Spin a Wicked Web (6 page)

Gawd. What a spoiled brat I was. It was a perfectly nice house.
I passed by an open window and smelled the roses again. Opening
the refrigerator, I studied the contents. Not much there. If I was
going to make Barr dinner, a quick trip to the grocery store was in
order.

Ariel would never eat again. The thought struck me like a
snake, and I sank into a kitchen chair. I wondered what she'd eaten
for her last meal.

Loud knocking jolted me out of my reverie. I hesitated, then
rose and walked to the door. Opened it.

The woman waiting on the step blinked when she saw me. I'm
sure I blinked, too.

It was like looking into a mirror. She had green eyes. Like mine.
Blonde hair, exactly my shade. Only hers was still long and worn
in a braid down her back. Her features reflected mine. She was my height. My build. She was a tad thinner. And a tad younger. And
she possessed the ability to make clothes look good on her. I disliked her immediately.

All this happened in a split second. I smiled. She smiled.

"Hi," she said. "Is Barr home?"

"Um, no. Not right now. Can I help you?"

"Well, could you tell him Hannah stopped by? And that I'm
staying at the Horse Acres Bed and Breakfast, on the south side of
town?"

"I'll tell him. Will he know who you are?" Meaning, of course,
that I wanted to know.

Hannah smirked. "Oh, I think he'll know. I'm his wife, after
all."

I NEVER REALLY KNEW what feeling the term "thunderstruck" referred to until that moment. But it seemed to cover the stomachswooping, knee-buckling sensation those last words engendered.

Hannah responded to my silence with a perky, "Okay, then.
Thanks."

Then she turned and walked down the narrow sidewalk to a
nondescript economy rental car and got in. I stood stupidly in the
doorway, and she waved at me as she pulled away. Of its own volition, my right hand lifted in response.

I remained rooted there for a hundred years or so, inhaling
floral calm, thinking thorny thoughts, unwilling to turn around
and go back inside. So I didn't. Ultimately, I walked the rest of the
way out, locked the door behind me, and went to my own vehicle.

Doppelganger.

Wife?

Of course Barr would have a good explanation for all this.
Maybe she was crazy. I'd picked up a stalker a few months back;
maybe it was his turn.

A stalker who looked almost exactly like me, only ... better.

Sure.

I thought about living in that little house with him. I thought
again about leaving Meghan and Erin, Brodie, the chickens only
recently housed in the backyard. The chicken project had been my
baby. They'd only laid five eggs so far.

What was I thinking? I could leave all that to move in with ... a
married man? Hardly.

Meghan wasn't home. Erin wasn't home. There was no one to tell
about Hannah except Brodie, and even he was occupied with his
chicken guarding. So I did what I always do when I don't know
what else to do: I worked.

As I mixed the dry ingredients for the bath fizzies a local
woman had commissioned as favors for a large bridal shower, I
waited for the storm. Perhaps I was in the eye. Soon the rain would
begin to fall fast and furious.

It never did, though. The bone-crushing sadness and disappointment remained at bay.

Instead, I got spitting mad.

Barr would have a good explanation for Hannah? And what
might that be? Was there such a thing as a good explanation for having your wife show up and leave a message with the woman you
were trying to bamboozle into cohabitating with you?

Well, I'd like to know what it was, then.

I considered going to the police station and making a scene.

Nah. I'd only end up looking like an idiot.

My watch showed a few minutes before six o'clock. He'd be
home in an hour or so. Why not meet him at the front door like a
good little girlfriend? That had, after all, been my original plan. I'd
be damned if I'd cook him dinner now, though.

Dusting the citric acid off my hands, I went upstairs to my
bedroom. Changed into my favorite pair of jeans, the ones that
made my butt look reasonably small. Put on a tank top with a
low-cut neckline. A pair of beaded sandals that showed off my
pretty red toenails. I sprayed and scrunched my hair into something that looked downright feisty. Then I spent another ten minutes calming it down; no reason to be so obvious.

Meghan opened the front door as I came down the stairs. Erin
trailed behind her, reading a book while shuffling up the sidewalk.

"Hey, I thought you were spending the evening at Barr's." My
housemate turned and placed a canvas bag of books from the
Cadyville library on the bench by the door.

"I'm going back over there. But I won't be gone long."

She whirled to face me. "What's wrong?" Pouncing on something in my tone. Her eyes narrowed as she took in my ensemble.

Erin tripped on the door frame as she entered the house, eyes
never leaving the copy of An Acceptable Time she held open with
both hands. I glanced down as she caught herself and continued
past me into the kitchen.

"I'll tell you later," I said.

"She's in another world. Tell me now." Refusing to be put off.

"I'm going back to ask him about the woman who showed up
on his doorstep when I was there earlier."

"Woman?"

"Yeah. The one who looks freakishly like me."

She raised one eyebrow.

"The one who says she's Barr's wife."

The other eyebrow joined the first.

"Gotta go," I said, brushing by her. "Jealousy calls."

Outside, I yanked the door of the Toyota open so hard the
hinges creaked.

Okay, so I had to admit it: I was hungry. The smell of grilling meat
infused the air as I sat on the front step of Barr's little house. My
growling stomach did not help my frame of mind, which was
good. I needed a reservoir of anger to draw from, strength to face
the idea that the future I had anticipated might well be swirling
down the drain. So I sat hunched around my dudgeon and waited
for him to come home.

End of June in the Pacific Northwest. Red-winged blackbirds
called liquidly to each other in the wetland down the hill to the
north. It would be light until well after nine o'clock, and the sky
still held a high, thin blue. Only a few clouds crouched on the horizon, waiting to erupt into the crazy pastels of the impending
sunset: pinks and oranges, peach and yellow, eventually morphing
to red against the navy sky. The splash of colors to come reminded
me of the bamboo I'd been hoping to try in my lesson with Ruth.
The stuff would be like spinning clouds, so the soft colors were more than fitting. I wondered whether the woman who dyed the
roving, a local named Thea Hawke, had felt compelled to imitate
the sunset as she'd chosen her dyes and lovingly applied them to
the ethereal fiber.

Oh, brother, Sophie Mae. Get a grip. Stop musing about spinning and think about what you're going to say to Barr when he
gets here.

My stomach growled again. The oblique angle of the light niggled at my memory. This was the time of day that, as a child, was
unavailable in the other seasons. After dinnertime, still light
enough to play outside, offering the promise of packing in more
activity before parental summons brought you in for bed. Innocent times. Long gone times.

Sometimes being an adult got pretty darn old, I thought. Was
there any possible way to account for Hannah's appearance out of
nowhere, her looks, her wifeness? I couldn't imagine a scenario in
which Barr hadn't lied to me. Just flat-out lied.

I hated being lied to. My anger flared again, accompanied by a
hot, sick feeling.

My head jerked up at the sound of a slowing engine and tires
on concrete. Barr's car door opened and cowboy boots hit the
ground. He strode toward me. Slowly, I stood.

"What a nice surprise, finding you here," he said. "You're not
going to believe it, but we already have a pretty viable suspect."

His arms encircled me, and I stifled the urge to push him away.
Instead I stood quietly and waited. Barr pulled back, a puzzled
look in his eyes. "Ariel was having an affair with Scott Popper. We
think Chris may have had something to do with it." Regret passed over his features, and I couldn't help but remember his obvious
pity for Chris at the funeral.

Then he shook his head, and his features smoothed. He smiled
down at me. "You look great, by the way. Did you do something
different with your hair?"

Chris? Had killed Ariel? Confusion nearly swamped me. "But-"
I stopped myself. Concentrate, Sophie Mae, concentrate.

"Anyway, I for one, wouldn't mind a little help from an interested citizen who might be able to get information through, uh,
unofficial channels."

Huh?

When I didn't respond, he said, "Hey, what's wrong with you? I
thought you'd be happy to be off the hook. Plus, I thought you'd
jump at the chance to help out." He tousled my hair.

I jerked away from his hand. "Knock that off. You know I hate
it."

Slowly, his arm lowered. "What's going on?"

I started to bite my lip, then stopped myself. "I came by earlier.
While I was here, your wife stopped by. Hannah. She wanted me to
tell you she's staying at the Horse Acres Bed and Breakfast."

Barr rolled his eyes. "Great. I should've known she'd come
scratching at the door about now."

Well, I don't know what reaction I'd expected, but that wasn't
it.

"You're married?" I asked, appalled.

"What? Of course not."

"Have you ever been married?"

He raised his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. "Sophie
Mae, please, you have to-"

"I don't have to do anything."

He dropped his hands. "You knew I was married." He actually
dared to sound irritated.

"I did not!"

"Listen, can we go inside to fight? Or would you rather the
neighbors take part?"

Teeth clenched, I stomped into the house. He went into the
kitchen and returned with two beers. Twisting the top off of one,
he handed it to me and sank into his favorite TV-watching recliner. I sat on the ugly plaid couch and put the bottle on the spool
from hell. It nearly tipped over on the rough surface, and I just
managed to catch it.

"I hate this table," I said.

"Okay. We can get a new one."

"It's the homeliest piece of furniture I've seen in my entire
life."

A flash of amusement crossed his features. "I told you about
Hannah," he said.

"Oh. Right. And when exactly did you do that? You tried in the
car after we had Thai food the other night, but then we had to go
chase an ambulance. And you never had the courage to 'fess up
any of the times I've asked you since."

His forehead wrinkled. "What are you ... wait a minute." His
face cleared. "You think that's what we needed to talk about?"