning malignantly.

She moved back around the corner, her back against the wall, and tried to catch her breath.
Think. Think. Is there another way for him to get inside?

She thought of the garage but knew there was no direct door in the house to it...then she remembered the door on the porch. Off to the left. On the same side as the garage. What if Tru had left the key in that deadbolt on the porch? If so, what would he gain by accessing the garage?
Maybe nothing
, she thought. It didn’t provide another door into the house. She hoped she wasn’t forgetting anything.
Windows? Could he break windows?
She had to protect herself against that.

Her tongue felt bloated, and she coughed from the drought in her mouth.
My God, I’m trapped on this mountain with a lunatic!
her mind screamed. She pressed her hands to her head and tried to think.
I need a
—
the guns!

Brittany made a mad dash for the master bedroom, and destroyed the closets looking for the shotgun Tru had shown her only a few days ago.
It will blow away the target, even if you’re a bad shot,
she had said. Brittany saw it there, propped in a corner. She grabbed it, released the latch and the empty barrel dropped open. She picked up the box of buckshot shells on the floor nearby, and held it tight as she hurried back into the living room.

Sitting hard on the fireplace ledge, she shook the shells from the box and pushed one into the chamber, snapping the barrel back into place, and searched for the safety switch. She found it quickly, and released it. For a moment, she was surprised that she even knew how to load it.
Must be another memory, floating back
. Then she grabbed a handful of shells and shoved them in her pockets. Expelling a staccato breath, she looked at the front window, but saw only snow. She wanted to see nothing but the front side of every curtain until Tru came home. Then she had another horrible thought. What if Tru did come home? What if Max was waiting for her, and attacked her before she came in?

I can’t call her. Max disabled the phone line. And my cell phone was apparently lost in the accident.
Tru was not supposed to return until—when? Tomorrow night?
No, the morning after
that...
there’s no way Max could be outside that long.
She enjoyed the slight relief of that knowledge.

Creeping over to the tiny plastic bell knotted at the end of the drawstring, intending to lower the shade of the living room window, she wrapped a hand around the string. His face appeared like a macabre jack-in-the-box, framed in the window

Spasmodically, she released the blind to the sill. Sobbing, Brittany put her back against the wall and slid to the floor, clinging with whitened knuckles to the precious shotgun.

Tru picked up her cell phone and punched in a speed-dial number. She waited. A busy signal incited a laborious sigh from her. She disconnected. “Macy, would you be upset if I called it a night and went back to the room?”

Macy stirred her champagne with her finger, and then plunged the digit into her mouth. “No answer?” she said around her finger.

“Busy signal. I knew I should have gotten her a new cell phone.” Tru drank the last of her champagne, and pushed the empty glass to the outside edge of the table for the waitress to pick up.

Macy dried her finger with a cocktail napkin. “So try her again later.” She tossed the crumpled napkin aside.

“I can’t figure out who she’d be talking to. She doesn’t really know anyone—anymore.”

“Obviously, she knows someone, or she wouldn’t be on the phone, right? I mean, maybe she’s listening to a spiel from a telemarketer.”

“Maybe,” Tru murmured, unconvinced. “Although the old Brit would blow a rape whistle into the receiver before she’d put up with that crap.”

Macy knocked back the rest of the champagne in her glass, and rubbed her stomach, feeling full from the feast they had enjoyed. “What else could it be?”

“Well, the last time a bad storm came through Castle Mountain, it knocked out the phone service. The line gives a busy signal when that happens.”

“I haven’t heard of a storm up there, have you?”

Tru slid her glass back over and poured the remainder of the champagne into her flute. “No, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. I haven’t watched the Weather Channel at all today.”

“You’re a worry-wart. She’s probably curled up next to the fire, reading a good book.”

Tru looked down at her phone. “I wish I knew that for sure.”

Macy smiled knowingly. “Look, I can see that you’re going to be no fun at all. Let’s take this other bottle with us and go back to the hotel. We can order room service and you can watch the damn Weather Channel.”

Tru smiled. “Thanks, Mace’.”

Macy flipped open her cell to call a cab.

31

TRU SPENT THE REST OF THE EVENING ALTERNATING between monitoring the Weather Channel, and punching her speed dial. Explanations for Tru’s inability to get through to Brittany defied her ability to reason it away. The reports given on the cable station mentioned only light snowfall, no storms. Tru wondered who or what would keep Brittany on the phone so long. Macy suggested that perhaps Brittany took the phone off the hook, and Tru assured her that she would not do that, since they seldom got calls, except from Macy herself. The answering machine had

been broken since before Brittany’s disappearance, and Tru wished ruefully that she had replaced it or gotten voice mail before she left.

“Do I need to go get Helki to come do the buddy-thing with you?”

“No, don’t bother her. She’s probably not alone.”

“Yeah, I know, she’s always got to have her own room in case she gets lucky.”

“She usually does get lucky.” Tru puffed on apple vapor.

“I don’t get that, Tru.” Macy put a new cartridge in her eCig. “I mean, you’re the star of the show, and she gets laid more than you do.”

Tru changed the TV to the Weather channel again. “Helki doesn’t have a steady girlfriend.”

“Neither do you, it seems.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You mean if you have a girlfriend, you don’t get laid as much?”

“No. I mean Helki pursues it. I don’t. I love Brittany.”

“Well, you might love her a little too much. You can’t seem to focus on anything but her.”

“Macy, maybe you ought to get laid a little more.”

“Pfffft! Don’t get me started. I barely have time to sleep. Sex is out of the question.”

“Maybe that’s your problem. You just don’t understand how it is to be in love.”

“Oh, honey, I’ve had my share of rides on the love-train. The tickets got too expensive.”

“Scrooge.”

“Well, I’m just saying. You need to lighten up on it. Brittany is fine. You’ll see her soon.”

Macy’s glibness notwithstanding, the mystery threatened to keep Tru up all night, and finally, Macy insisted she take a Xanax so that she would be rested for the gig the next day. Tru took the pill with great misgiving, and thirty minutes later, Macy glanced over at her and found her sleeping soundly. She discarded her magazine and turned the lights out to get some sleep of her own.

Brittany became aware of the cool metal against her cheek and lifted her head, the events of the night before attacking her senses in vivid detail. She had awakened with her arms on her knees, still clutching the shotgun. The hammer of it had left an impression on her chin, which she rubbed absently. Checking her watch, she saw it was almost noon. Releasing the clasp, she turned the watch over and read the inscription again.
Merry Xmas ‘04, Brittany. I love you. T.
Absently, she rubbed her thumb over the engraved words. Sighing, she refastened the watch. The fire had long since burned out, and she cautiously checked the windows on her way into the kitchen.

The light did not come on when she turned the switch on the coffeemaker, and she cursed bitterly, her tongue aching for the revitalization the caffeine would bring. She wiggled the plug to no avail, and finally opted for the tin of Café Vienna she had seen in the pantry. She turned the gas flame on under the kettle and paced the kitchen, the shotgun still in hand. The light switch didn’t work. She checked the other switches, and electrical appliances, and found them all dead.
He must have cut off my electricity, too
. Yet, a careful perusal of the area between the house and the barn belied his presence. She could see no fresh footprints. A light snowfall had smoothed the ground with soft whiteness. Maybe he did it soon after he cut the phone lines. She hadn’t used anything electrical since falling asleep, preferring to sit in the dark so the paltry moonlight would make it brighter outside than inside, where he might be able to see her. She was now intimately familiar with the merits of the cover of darkness.

Now, without the central heat, she would have to keep a fire going, and was exceedingly grateful that Tru had filled the wood box by the fireplace. While the water heated, she first went to the bathroom to relieve her bladder, and then to the hearth.

Once the flames were going, she stepped over to the window and scanned the front yard.
No sign of him
. Images of some slasher movie materialized in her mind. One by one, each character in the film entered some dark room, though she had implicitly told them, from the comfort of the

sofa, not to. And each met a demise characterized by the profuse loss of body fluid and various appendages. Brittany hastily pushed the visage away.
No need to make things worse by nurturing paranoia.
He was probably gone, after making sure he would make her situation miserable.

The overwhelming scent of smoke made her turn around. A cloud roiled out of the fireplace, spreading across the ceiling, blackening it. She rushed to the hearth, waving plumes of smoke away, coughing, thinking she must have forgotten to open the flue.

Brittany raced into the kitchen for a pitcher of water, and threw it on the flames. More smoke billowed up to the ceiling, and she lifted her T-shirt over her mouth and nose, trying to block the smoke from her lungs. She separated the coals with the poker, and leaned into the opening to check the flue. To her surprise, it was wide open, and she reminded herself that it had to be, since she had let the fire burn all night. Brittany’s gaze traveled up to the ceiling above the fireplace, and comprehension surfaced
. He plugged the chimney
.

Cursing, she returned to the kitchen, at the beckon of the whistling kettle. A faint whinnying came from the barn, and she remembered her promise to care for Wheezie and Juts while Tru was away. As she turned the fire out under the whistling kettle and stirred in the International Coffee, she tried to convince herself that the danger had passed. She moved to the bay window and examined the ground. No indication whatsoever of any tracks. Since it snowed lightly all night and was not snowing now, she surmised that he had not been out there since late last night.

Max was another jilted male who felt the need to express his indignation violently, but he probably got over it and went home, once he was sure he had succeeded in scaring her half to death, and making her environment uncomfortable. She told herself these things repeatedly as she drank the coffee, and watched the back yard and the tree line beyond.
Is he really a lunatic? Or does he want me to think that, so he could have his revenge for my brushing him off? If it is what he is doing, I’ll have him arrested for...
something. Terroristic threatening, maybe.
It was cold comfort, when she wasn’t certain just where he was. And she still understood that his bite might be much worse than his bark. Lunatic? Or Asshole? Which was Max?

The answers did not present themselves, and she remained at the table, listening to the insistent whinnying of the horses, peeking through the slit in the bay window drapes, drinking her coffee, and cradling the shotgun.

Macy shook Tru awake and handed her a cup of strong coffee delivered by room service. Tru sat up groggily and stared at the television, which Macy had had the foresight to turn on for her. The weather reports were unchanged for the most part, and Tru groped immediately for her cell. The busy signal again assailed her ear and she closed the phone and dropped it despondently back on the nightstand.

“Still busy?” Macy inquired, sitting on the other bed with coffee and a blueberry muffin.

Tru nodded and stared at the television, enduring a repeat of the non-threatening weather.

Macy pried the steaming muffin apart, capturing a berry before it fell and popping it in her mouth, cooling it with frantic, inward breaths. She held half the muffin out to Tru. “You want part of this?” Tru shook her head, her sleepy eyes still on the TV screen. “I’ll bet your phone line is screwed up. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Is there any way we can—”

Macy cast her a severe look. “You’re not about to weasel out on the show today, are you?”

Tru picked up the coffee cup. She thought about how great the gig had been last night, and was looking forward to taking the stage again.
But what about Brit?
“Well, I don’t think my performance is going to be all that great if I can’t stop worrying about Brit.”

“So call the Sheriff. Have him check on her.”

Tru smacked herself in the forehead. “Damn! Why didn’t I think of that. Thanks, mega-manager.”

“Anything to get you back on track.”

Tru called the Larimer County Sheriff’s Department and spoke to a deputy. She explained her concerns and he told her he’d normally be happy to check on her friend, but the bridge before Castle Mountain road was out again, and they were still working on it. The ice had caused further damage. He reassured her, though, that the same ice that had affected the bridge was affecting phone lines in the area. Tru hung up feeling no better about it. She relayed the information to Macy.

“Yeah, but, the phone lines are down, he said, right? That’s all it is. They’ll repair the bridge and go check. You’ve done all you can right now. Stop creating demons.”

“It’s just...
I need to know that she’s okay...maybe I ought to—“

“Tru Morgan, don’t you even start with that shit. You took the time to get Helki up to speed, and then that woman had your life on hold for three months, and then she disappeared, and you’re still playing catch-up. Don’t even think about canceling on me, now. You could walk out of that bar with a new label tonight. That’s something you can’t afford to pass up with only two independent albums under your belt.” Macy sipped her coffee and regarded the wan-looking Tru.

“I know, Macy. But the career seems pointless if there’s something wrong with Brittany. I lost her once, and I couldn’t take it if—“

Macy set her coffee on the night stand between the beds and seated herself next to Tru. “Girlfriend, let me tell you something. You’re going to have to learn to separate your professional life from your personal life, or you’ll find yourself in the unemployment line or flipping hamburgers. You’re far too talented for that shit. You’ve got to tell yourself she’s okay and go in there today and knock ‘em dead. By tomorrow morning, you can be home with her.”

“I know, Macy,” she sipped cautiously at the steaming coffee. “I just wish I could talk to her.”

“Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, honey. Suck it up and drive on, isn’t that what they told you in the Army?”

Tru sulked, staring at the TV screen over her manager’s shoulder. “I’m not in the Army anymore, Macy.”

Macy grabbed Tru’s outstretched legs, and shook them. “No, you’re not. You’re a singer and a songwriter. And a damn good one. I’m not going to let you flush that down the toilet, this time.” She stood up, as if to punctuate the declaration. “Your clothes are hanging up in the bathroom. We’ve got to meet with some promoters today, and then rehearsals. I suggest you take a long hot shower and get your shit together, pronto.”

Tru mumbled, and got up carefully with her coffee, familiar with these periodical pep-talks-slash-butt-kickings from her friend and manager. Macy was probably right. She was just spooked because of what happened the last time she couldn’t talk to Brit. She leaned down and kissed Macy on the cheek. “Thanks, boss.” She went into the bathroom and shut the door.

By midnight, Tru and Macy and the band members were leaving the auditorium after the show in the limo provided by the club; Macy had managed to get the transportation included in the deal. Helki, MadCap and Rocko were talking excitedly about their performance and the response of the crowd, and even more importantly, the response of the money-people who could set them on the track toward real success.

“You should be jumping for joy, Tru.” Macy murmured, watching Tru stare out at the passing scenery, as the chauffeur navigated the streets of downtown, and they moved out of LoDo toward the hotel. “The show was a smash. The label guy says he wants to talk about a deal, for chrissakes.”

“I am excited, it’s that I’m worried about Brit. I want to get home and see that she’s okay. Then I’ll let the rest sink in.” Tru removed her leather jacket, to allow the air from the window to fan her sweaty shirt.

Helki reached over and patted her on the leg. “She’s okay, Tru.”

Macy added, “Yeah, listen to Helki. Don’t disappear on me, Tru. We’re meeting him at the studio next week. You’ve got to finish cutting tracks for the new CD. He wants to come listen.”

“I’m not going to disappear. Let me get home and take care of everything. I’ll be ready by next week, I promise.”

Macy studied her favorite client. “I hope so, there’s a lot riding on this.”

“It’s fine Mace’, really. We’re leaving bright and early in the morning, right?”

Macy didn’t answer, but felt uneasy by Tru’s lack of enthusiasm. “You keep your cell phone on all the time. I want to be able to reach you.”

Helki shook her finger sternly at Tru, mimicking their manager’s reprimand.

Tru smiled in spite of her worry.

Rocko tapped Helki on the leg with a drumstick. “So who was that hot little blond number I saw going into your room?”